I think the plan is that the HF will be used if we have to communicate with another hospital many miles away. And the VHF/UHF will be used for local stuff like Skywarn/ARES.
Has anyone had any experience with this?
http://www.remoterig.com/wp/?page_id=1188
Or something similar?
Again, I truly appreciate everyone's help. I'm passing along the information to my boss and doing my best to "find a solution" without flat out telling him it can't be done.
Remote control of consumer level stuff like this can be hit or miss.
I have not used that product, but I have used other systems. They always disappoint.
If it's sitting on the IP network, it will need to be well protected from the public side of things.
It'll probably work just fine, at first. But it'll sit for a while and one day you'll go to use it and it won't go. Someone will have to go up and kick it over. If you read the website they even mention that on the front page. Periodic rebooting will be required, and it'll always be at the worst possible time. Not what you want for "emergency" communications. Fine for consumer/hobby use, but that's it.
With proper grounding and lightning protection, as in commercial level stuff, not hobby level crap, there's not need to disconnect the antennas. No one runs up to the public safety radio systems in a thunderstorm and disconnects the antennas, the equipment just keeps running. While direct lightning strikes can cause damage, a properly set up system will likely survive.
Anyway, this isn't life safety communications stuff. Likely your hospital already has access to local/regional communications systems that are a lot better built than most hobbyists will be able to do. Around here all hospitals are on a common simplex frequency that allows communications with other local hospitals, EMS agencies, OES, etc. They also have access to regional systems, microwave networks, etc. While they do have some amateur equipment installed, none of them rely on it for emergency communications. It's used as a way to offload the critical systems for routine traffic.
Back in 2008 we had a big fiber cable cut in our area that took down all phone and internet service for 24 hours. The hospitals activated their emergency plans and went on with their day. Amateurs were involved and on site, but they were not dispatching ambulances, they were not handling patient info, they were not ordering in critical supplies. The amateur radio side of this is nice, it does give some capabilities, but keeping this realistic and realizing it's not a critical life safety system would be a wise approach. None of this equipment needs to be sitting their powered up 24x7. There will not be dispatchers listening full time. The equipment will sit there gathering dust until someone remembers that they are supposed to periodically test it. Eventually staff attrition results in it all being forgotten about until someone is cleaning out a room and discovers it.
I really think the approach needs to be a portable set up. All the radios in a shipping box with a power supply, manuals, accessories, etc. Have the antennas installed somewhere, maybe on an outbuilding. When needed, open the shipping case, plug in color coded coaxial cable to color coded coax jacks and plug the thing in. Having it well away from the real hospital work is a good idea. That prevents some challenges of having volunteers in patient care areas, in places where they shouldn't be. Also, putting all your antennas on the same roof top has a way of being a liability if something extreme happens. Better to have some physical separation between radio systems. If you have a 6 story building, that rooftop space is going to be more valuable for critical radio systems anyway. Don't clutter it up with amateur gear. Find an outbuilding, put up a mast, mount the antenna, use the existing coax.