Brentorious
Member
Alabama Credit Union robbed in Gulf Shores. Orange Beach officers are assisting, but cannot talk to Gulf Shores because GS is encrypted. Air assets have been requested, possibly from U.S. Customs.
Follow-up:
The chopper that was hovering over the east end of WalMart just off Highway 59 and Highway 180 was on station for nearly 45 minutes with the mega spotlight illuminating the weeds near 15th. Ave. and Second Street. Might have been US Customs, but ID from my distance to the helo was too far to make out the logo.
Yeah - once again, the new and improved radio systems failed miserably for mutual aid coordination. I can only imagine the frustration on the ground while time delays were stacking up from dispatch center to dispatch center and message relays to units 2 blocks apart that could not speak with each other. Why didn't they leave a VHF radio in ALL the cruisers in Baldwin County with 155.010 State Mutual Aid available?
Or, why don't they utilize the analog 7TACxxx channels that every trunk system is supposed to have to avoid just this sort of interoperability problem?
All this money, much of it federal, is being poured in to high tech systems across the country. The key to getting federal grants is stressing interoperability.
Someone did a miserable job planning, or more likely didn't do any job of planning.
The planning was done by the Motorola or Harris sales teams. They did a great job of selling the decision makers and probably contributed to some sort of "special fund" for those important folk. Truly, it seems the only people winning here are the radio vendors. The key here is that they write their contracts so well, complete failure of the radio is probably barely covered under warranty.
Vince
Maybe I can get Baldwin County to hire me as a consultant. I'd work cheap and if nothing else, I probably can't make it any worse.
That is exactly what they need to have in place.....a neutral, 3rd party consultant who does not care about a particular vendor, but focuses on the important issues like interop, reliability & voice quality.
Pretty simple eh? Gary, maybe you will get a call out of the blue from someone at Baldwin County who saw this thread and decided it makes sense to hire you (or someone like you) as a consultant before any contracts are signed. But what about the mayor's cousin's son, next-door-neighbor kid who tinkers with computers & radios, but can't spell TDMA? You know where this is going....LOL.
I think you are spot-on Gary.
Best regards, --... ...--
Vince
Y
Mobile is rather difficult to monitor as well. I don't know where the Mobile Police are hiding on the radio. I tried & never heard them. At first, I thought they would be joining the 1st Responder's network. I don't visit that area very often.