Colo Spgs 800 MHz Problems

[BillTheCat]

During our back-to-back blizzards, a snow removal report (pdf) was completed after the snows. One comment in "Communications reads:

Additionally, there were issues with radio communications (City’s 800 MHz system) as the Street Division was not able to communicate with CSU and Parks and Recreation operators assisting with the snow operation. It is extremely important to have the ability to communicate with all operators engaged in the response and to be able to provide specific task assignments and deliver critical information.

Hopefully they will get this resolved soon since this was the kind of problem the 800 system was designed to solve.

 

[firescannerbob]

Training...

My guess is that it's not a problem with the "system" per se, but in how it's deployed. In other words, the system works fine, but when it came time to program the various department radios, someone didn't think to program in the TG's of other departments.
Some of this can be attributed to user error/knowledge.
EVERY radio in the system has a bank (the "C" bank) that is designed for "mutual aid" use when different agencies don't have each others TG's. The bank is exactly the same for every radio in the system and cannot be modified. If they didn't use that to talk to each other, than some education may be in order.
Blaming this on the 800mhz system is a cop out by the producers of the report.

 

[MMIC]

Blaming this on the 800mhz system is a cop out by the producers of the report.

People do that to DTRS on here all of the time.

Then they say that if everyone was on VHF that the problem would have been solved. :roll:

 

[firescannerbob]

People do that to DTRS on here all of the time.

Then they say that if everyone was on VHF that the problem would have been solved. :roll:

This is an instance where a trunked system (of any type/band) is at a clear advantage over any conventional system.
Want more interoperability between agencies on a trunked system? Just add each other TG's to the radios...
On a conventional system, it would require more frequencies, which equals more equipment, more licenses, and the hope that more freqs are even available.

 

[MMIC]

Amen, my friend.