Denver Chooses Motorola for P25 Phase II System, Public Safety will be Encrypted

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Spitfire8520

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Here is a bit of news to wrap up another eventful year of the hobby, and it will likely surprise many. The City & County of Denver has approved a contract (File # 17-1418) with Motorola Solutions to provide a new P25 Phase 2 system citywide, excluding Denver International Airport, for $13,551,014. It looks like Harris has lost their biggest customer in the state. I am guessing that most, including myself, were expecting Denver to go to MARC.

Motorola will be building a 4 site simulcast that will replace the current 7 site simulcast for Denver Public Safety EDACS. It also looks like they are replacing the Mount Morrison site for City Services/MARC. It appears that the preliminary schedule for the system is to be online by late-2018, and transition to the new system in early-2019. Keep in mind that any number of things can happen that will affect the schedule.

Specific details, like mode of operation and encryption, are not known. It is a good idea to wait for these details to be confirmed before deciding on purchasing a scanner for the future.

Hopefully we will be able to keep the discussion of the new system contained to a single thread instead of splintering into several different concurrent threads.
 

greenthumb

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Well someone at Harris totally screwed this one up. How can you let a customer that has nearly everything they need to migrate to P25 from EDACS (NSC and one site online) go out to bid for the simulcast...and lose?!?! Anyhow, great move for Denver and I think they will be very happy with their decision. I see that this is infrastructure only (not radios for -all- users, anyway) so it would seem that they will go with their Harris radios on the Motorola infrastructure. Hopefully all of he features Denver needs will carry between the two without any issues. This will be something to keep an eye on. I’ve seen scenarios where incompatibilities and a lack of support from the radio vendor can cause the customer to buy all new radios from the infrastructure vendor to ensure compatibility. And the removal of in-town sites is interesting and i’ll be curious if the in-building losses in the NW and SW sides of town will be noticed.
 
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Spitfire8520

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Anybody have a copy of the RFP? Curious to see coverage requirements and how 4 sites will replace 7.

Coverage requirements provided by Denver are described in the proposal from Motorola. There are plans for a 5th receive only site, but the core simulcast will be 4 transmit sites.

  • 95% in building reliability for portable radios with a minimum DAQ of 3.4.
  • 21 dB budget for building penetration in the downtown area.
  • 18 dB budget for building penetration in the Denver Tech Center.
  • 15 dB budget for building penetration elsewhere.

Motorola says that they will be able to provide in building reliability of 98% for portables using 1/2 wave antennas and 95.8% for portables using 1/4 wave antennas with the proposed sites, and any additional site would provide a low contributing factor to coverage. They also states that if any one site of the simulcast fails, the worst case in building reliability will be 97.7% for portables using 1/2 wave antennas and 95.3% for portables using 1/4 wave antennas.
 

Spitfire8520

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EDACS is a dying mode/system. Harris has quit supporting it. They do offer P25 systems.

Greenthumb is pointing out that Denver already has everything they need to transition to a Harris P25 system. They already have a Harris P25 system in place with 1 site and the gateway linking EDACS and P25 together. They somehow could not capitalize on that and lost the bid to Motorola to completely replace the system, including the existing Harris P25 system already in place.
 

scanlist

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A little bit of history.

It was 25 years ago today 12/24/92 that Denver PD moved from UHF to EDACS when it was a single site system on Mt Morrison. Years later upgraded to a multi-site simulcast and to ESK in 2008 prior to the 2008 DNC convention.

25 years has been a pretty good run with EDACS. Keeping track of which company supported it G.E., Ericsson, Com-Net Ericsson, MA/COM, TYCO and finally Harris. I would imagine life has been interesting for the EEB over the years.

This transition will be the big topic in this forum for 2018.
 

Scan-Denver

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A little bit of history.

It was 25 years ago today 12/24/92 that Denver PD moved from UHF to EDACS when it was a single site system on Mt Morrison. Years later upgraded to a multi-site simulcast and to ESK in 2008 prior to the 2008 DNC convention.

25 years has been a pretty good run with EDACS. Keeping track of which company supported it G.E., Ericsson, Com-Net Ericsson, MA/COM, TYCO and finally Harris. I would imagine life has been interesting for the EEB over the years.

This transition will be the big topic in this forum for 2018.
Thanks for the history!

We'll see how smooth/rough this transition is, especially downsizing from 7 sites to 4 and with no backup site.
 

Project25_MASTR

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Thanks for the history!



We'll see how smooth/rough this transition is, especially downsizing from 7 sites to 4 and with no backup site.



Going from 7 to 4 sites wouldn’t really concern me too much. Motorola is very good about designing a ton of redundancy into their systems as well as providing accurate coverage maps.

A great example, city of Abilene. Motorola quoted a three site simulcast system using three new (which would require construction) sites. Harris quoted using the existing three sites which Motorola had already reported would not provide adequate coverage in their proposal. Harris got the bid, within a year a fourth site was added and coverage still isn’t what they had originally hoped for.


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greenthumb

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I’m sure we can come up with hits and misses from both vendors with respect to coverage design (and believe me, i’m not defending Harris at all here) but removing in town sites absolutely will cause some in-building coverage loss, particularly in the SW part of town along Federal where even Motorola’s maps show on street coverage only. It’s always the little areas that users notice the loss that could cause uproar, particularly if it happens in relation to an incident.

This should prove to be an interesting one!
 

Spitfire8520

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We'll see how smooth/rough this transition is, especially downsizing from 7 sites to 4 and with no backup site.

The "backup site" will be the same sites, but with equipment at a georedudant location for if the primary system fails.

Why do they need to remove sites? Is it a cost issue?

They are designing to the requirements that Denver provided and have proposed that they can meet it with 4 sites. I'm sure that Denver can always ask for more sites (at additional cost), but it looks like Denver finds the current proposal acceptable.

It will be interesting to see how the actual end users will react to the coverage. It doesn't help that Denver only want a system designed to cover the city when their users stubbornly try to use it outside of the city on assist calls. Trying to listen to radios more than 10 miles outside of Denver is not fun.

They also states that if any one site of the simulcast fails, the worst case in building reliability will be 97.7% for portables using 1/2 wave antennas and 95.3% for portables using 1/4 wave antennas.

Besides my grammar error, I failed to mention that the Denver requirements are for hip level reliability. The site failure scenario are portables transmitting and receiving at head level.
 

Project25_MASTR

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The "backup site" will be the same sites, but with equipment at a georedudant location for if the primary system fails.







They are designing to the requirements that Denver provided and have proposed that they can meet it with 4 sites. I'm sure that Denver can always ask for more sites (at additional cost), but it looks like Denver finds the current proposal acceptable.



It will be interesting to see how the actual end users will react to the coverage. It doesn't help that Denver only want a system designed to cover the city when their users stubbornly try to use it outside of the city on assist calls. Trying to listen to radios more than 10 miles outside of Denver is not fun.







Besides my grammar error, I failed to mention that the Denver requirements are for hip level reliability. The site failure scenario are portables transmitting and receiving at head level.


So redundant prime sites in this case.

When subscribers begin transitioning from a system that has been built to cover as much area as possible to a system built with engineered coverage in mind there will always be that “coverage of the old system was better because we could talk all the way out to [insert some neighboring jurisdiction].



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David628

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Will MARC be their backup?

I know they are getting their own radio phase 2 Denver system. But, since their currently testing and were hearing them on MARC; is possible that they will keep secondary access to MARC for the fringe out of city calls/assists? I mean their both Phase 2 systems so wouldn't it be possible for the Denver radios to be programed to run primarily on the Denver system and slip into the MARC system as needed? Not sure if or how that works.

In Colorado Springs, I do hear Colorado Springs PD on all of the El Paso sites but Ive never heard CSPD on the Cheyenne mountain state site. State police are all over the Cheyenne site and occasionally I hear El Paso Sheriffs there as well. What I do know is when El Paso county sheriffs travels outside our area they can be heard on the Douglas County South site and on the Cheyenne site. Ive seen this on my scanner while traveling through CastleRock.

So it would seem plausible that Denver could run primarily on their new system and in fringe areas bump over to MARC as needed?
 

Spitfire8520

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I know they are getting their own radio phase 2 Denver system. But, since their currently testing and were hearing them on MARC; is possible that they will keep secondary access to MARC for the fringe out of city calls/assists? I mean their both Phase 2 systems so wouldn't it be possible for the Denver radios to be programed to run primarily on the Denver system and slip into the MARC system as needed? Not sure if or how that works.

In Colorado Springs, I do hear Colorado Springs PD on all of the El Paso sites but Ive never heard CSPD on the Cheyenne mountain state site. State police are all over the Cheyenne site and occasionally I hear El Paso Sheriffs there as well. What I do know is when El Paso county sheriffs travels outside our area they can be heard on the Douglas County South site and on the Cheyenne site. Ive seen this on my scanner while traveling through CastleRock.

So it would seem plausible that Denver could run primarily on their new system and in fringe areas bump over to MARC as needed?

It seems unlikely. The proposal hints at Denver replacing their Harris/MARC equipment at Mount Morrison with Motorola equipment, and Denver does not have access to use any of the other sites on MARC because it would tie up resources owned by other entities. This basically eliminates any advantage of keeping access to MARC. Linking 2 separate systems together is possible, but it involves money and politics.

The reason you see the roaming behavior with DTRS is because it is all one system, even if Colorado Springs & El Paso County acts like they are on a separate system.
 
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Thayne

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I am fairly sure that I remember that All the MARC sites are tied together by microwave data links that were installed about when the Arvada & Westminster sites were moved off Eldorado Mtn. years ago-----does anyone know for sure
 
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