The RFP for the 800 P25 system for Franklin County, GA closed early last month. No one is talking. Does anyone know what manufacturers other than L3 Harris responded to the RFP. I know EFJ/Kenwood decided to not respond but would not provide an official reason. I do know the RFP was tightly wrapped around interfacing with the L3 Harris system purchased by Habersham County. Really curious what the pricing is.
Franklin County 800 P25 RFP
- Thread starter kb4he
- Start date
Does not appear any licenses are granted yet, but this presentation from August 31 does seem to indicate that L3HARRIS won the bid, and the system will interface with Habersham's upcoming L3HARRIS system, or even another part of it.
www.franklincountyga.gov
Proposed Franklin County Radio Systems | Franklin County, GA
For a cost of nearly 18 million, there a lot of white (no portable coverage) on the projected coverage maps. If that map depicts 95% portable coverage, then I know of several 1 million dollar systems that greatly exceed 95% coverage. A lot of money for a county with a population of less than 25000.
Attachments
Agreed. Obviously don't know the inner workings of the contract, but you would think they would possibly add another tower site in the NW corner of the county to compensate for that.
Gunby Communications is on the agenda to present the BOC a Kenwood UHF trunked NexEdge solution at the Oct 31 work session. Multiple options depending on site placement which may or may not require new construction. Solutions significantly less than the 18 million they have been presented. All solutions include new dispatch consoles, interoperability with neighboring counties and will have the option for units to roam throughout the GCI FleetTalk system when outside the local system.
Attachments
It'll be interesting to see what route they take!
Having not used the Southern Linc LTE/Harris option; I have nothing bad to say, but IMO I would be hesitant to move on something like that just yet. I haven't heard good things regarding coverage from people using Southern Linc in the Hart and Franklin areas. Having used the Gunby Solution I was less than impressed; I have not talked to any coworkers that were impressed either. Maybe it's a programming thing, but the audio leaves a lot to be desired.
Interesting. In the 10 years we have operated our FleetTalk system and the Banks County system, both of which are Kenwood NexEdge trunking systems. Not once has a complaint of audio been brought to my attention by anyone familiar with digital systems. Several who have used both NexEdge and Turbo systems have actually opined the NexEdge audio sounds better, especially when encrypted. I have limited experience Turbo and will leave that discussion to others. I have approximately 1500 subscriber radios in service between the two trunking systems and many more subscribers on private conventional systems. What has come to my attention, (generally in the beginning) is some have expressed the audio fidelity is much different from the analog systems they are familiar with. That is true, normal and is inherent to all LMR digital protocols as the vocoders are not designed to replicate the fidelity of analog. I'll be glad to speak with you or your coworkers to try to address any audio concerns you are experiencing.
I may be reached at 706-244-1899 cell or 706-886-4406 extension 1001 office.
- Joined
- Jun 11, 2005
- Messages
- 483
Depends on where you were in terms of fleet talk but its audio is as good or better then the Moto DMR I have used. Franklin trying to use that Harris system would be a disaster without at least 4 more towers which means $$$. Southern linc is plain crazy IMHO
Honestly and I don't have a dog in the fight but letting Gunby set them up like Banks with a patch on fleet talk to Banks and others will push them out a decade or better. Best bang for their buck. Two cents
MTS2000des
5B2_BEE00 Czar
NXDN has some of the most pleasing and natural sounding audio even in "very narrow" mode, especially with 2nd and 3rd gen subscribers. I'd say it's as good or better then our P25 TDMA simulcast system and it costs about 1/4th the price, has superior security (game over for cloner whackers. No ESN match? No workie for you!) and unlike MotoTRBO, natively supports robust AES-256 encryption without having to have a three letter agency and be in some special club to buy it.
The Nexedge audio sounds very tinny to me. The NX series the Oglethorpe had that were DMR sounded the same way too. It may be a programming issue. The GEN2 Mototrbo products do sound better than their predecessor. Mototrbo products leave a lot to be desired and I don't want to compare them to Nexedge. I have had the pleasure of using various products over the years, however it is often like comparing apples to oranges because the fields are not the same. The best audio I experienced was P25 Phase II on an APX4000; albeit this was on a well designed system with good coverage.
Coverage wise, the Banks system works well, I remember the audio sounding better with external speakers and stuff like that. I still hear people talk about how the audio sounds in comparison to other places they(ve) work(ed). Imagine having these conversations in a room full of firemen, the term fisher price radios is what gets thrown out. I had the opportunity to demo one of Oglethorpe's Fleet Talk radios and this is what I am basing my opinion on. The NX300s we used at Banks seemed to sound better than than the NX5300s that Oglethorpe has IMHO. I have to wonder if it lies in the programming. The two biggest things I hear from Oglethorpe users is lack of coverage and audio quality; from what I understand they are getting another tower and I'm sure it will be better then. I know from running mutual aid there are places where they are out of range and our radios are working; that's not saying much because there's plenty of places our radios don't work.
The end users aren't going to contact you John, they're not going to break their chain of command and quite frankly it's not that important to them. When 8:00 rolls around they're going home and not thinking anymore about it. They don't realize that it could be better or they don't care. Department heads are politicians and seldom relay complaints from field staff.
I have no dog in the fight; I am only sharing my experience.
Coverage wise, the Banks system works well, I remember the audio sounding better with external speakers and stuff like that. I still hear people talk about how the audio sounds in comparison to other places they(ve) work(ed). Imagine having these conversations in a room full of firemen, the term fisher price radios is what gets thrown out. I had the opportunity to demo one of Oglethorpe's Fleet Talk radios and this is what I am basing my opinion on. The NX300s we used at Banks seemed to sound better than than the NX5300s that Oglethorpe has IMHO. I have to wonder if it lies in the programming. The two biggest things I hear from Oglethorpe users is lack of coverage and audio quality; from what I understand they are getting another tower and I'm sure it will be better then. I know from running mutual aid there are places where they are out of range and our radios are working; that's not saying much because there's plenty of places our radios don't work.
The end users aren't going to contact you John, they're not going to break their chain of command and quite frankly it's not that important to them. When 8:00 rolls around they're going home and not thinking anymore about it. They don't realize that it could be better or they don't care. Department heads are politicians and seldom relay complaints from field staff.
I have no dog in the fight; I am only sharing my experience.
Understood. I respect your experience and only ask that it be shared in context.
With regard to Banks county, the primary design consideration was to provide 95% portable coverage inside Banks County, inside coverage of all schools, govt buildings and the outlet mall. There was zero mention of coverage outside the county. The system was designed to meet the requirements outlined. As there was a budget limitation of $1million for purchase of infrastructure, repeaters and radios, I think their 6 site system has worked well in comparison to other county's which have spent far more for fewer sites.
With regard to Oglethorpe County, There currently are only 2 FleetTalk sites inside Oglethorpe County. There are two other sites, 1 in Elbert and 1 in Madison providing some coverage into Oglethorpe. As such, there are numerous holes along the northern edge of the county. We identified four sites in Oglethorpe that we wanted to build out on for reliable portable coverage. We really did not want to go live on FleetTalk until at least two of the northern sites were constructed. But the County did not have the funding at the time and wanted to move forward. Two new sites are now in the works and the Winterville site will likely come online in the next few months. Thus far, Oglethorpe has a total investment to date of less than $500K, and a projected investment of $750K with the construction of the 4th site.
I have always been an advocate of including the end users in the discussions when setting up the design of a system rather than just the Chiefs, Sheriff, department heads and politicians. Including the users would go a long way toward aligning the expectations of the users with the reality of what is being purchased.
It is unfortunate that the end users do not (for whatever reasons) share their feedback (positive or negative) to the installer/maintainer of the system and not just passed around. Some things are programmable, some things are setup to the preference of the technicians and some things are inherent to the technology. I think most vendors would welcome negative feedback if it is constructive to improving the experience of the user. I know I would.
I agree at least 4 more towers in Franklin County. Both Franklin and Habersham county officials are being told the Habersham system will provide 50% or better coverage of Franklin County. Maybe mobiles on high ground. But to suggest indoor portable coverage is a joke.
Interesting that CI won the bid, and not Loudoun or Williams Comm.Does not appear any licenses are granted yet, but this presentation from August 31 does seem to indicate that L3HARRIS won the bid, and the system will interface with Habersham's upcoming L3HARRIS system, or even another part of it.
Proposed Franklin County Radio Systems | Franklin County, GA
The "RFP" was written such that only CI could respond and as such CI was the only response.
It was a "Sole Source purchase. A "RFP" in name only.
A few specifications within the RFP.
"The procurement of the proposed radio system will be an add‐on to the new
Habersham County, GA P25 radio system and network"
"It is not necessary to provide all 5 of the mutual aid channels to Franklin County since these
channels can be shared and distributed between Habersham and Franklin County."
"Franklin County is sensitive to the costly nature of P25 systems. Therefore, it is
encouraged to submit creative additional proposal cost savings that may utilize any
or all capabilities, software, and hardware of the Habersham P25 radio system.
This includes the use of system cores and NPSPAC mutual aid systems that can be
leveraged by both Habersham and Franklin County."
Stephens County will be the gaping hole between the two. If Stephens could have participated, the simulcast cells could have probably provided some meaningful coverage infill for the other participants, such as where a Stephens tower happens to reach a Franklin or Habersham coverage gap, as often happens with the Cobb system (adjacent county simulcast helping fill a gap because their tower happens to reach a gap better). Of course that would have been a good reason for Habersham to have joined the Hall core in the first place.
I wish for a perfect world where every county plays nicely with each other, and they could all merge into one ubiquitous,
"North Georgia Radio System Authority"
Oh well, politics and money
That is interesting, I didn't realize that Habersham was awarded to CI, I would have assumed it would have been Loudoun or Williams considering they both have a presence. Maybe TUSA has found a new favorite... Boy do they know how to put on a song and dance that impresses a board of commissioners.
