Iredell County Going VIPER?

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drayd48

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I have heard that in the near future that Iredell County will be going full VIPER. I have seen it in the board meeting and also the plan to purchase a new tower in the upcoming years. EMS has already switched over and the SO and Fire have a patch / simulcast. I know that all south end departments are on the UASI and Statesville has it own system. Can someone tell me if they know any more information about the county going VIPER?
Thanks
 

drayd48

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Fire is simulcasting on Viper, UASI and VHF as of now. Oddly I'm not getting their UID on the UASI system.

I know that county fire and the sheriff channel are patched to VIPER. EMS is using it full time and the south end departments and Mooresville PD and Public Works ONLY are using the UASI I have seen where the entire would switch over to VIPER soon. I was wandering if there was any more information that anyone heard about that. Thanks

What were you talking about not getting their UID on the UASI? They are using ti full time.
 

FireCop

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Don't bet on any of the different entities being on the same system anytime soon.

The county had a chance years ago to join in with Mooresville when they put in their trunked system. They balked at spending the money. The original trunked system was at end of life and Mooresville had to do something. Again, the county was approached about joining in but showed no interest. Mooresville joined UASI.

My point is this: the county has had a chance to be on the same page with other entities and take the lead but chose not to do so. The previous leadership of the county communications center and electeds wanted nothing to do with spending money, which is what it's going to take regardless. The previous leadership at county communications also chose the VIPER path, rather than seriously consider UASI or other options. They've made their bed with VIPER and I wish them well in it. Just keep in mind it will take some time to get all county public safety over to VIPER due to the logistics and cost for the VFD's and remaining rescue squads.

Statesville, well that's another story. They may have to do some upgrades in the future. That said, I don't see them ready to switch to any other system anytime soon as they have invested a good bit in their standalone system.

Hence, the three systems you're likely to see for quite sometime in Iredell County.
 

drayd48

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Don't bet on any of the different entities being on the same system anytime soon.

The county had a chance years ago to join in with Mooresville when they put in their trunked system. They balked at spending the money. The original trunked system was at end of life and Mooresville had to do something. Again, the county was approached about joining in but showed no interest. Mooresville joined UASI.

My point is this: the county has had a chance to be on the same page with other entities and take the lead but chose not to do so. The previous leadership of the county communications center and electeds wanted nothing to do with spending money, which is what it's going to take regardless. The previous leadership at county communications also chose the VIPER path, rather than seriously consider UASI or other options. They've made their bed with VIPER and I wish them well in it. Just keep in mind it will take some time to get all county public safety over to VIPER due to the logistics and cost for the VFD's and remaining rescue squads.

Statesville, well that's another story. They may have to do some upgrades in the future. That said, I don't see them ready to switch to any other system anytime soon as they have invested a good bit in their standalone system.

Hence, the three systems you're likely to see for quite sometime in Iredell County.

Oh yes. There will always be many systems in Iredell because Mooresville will always go their own way and the county will never agree with it because they never have the money to do it. I know they are switching but I wondered if anyone had anymore information when the switch was going to happen and when the new tower was going to but put in place and any other general information. I do see the Sheriff switching over sooner than later because all of them already have handhelds for VIPER and use many of the tac channels but no mobile units in most trucks. It will probably take a long time for the VFDs to switch over
 

FireCop

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There will always be many systems in Iredell because Mooresville will always go their own way and the county will never agree with it because they never have the money to do it. ...and when the new tower was going to but put in place ...

I don't necessarily agree with your comments on Mooresville and the County. I feel like Mooresville tries to go with the cutting edge of things, but maybe I'm impartial. :) I would rather say that the County doesn't want to spend the money instead of that they don't have it. As I meant to elude to in my earlier comments, some of the County's prior leadership was dead set against anything Mooresville wanted. You might say there were some serious conflict and ego issues. ;)

Nevertheless, I can't say that I've heard any serious conversation on adding a VIPER tower site. I do know they have been working on adding frequency capacity at some of the existing sites, but haven't heard how far they are in their progress. I also have heard that some VFD's (Central is one) are having issues with Fox Mountain (Central's district is pretty much in the shadow of that site).

I think you hit it on the nail for Sheriff that they will have to wait for a full switch until they get all their stock switched to 7/800 mhz capable. Until then, we have to monitor UHF & 800.
 

drayd48

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I don't necessarily agree with your comments on Mooresville and the County. I feel like Mooresville tries to go with the cutting edge of things, but maybe I'm impartial. :) I would rather say that the County doesn't want to spend the money instead of that they don't have it. As I meant to elude to in my earlier comments, some of the County's prior leadership was dead set against anything Mooresville wanted. You might say there were some serious conflict and ego issues. ;)

Nevertheless, I can't say that I've heard any serious conversation on adding a VIPER tower site. I do know they have been working on adding frequency capacity at some of the existing sites, but haven't heard how far they are in their progress. I also have heard that some VFD's (Central is one) are having issues with Fox Mountain (Central's district is pretty much in the shadow of that site).

I think you hit it on the nail for Sheriff that they will have to wait for a full switch until they get all their stock switched to 7/800 mhz capable. Until then, we have to monitor UHF & 800.

I apologize about saying that comment. Iredell probably does not want to spend the money because they would have to buy their own towers and pay alot of money for each radio that is on the system. Mooresville has a really good system with really good coverage Talked to a commissioner and there was in the budget for a new tower that was approved. She was really surprised that ICSO had not already fully switched over. She thought they did so it will come soon. Central fire uses VIPER quite a bit for large scale events up in that area because VHF does not travel good up in that area. You just cant be in a deep hole. There is a lot of dead zones in the county and a new tower really does need to be put in the north / east end of the county.
 

drayd48

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Fire is simulcasting on Viper, UASI and VHF as of now. Oddly I'm not getting their UID on the UASI system.

OH, the radio ID for the simulcast shows "0" on my scanner adn does not show anyting on my motorola. That is the same for all of the simulcasts
 

drayd48

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So just got word that the Sheriff's Office would fully transition over to VIPER in the end of the first quarter of 2017, and it would take a while to get all the VFD's switched over. Also heard of a possible new VIPER tower is going to be at Bristol Drive where the new ECOM will be. If anyone else has any more information, that would be great.
 

CFP387

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I don't see why the south end would want to give up UASI and go strictly VIPER after all the money and time they've invested in the simulcast system. They have interoperability with all the southern surrounding counties. Rowan just recently programmed their radios with the UASI talk groups for Iredell & Mooresville Fire.
 

drayd48

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I don't see why the south end would want to give up UASI and go strictly VIPER after all the money and time they've invested in the simulcast system. They have interoperability with all the southern surrounding counties. Rowan just recently programmed their radios with the UASI talk groups for Iredell & Mooresville Fire.

Mooresville and the south end departments will most likely not give up going to VIPER unless money becomes an issue for the VFD's. Did Rowan finally get Mooresville UASI in their radios? As of Monday night, Rowan did not have Mooresville Ops channels in their radios when there was a big fire.
 

CFP387

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Not all the radios in Rowan have been programmed yet with the UASI talk groups. Some have been but most have not and they are still working on getting it done.

The issue is that when they get the radios in to program, the aren't just wanting to program the UASI system, but some other surrounding counties systems as well for mutual aid purposes.
 

KM4WLV

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Not all the radios in Rowan have been programmed yet with the UASI talk groups. Some have been but most have not and they are still working on getting it done.

The issue is that when they get the radios in to program, the aren't just wanting to program the UASI system, but some other surrounding counties systems as well for mutual aid purposes.

My understanding right now on the programming updates is that with Davie & Davidson Counties having moved to VIPER, Stanly County, Mooresville, and others moving to the UASI system, there are a lot of programming requests in from departments here in Rowan County to have those new VIPER and UASI talkgroups added to their radios and the shop is working on getting the fleetmaps/templates ready/updated for each of those departments. They're also waiting on a final list of ID assignments for both the VIPER and UASI systems and for those ID's to be activated in their respective systems. The goal is to only have to touch the radios once, especially those that are having both VIPER and UASI updates done. Let me back up to the ID assignment comment.......... All of our county fire and EMS radios have active ID's in VIPER because we use LZ Central when landing helo's here, plus EMS having access to the VMN part of VIPER. When I say waiting on ID's I mean for new radios some of the departments have bought.

On that note (not trying to veer to far off the original topic) the City of Salisbury & Rowan County have started allowing EF Johnson radios on our system but they have to be the Viking Series and programmed by using the EFJ Armada software. They've been approached about allowing other vendors on the system, but I'm not sure how fast that might move. The Kenwood series may be on sooner rather than later since Kenwood has purchased EF Johnson. It was relayed to me by the local Kenwood rep (CFP387 will know who I'm talking about) that the Kenwood NX-5400 and comparable units will be able to be programmed using the Armada CPS, so with the City of Salisbury radio shop requiring the EFJ's to be programmed using the Armada software this will open that window once they get that worked out on the Kenwood side. The counties that have moved to VIPER fulltime have a number of options vendor wise such as Motorola, EFJ, Relm, Kenwood, and Harris. Agencies in surrounding counties that have put in requests to be added to the Salisbury/Rowan P25 system and having radios other than Motorola and EFJ may be waiting a bit as testing on those other vendors radios are completed. I did have the change to look at the Harris XL-200P, Harris XG-25, and Kenwood NX-5400 portables active on VIPER and I'd love to see any of those 3 authorized for use on our system. I'd drop Motorola and use one of those in a heartbeat. Especially the Kenwood since you can install a micro SD card and initiate voice recording on the radio to listen to later.

Ok, I'm done lol. My apologies for veering off there for a second but since it was regarding programming and some of the associated delays or agencies not having access to some systems this could be part of the delay. Hope it helps!
 
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drayd48

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My understanding right now on the programming updates is that with Davie & Davidson Counties having moved to VIPER, Stanly County, Mooresville, and others moving to the UASI system, there are a lot of programming requests in from departments here in Rowan County to have those new VIPER and UASI talkgroups added to their radios and the shop is working on getting the fleetmaps/templates ready/updated for each of those departments. They're also waiting on a final list of ID assignments for both the VIPER and UASI systems and for those ID's to be activated in their respective systems. The goal is to only have to touch the radios once, especially those that are having both VIPER and UASI updates done. Let me back up to the ID assignment comment.......... All of our county fire and EMS radios have active ID's in VIPER because we use LZ Central when landing helo's here, plus EMS having access to the VMN part of VIPER. When I say waiting on ID's I mean for new radios some of the departments have bought.

On that note (not trying to veer to far off the original topic) the City of Salisbury & Rowan County have started allowing EF Johnson radios on our system but they have to be the Viking Series and programmed by using the EFJ Armada software. They've been approached about allowing other vendors on the system, but I'm not sure how fast that might move. The Kenwood series may be on sooner rather than later since Kenwood has purchased EF Johnson. It was relayed to me by the local Kenwood rep (CFP387 will know who I'm talking about) that the Kenwood NX-5400 and comparable units will be able to be programmed using the Armada CPS, so with the City of Salisbury radio shop requiring the EFJ's to be programmed using the Armada software this will open that window once they get that worked out on the Kenwood side. The counties that have moved to VIPER fulltime have a number of options vendor wise such as Motorola, EFJ, Relm, Kenwood, and Harris. Agencies in surrounding counties that have put in requests to be added to the Salisbury/Rowan P25 system and having radios other than Motorola and EFJ may be waiting a bit as testing on those other vendors radios are completed. I did have the change to look at the Harris XL-200P, Harris XG-25, and Kenwood NX-5400 portables active on VIPER and I'd love to see any of those 3 authorized for use on our system. I'd drop Motorola and use one of those in a heartbeat. Especially the Kenwood since you can install a micro SD card and initiate voice recording on the radio to listen to later.

Ok, I'm done lol. My apologies for veering off there for a second but since it was regarding programming and some of the associated delays or agencies not having access to some systems this could be part of the delay. Hope it helps!

Thanks for that information. Rowan has a very good system. I can pick up all the way to Greensboro and come into my house just fine (maybe adding the fact that it the closest trucked tower to me even though I live in Iredell right near the Rowan and Davie lines). It will be great when they can approve other radios to improve interop.
 
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