Ohio MARCS platforms?

[Jphila20]

I was doing some research and came across something that said the Ohio MARCS system has two platforms. One is the 3.5 and the other is the 7.X.

Anyone know what this means?

I have too much free time now retired.

John

 

[IStebleton]

The 7.X platform is the current P25 system

 

[northernsummit]

I was doing some research and came across something that said the Ohio MARCS system has two platforms. One is the 3.5 and the other is the 7.X.

Anyone know what this means?

The 3.5 system was the original MARCS system that for some time ran side by side with the new MARCS-IP system. It's been completely migrated for some time now.

 

[rcid1971]

Sad part about this thread example, is that pretty much only Northwest Ohio uses pursuit interoperability channels.

 

[Jphila20]

Thanks everyone!

 

[amcferrin90]

A reason they don't use it in other areas is possibly because of other policies and patch groups. IIRC each agency requires permission to patch TGs together. It also falls into radio programming. Just because the TGs are available in MARCS doesn't mean they're being used. Also there's the fact when things happen, the last thing you're worried about is changing radio channels. In fact there's a video on YT of a Franklin County deputy involved in a chase from the Eastland area terminating on 71 at Cooke. I think the chase lasted about 7 minutes.

 

[GTR8000]

3.x and later 4.x refers to the system release version of the Motorola Type II system platform, aka Motorola 3600 or SmartNet or SmartZone or SmartZone OmniLink. I believe the last release was 4.1, which is quite old, but there are still quite a few of those systems active around the world. The original Ohio MARCS system was shut down in 2016 I believe.

7.x refers to the Motorola ASTRO 25 (P25) system platform. The release numbers generally followed along with the year they were to be released, e.g. 7.11 was 2011, 7.18 was 2018, etc. Starting in 2019 they switched up the release numbering so that it's now YYYY.X for the year and release version, e.g. 2020.1 would be the main release for 2020 followed by a minor revision of 2020.2, etc.