Officially turned on their 11.8 million dollar Open Sky system on January 11th at 12:01am. EDACS is gone. Scanners are silent. Makes a taxpayer wonder whats going on up there.
Steuben County
- Thread starter angola_fire
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My bet is they are still fighting fires, making rescues and catching robbers just like they did on Dec 31st... The type of radio system they use has no bearing on that, and local media still has the option of listening in if they desire.
The system has many issues. One in particular is the battery life in the cold temps. 40 minutes if its 32 or lower. There are alot of dead areas. The system cost taxpayers 11.8 million dollars. The fire departments are back on VHF once dispatched to a fire. Local media does NOT have the ability to listen. Not at all! They are not being provided with a radio to listen with and the county is not allowing radios on the system that are owned by someone other than the county.
Re: Opensky in Steuben County
This may be of some interest....
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Digital_Speech_Decoder_(software_package)
This may be of some interest....
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Digital_Speech_Decoder_(software_package)
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I have learned that the system has gone completely down more than 5 times in 48 hours. When one officer stopped a car, another keyed another channel and locked the system. I have a meeting setup with an important person locally who is asking alot of questions. Valid questions! All the way down to who did the study for the county to validate the need. Side note, Lagrange county will be testing on Safe-t later this week. The transition is coming at alot less cost on a better system locally.
They can offer to buy a radio on the system, and if it's denied they have plenty of legal ammunition to make the county reconsider.
Re: Steuben County Opensky
After seeing multiple instances of Opensky failures (Pennsylvania, New York, Milwaukee), and knowing that the state has built a system in your own back yard (i.e. Hoosier SAFE-T) with talkgroups already assigned to you....
After seeing multiple instances of Opensky failures (Pennsylvania, New York, Milwaukee), and knowing that the state has built a system in your own back yard (i.e. Hoosier SAFE-T) with talkgroups already assigned to you....
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So what does fire use it for? They dispatch on VHF (county and Angola) correct? I see a few VHF freq's in the DB but many agencies are not listed, what do the county units go to?
Were those confirmed or taken strictly from FCC data?
kg9nn
Member
Some informed speculation:
1. First responders had heard from State agencies already in the system that there were numerous dead spots. IPSC had no plans to address those problems unless Steuben wanted to fund to towers. The cost of which had potential to be on par with that of OpenSky.
2. IPSC would not permit government services, only emergency services, on the system. EDACS had numerous government services and they wanted to keep everyone on one system for interop reasons.
3. The locals were concerned that if they went on the state system, IPSC could start issuing orders and making demands such as 'use plain language dispatch or loose access.'
4. The locals were concerned that the State legislature could raid the drivers license renewal fees and divert them away from IPSC, leaving it with no choice but to assess user fees, probably after local agencies had disposed of their 'legacy' systems and had no other option but to pay up.
5. Encryption for SAFE-T would have been a line item easily questioned or targeted by fiscal bodies. With OpenSky, the nature of the technology prevents eavesdropping which provides some political cover ("Yes Mr. Commissioner, I'm very sorry your home scanner cannot listen in anymore, but it's not because we wanted it that way, it's a consequence of the technology we are using.)
6. Several officials felt it was better to go with the devil you know (M/A Com) than the one you don't (Motorola).
Without vouching for accuracy, none of this sounded implausible when I heard it from a couple folks working on the project.
I had a very nice meeting today with a decision making body. They are totally on the side against Open Sky. Steuben did fund and purchase 4 additional tower sites for this radio system. Something that they did not seek input on from commissioners or any other outside source. I also learned that Fremont Fire are not able to talk on or hear radios in the bays with the fire trucks. Once they get east of town 2 miles, they are useless and non functional. I also can not see carrying 3 individual radios just to get one that works. Its a failure waiting to happen and I have suggested to the families of all public services to come with their attorney if something were to happen where someone gets hurt with this system. Many have done their research and already have printouts of horror stories.
FCC license with confirmation they are still valid... at least as backup.
kg9nn
Member
That's a shame; hopefully the shortcomings will be resolved before anyone does get hurt. I hope the elected officials were not intentionally mislead about the scope of the project. I wouldn't expect that to be the case; the local contractors involved seem to be of good character as are the civil servants who headed up the project.
Viper43
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Good character for those "civil servants".... doesn't sound so good to me when they want to hide everything including some of the costs and ALL communications from the TAXPAYERS. These people should be flogged in town square for what they did wasting millions and lying to to the taxpayers about costs.
And what will they do when no one wants to help out? I can't count the times since the 70's I have helped police catch someone by having my scanner(s) going 24/7. That includes catching a bank robber two years ago a week after the incident when I saw him not far from my home. The robbery was in a county nearby but I heard his discription and when I called in about him 3 different jurisdictions surrounded him and he confessed on the spot! Yeah.... keeping things from the public and media is really responsible police work.....
GTO_04
Member
Looks like Steuben County did not perform their due diligence when evaluating new radio systems. If they chose Open Sky after knowing about all it's failures in public safety applications, that is just plain negligence. Did they hire a consultant? If they did, the consultant was either working for MA/Com or just failed miserably!
Due to the egos involved, don't look for county officials to admit that they screwed up. And there won't be any successful lawsuits if something should happen due to a radio system failure. In public service radio contracts, it is common practice for vendors to limit their liability should someone get injured, or worse, in the event of a system failure.
GTO_04
Due to the egos involved, don't look for county officials to admit that they screwed up. And there won't be any successful lawsuits if something should happen due to a radio system failure. In public service radio contracts, it is common practice for vendors to limit their liability should someone get injured, or worse, in the event of a system failure.
GTO_04
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Viper43
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GTO-04,
Considering the "issues" with OpenSky it's history of failures could very well trump any language they have in their "paper work" relating to liability. Courts tend to go with the victims where companies show a history of issues, and OpenSky has been one failure after another.
Considering the "issues" with OpenSky it's history of failures could very well trump any language they have in their "paper work" relating to liability. Courts tend to go with the victims where companies show a history of issues, and OpenSky has been one failure after another.
GTO_04
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