West Virginia and 800 MHz Trunking

[colliers_628]

hello,

First off i am only posting this because i live in an area that has 3 trunking systems and i would like to get someone elses opinion.

Why would public safety go to 800 MHz systems in a mountainous terrain?? Half the time they dont work, there are dead spots, and poor reception. We live in an area where the low band system works great. Why would our city and county governments spend the money to upgrade to a system that 9 times out of 10 your gonna have problems in low valley areas? Does it make sense? I think everyone in the ohio valley needs to go back to the low band system.

What is everyone elses opinion?

 

[MOTOROLANUT]

800

Well, go figure this is WV and we are 20 years behind everbody....Thanks to our Political stance and belief in Unions....LOL The interop project if OK. it might work better if it was VHF high 150-170 who knows for sure But it is better than nothing. Honestly you had inter op with 39.9800 Low Band all you needed to do is put up more repeater towers. But Motorola saw $$$$$ in the Feds, WV and other states and sold them all swampland after 911... LMMFAO...800 sure never worked corectly in Kentucky. The $$$$$ for sense digital age is here so invest in Motorola and Exxon...LMAO

 

[wm8s]

I am unaware of more than a handful of agencies using 800 MHz trunking in WV, and none uses it wide area. AKAIK, AEP has the only widearea 800 MHz system in the state.

 

[me714]

I assume you are talking about the Wheeling TRS, Ohio MARCS, and More'n likely something on the Pennsylvania side.

The Wheeling system was put up years ago as a "Cutting edge" (ie, we are more modern than anyone else in the state) type deal. Actually, from what I have heard over the years, the system has worked out pretty well for the city - remembering, of course, that it is not meant to be a wide area system.

The Ohio MARCS system is a statewide interoperability system, so, there was no choice but for it to be 800 across the state. Except for the hills in the southeast part of the state, it is pretty much ideal for rolling land that makes up most of Ohio.

West Virginia chose UHF for its interop system, and, for thise of us living in areas where it is being implemented, it is HOT! These old boys know what they're doing!

 

[MOTOROLANUT]

Interop

Well I will give it some credit its works to some extent. As a public safety (Po Po user)
of the interop in Harrco. I have experienced and witnessed its shortcomings...So me feeling are very mixed....Those who use as compared to those who listen only will have varied opions...But as to the original question Yes Wheeling or the Power company are the only large users of 800 in the state. Righ off the top of my head though, methinks Parkersburg PD was using something along those lines...

 

[radiopro80]

Wvirp

I'm going to vent a little bit. This is not degrading the trunking project technology, or it's purpose...but....It really twists my shorts that this is the case in fact......
All counties in Northern WV (and in fact most of WV).. every agency used VHF Low or VHF High band, with a few agencies scattered around on UHF. If you needed to interact with another agency not on the same band, all you needed to do was add at most 2 radios. It seems most agencies used dual band Kenwoods, so at most they would have needed one more radio. Things were simple, and relatively cheap.
Along comes WVIRP.... and some agencies participating in WVIRP chose to remove all the other radios from their vehicles. Now, all the counties surrounding the participating counties can no longer talk to the WVIRP counties! An non-participating agency now has to purchase ANOTHER radio, and an extremely expensive one to boot - and then wait months for delivery.
And this was about interoperability??

 

[radiopro80]

Pkb

Indeed - PKB PD and Maintenance went to an analog 800 Mhz Johnson LTR system - they weren't happy with it. I believe the vendor involved finally got things straightened out enough that the city stuck with it, but I believe it took a year and a half or so.

Well I will give it some credit its works to some extent. As a public safety (Po Po user)
of the interop in Harrco. I have experienced and witnessed its shortcomings...So me feeling are very mixed....Those who use as compared to those who listen only will have varied opions...But as to the original question Yes Wheeling or the Power company are the only large users of 800 in the state. Righ off the top of my head though, methinks Parkersburg PD was using something along those lines...

 

[MOTOROLANUT]

Interop

Yes I will spare a Lawsuit and not name the Motorola Shop in Jane Lew WV who sold The unnamed Harrco ES Director the whole Interop Idea along with the regional Big M rep
LMMFAO. can you say Free vacations.... Yes you are right they could have added a cheap radio BUT NOOOOOOOO Had to waste taxpayers money LMAO. I totally agree a few well spent dollars could have circumvented the problem....But what do I know.I am just a humble Po Po who has used the radio system for the past nine years....LOL

 

[Thunderbolt]

We live in an area where the low band system works great. Why would our city and county governments spend the money to upgrade to a system that 9 times out of 10 your gonna have problems in low valley areas? Does it make sense? I think everyone in the ohio valley needs to go back to the low band system.

What is everyone elses opinion?

I love VHF-Low band very much. I can remember listening to different public safety agencies from all over the USA, and sometimes into Europe when skip was rolling in. While this was a great thing for us scanner enthusiasts, it was a nightmare for public safety operations, especially with all the local signals being blown off the air by stations several hundred miles away.

The good thing about VHF-Low band was that it worked perfectly in mountainous areas. Signals would go around or through mountains, and everyone could hear each other, especially if a repeater was used. Likewise, if everyone had 1-3 common channels, you intercommunicate with everyone throughout the county or state. However, with modern technology comes a lot of RFI issues.

One of the reasons that the several states moved off VHF-Low band was all of the interference being generated by mainframe computer systems, power grids, and other sources. This is especially true in large cities and even more so major metropolitan areas. For example, here in Michigan, my local state police and sheriff units units could not operate on their 37 and 42 MHz systems within a mile of the downtown area, and the local university campus in 1986. This left a huge chunk of real estate, with a large campus population vulnerable to major incidents, with mission-critical communications being highly compromised by man-made interference. Compounding this problem was the use of disparate communications systems, which no possibility for interoperability as everyone was on different radio bands.

This problem was not just isolated to my local area, it was repeated several hundred times across the state, mostly in densely populated areas. While moving to VHF-High band or UHF would have been a great idea, there were no frequencies available anymore due to the currently frequency pools being depleted. This left 800 MHz being the only option available for further expansion.

In the post 9-11 era, everyone needs to be on the same radio system for interoperability purposes, not only on a statewide basis but nationally. The magnitude of Hurricane Katrina, and the failure of FEMA and the federal government to effectively respond to this disaster, underscored the need to bolster our prepardeness plans at the individual family, local and state levels. This includes developing and implementing new communications plans and systems, which all share common channels and characteristics on a national level.

Very sadly, since the major radio equipment manufacturers have seen a dramatic shift away from VHF-Low band over the past two decades; thus, there is very little incentive for them to continue manufacturing radios that operate on this band. If you were to look at what mobiles and portables have all of the latest bells and whistles lately, you will notice that they are on VHF-High band and higher up.

While I lament the passing of VHF-Low band like an old friend. I know that progress and technology must march forward. We very well can't act like Luddites and expect the world to become a better place, without technological advancements, and this is especially true of the telecommunications industry.

73s

Ron

 

[me714]

Ahh, the pains of progress....

I remember waaay back when I was comm officer of the largest (area wise) VFD in Kanawha County. They had recently implemented the tone out system, and the county bought one radio for each station (An EF Johnson - guess where THEY came from...), and one Motorola four channel Micor for the primary truck of each station. That was it.

If your station wanted pagers, then you bought them for yourselves. After reading some of the venting responses, I went to the storage building this morning, and dug out my VFD files from over thirty years ago... I had to laugh, because the hue and cry of this thread sounds exactly like the wails from the "good old days"...

Back then, it was, "WHAT!?!?! We don't need them *#&@ pagers! What's wrong with our call down system?" (Only old timers -and their wives - will remember that...) "And, they are wanting US to get radios for our trucks and ourselves??? We can't even hear Kanawha (which is what Metro was called back then) up these hollers! What the &#$*& is wrong with our CB's??? A good CB only costs $120.00!!!"

Ahh, memory lane...

Well, we finally saw the writing on the wall, and scraped up money for these "Damned new radios". I chuckle as I look at my copies of the invoices. (I keep copies of everything - good sense, especially if you're involved in a volunteer oraganization).

We bought 18 Minitors from Motorola, which just about broke the bank - and, believe me, that was after a LOT of wrangling. Then we made the BIG purchase (after numerous car washes, bake sales, and blatant begging) - two GE Mastr II's for our tankers - a steal at $1938.00 apiece! These four channel beauties were great - but, each channel was extra, so we could only afford two channels in each radio. Also, the price didn't include antennas or installation...

So, as the bible says, "Nothing new is under the sun" (or something like that), and I guess that includes bemoaning the loss of the good old days... Except, when we REALLY look back at the good old days, you have to ask yourselves, "hmm, were they really???".

And remember, even if you flame me, I still love you all

PS - Keep those miners in Utah in your thoughts. Three rescuers were killed in another mountain bump. From one who has been there - it's a bad situation all around...

 

[monk8500]

me714 your timeline representation of radio equipment purchasing is right on track.
Nice to see there are people that are familar with the evolution of radio equipment that is common to this area and probly nationwide.
Order of progression here was: 1) Raytheon tube type CB (still have one as momento), 2) Motorola Civil Defense radio (parted out to others who needed parts to keep their system operating) 3) Motorola Mitrek (still in use) 4) Motorola Maratrac (still in use) 5) GM300 ( enter the UHF world) 6) CDM 1250.
Same old story with the HT's.

My first post so go easy on me,
Monk 8500

 

[me714]

Welcome!

The old Micor was probably my favorite crystal controlled trunk mounted radio ever. You could beat them with a hammer and they would still work - though, once they started getting old (I'm talking 20+ yrs!), the copper plated finals would start to crack, and that was that. Used two of them for my first homebuilt UHF repeater... They were a barrel of fun to play with. You could do anything with them.

The 16 channel ones sold new for about $2500.00 or so.... Try buying one of those for your personal VFD use with 1970's wages!!! (Like I said, ahhh, the good old days...)