White County Fire/EMS DROPPING MotoTRBO digital plans

[micco]

White Co. Fire and EMS are NOT switching to MotoTRBO digital due to continuing problems with "signal reliability" in the lesser populated areas so the rumor mill states. Big fat told you so! They did put in to service two digital repeated TAC channels for Fire/EMS use. The idea was to move radio traffic between Incident Command and dispatchers off of MRD channels. The only problem is that the Dispatch Center can't hear the two channels. Brilliant... Rumor mill says that they are patching the two digital channels to the dispatch center sometime next month. Glad all those tax dollars were spent on a digital radio system that wasn't need and now isn't going into service.

 

[jim202]

White Co. Fire and EMS are NOT switching to MotoTRBO digital due to continuing problems with "signal reliability" in the lesser populated areas so the rumor mill states. Big fat told you so! They did put in to service two digital repeated TAC channels for Fire/EMS use. The idea was to move radio traffic between Incident Command and dispatchers off of MRD channels. The only problem is that the Dispatch Center can't hear the two channels. Brilliant... Rumor mill says that they are patching the two digital channels to the dispatch center sometime next month. Glad all those tax dollars were spent on a digital radio system that wasn't need and now isn't going into service.

Another fine sales job done by the radio vendor's sales force. Guess the upper management never thought to bring in an engineer, that wasn't associated with the vendor, to see just what kind of a great deal the agency was getting. My bet is the department heads had a great time being wined and dined while the snake oil dance was done. Maybe one of these days people might just learn that smoking mirrors is not the way the radios will work in real life.

Was a coverage plot ever provided as to what the radio system coverage would be with the new system? My bet is a coverage map was never shown and was very carefully avoided in all discussions.

Is this going to turn into a case where the tax payers will demand someones head for blowing all the money spent on these new fancy digital radios that don't work as good as the old system? Let us know what the next episode or chapter to the story is.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Aside from 'rumor mill' any fact to back all that up?

 

[Metrofire31]

White County Fire/EMS

Do you know what the two TAC channels are?

 

[SCPD]

White County VHF MotoTRBO

The idea was to move radio traffic between Incident Command and dispatchers off of MRD channels.

MRD is the abbreviation for "Mobile Radio District" which is the term given to the frequencies shared by two or more counties in the State of Georgia Police Radio Communications Plan established back in the 1970's and to my knowledge has never been updated. To my knowledge, MRD channels only apply to law enforcement radio communications frequencies in Georgia and not the channels/frequencies used by fire or EMS agencies in our State.

I was told by someone at a training session a few weeks ago that Habersham County and possibly Rabun County along with one or two other counties are in the process of putting VHF MotorTRBO Systems in place and are possibly planning to link these to the White County System to create a "Regional Radio System" for extreme northeast Georgia. If they do this and do it correctly this could eliminate the "continuing problems with "signal reliability" in the lesser populated areas" as mentioned in Micco's post, plus promote interoperability among these agencies on similar systems. The true issue here is many of the agencies in north Georgia are and have been under the gun to replace equipment and systems to meet the narrowband mandate. They know they can't afford to purchase an 800 MHz P25 System or pay half a million dollars or more per year to maintain an 800 MHz P25 System to provide the coverage they need in the mountainous areas, so switching to an 800 MHz P25 System is not an option. Several of the agencies in north Georgia using VHF that decided to remain VHF analog and have switched to narrowband are finding they do not have the portable radio coverage they had in analog wide band, so they are having to spend thousands of dollars more to add multiple receiver sites and purchase additional voting comparator equipment. The testing I did with narrow band VHF digital provided much better coverage than narrow band VHF analog, so I have to give kudos to those agencies in north Georgia who are stepping out on a limb to try and attack the challenge by simply not going with "the norm". If you think they have problems with digital narrowband VHF then try analog narrowband VHF to see how much of a difference there really is.

I know some of you will disagree with my position and some are probably just upset because they can't sit at home or drive around in their car or truck and listen to the local police, sheriff, fire, EMS, etc. because these agencies have switched or will be switching to MotoTRBO, but I believe the scanner manufacturers will eventually come around and release a scanner that will monitor this protocol.

 

[Metrofire31]

White County

MTTARadioMgr,

Thank you for your usual great job of sharing what local government agencies are going through in this migration from analog to digital, wideband to narrowband. As much as I wish I could still monitor those agencies that have migrated to MOTOTRBO, I think back to the mid-late 80s when I was living in Gwinnett and the county switched all county agencies over to a trunked system. I seriously believed, and many others shared these feelings, that the scanner hobby was dead. I ALMOST sold all my scanner equipment - but I didn't. I believe, as do you, that we have arrived at another one of those moments in scanning history that seems like "the end - again". I cannot imagine that we won't live to scan again. We have to remember that what we enjoy is a hobby - the decisions being made by governments involve protecting us and wisely using our tax dollars. I'm very happy to hear these north Georgia counties thinking of ways to improve coverage, meet their regulatory mandates, and use their jurisdictional tax dollars wisely. You can't accuse them of blindly drinking the blue Kool-Aid.

 

[ff-medic]

, but I believe the scanner manufacturers will eventually come around and release a scanner that will monitor this protocol.

"MotoTrbo" is proprietary, I believe. Motorola would have to agree to scanner manufacturers producing that particular type of scanner.

It is proprietary for a reason. It is a digital protocol designed, so others cannot monitor Mototrbo digital comms over a common radio or scanner system.

Motorola, as I have read, has sold numbers of their MotoTrbo radios / systems, to Public Safety Agencys for communications. This to help prevent the general public from "Listening in." Although there are ways to monitor MotoTrbo and other digital comms; monitoring over a common radio scanner for now, is not one of them, and would defeat the purpose of the original plan, and marketing of Motortrbo in the first place --- Private radio comms for public safety organizaions and businesses ; whom wish to have a "certain amount" of security for two way radio communications.

FF - Medic !!!

 

[N8IAA]

Well, just buy a Mototrbo capable radio and listen. The only one you can't listen to on one is Jackson county.
Larry

 

[bat504]

For what it is worth, Motorola Direct contacts in our area do not encourage MotorTurbo for use by Public Safety accounts. There can be some issues in grant funding and interoperability. Dealers who do make these kind of sales all the time are not held in high regard. That being said, funding is always an issue and sometimes compromises are made.
Some of those MotoTurbo radios are great analog radios too.

 

[N8IAA]

Here, the counties like to throw a SPeciaL OPerating Tax at us, or SPLOST. It is also amazing how the batwing sales group in N GA can wheel and deal the unknowing politicians into purchasing a load of cow manure. I truly believe there are going to be a ton of operating issues with the new radios in Habersham and Rabun. The N GA mountains will play havoc with the signals. Especially when they go to tighter specs on transmissions. White is having their own issues with Mototrbo.
Larry

 

[kg9nn]

Several of the agencies in north Georgia using VHF that decided to remain VHF analog and have switched to narrowband are finding they do not have the portable radio coverage they had in analog wide band, so they are having to spend thousands of dollars more to add multiple receiver sites and purchase additional voting comparator equipment. The testing I did with narrow band VHF digital provided much better coverage than narrow band VHF analog,

Exactly. Narrowband has a less forgiving signal-to-noise ratio. We had an engineering study done, and it showed the transition from wideband to narrowband would result in the equivalent of a 3dB signal loss, creating a lot of new dead zones. On the flip side, P25 and Trbo had a very good Bit Error Rate and resulted in the equivalent of a 3dB improvement over our wideband system. With the engineering data out of the way, it was a business decision:

1. Narrowband Analog: Less expensive mobiles and portables, but would need two voter sites. Cost for tower rent would be $2,100 per month, and the leased lines to connect the receivers to the voter would be $1,200 per month. Annualized out to $39,600 of new expense, plus the up front cost of about $50,000 for antennas, transmission line, equipment shelters, tower labor, receivers, voter, test, alignment, etc. Total cost to equip the fleet - $200,000. Due to the new monthly costs, I would be required to eliminate one technician, or do a big salary cut across all five of us in the radio department.

2. P25 conventional: No tower work, no voters, but more expensive gear - $290,000 to migrate. Not even a starter.

3. MotoTrbo - No tower work, no voters, total cost $160,000. Everyone keeps their job and same pay.

 

[iamhere300]

"MotoTrbo" is proprietary, I believe. Motorola would have to agree to scanner manufacturers producing that particular type of scanner.

!

MotoTrbo is DMR, and not proprietary.

If you add encryption, or some other features. then yes, it is proprietary. The only reason to turn encryption on is to make it proprietary.

Hytera and Tait radios can talk to Mototrbo.

 

[iamhere300]

Exactly. Narrowband has a less forgiving signal-to-noise ratio. We had an engineering study done, and it showed the transition from wideband to narrowband would result in the equivalent of a 3dB signal loss, creating a lot of new dead zones. On the flip side, P25 and Trbo had a very good Bit Error Rate and resulted in the equivalent of a 3dB improvement over our wideband system. With the engineering data out of the way, it was a business decision:

1. Narrowband Analog: Less expensive mobiles and portables, but would need two voter sites. Cost for tower rent would be $2,100 per month, and the leased lines to connect the receivers to the voter would be $1,200 per month. Annualized out to $39,600 of new expense, plus the up front cost of about $50,000 for antennas, transmission line, equipment shelters, tower labor, receivers, voter, test, alignment, etc. Total cost to equip the fleet - $200,000. Due to the new monthly costs, I would be required to eliminate one technician, or do a big salary cut across all five of us in the radio department.

2. P25 conventional: No tower work, no voters, but more expensive gear - $290,000 to migrate. Not even a starter.

3. MotoTrbo - No tower work, no voters, total cost $160,000. Everyone keeps their job and same pay.

Can I ask, what is your per radio cost and per repeater cost going TRBO?

 

[kg9nn]

Can I ask, what is your per radio cost and per repeater cost going TRBO?

Repeater cost was around $7k, HTs with accessories $750, and mobiles with install around $1.3k

 

[SCPD]

MotoTRBO - Proprietary & sold to provide "secure" communications

"MotoTrbo" is proprietary, I believe. Motorola would have to agree to scanner manufacturers producing that particular type of scanner.

It is proprietary for a reason. It is a digital protocol designed, so others cannot monitor Mototrbo digital comms over a common radio or scanner system.

Motorola, as I have read, has sold numbers of their MotoTrbo radios / systems, to Public Safety Agencys for communications. This to help prevent the general public from "Listening in." Although there are ways to monitor MotoTrbo and other digital comms; monitoring over a common radio scanner for now, is not one of them, and would defeat the purpose of the original plan, and marketing of Motortrbo in the first place --- Private radio comms for public safety organizaions and businesses ; whom wish to have a "certain amount" of security for two way radio communications.

FF - Medic !!!

FF - Medic,

Yes, MotoTRBO is a proprietary form of DMR depending on which version of it is purchased, however so are other types of two-way radio protocols, such as General Electric's EDACS (now maintained by Harris), Kenwood's NEXEDGE and Motorola's SmartNet type systems, but this hasn't stopped scanner manufacturers from eventually making scanners available to monitor these type systems and others. If I remember correctly, back in the late 70's into the early 80's radio manufacturers (one in particular that I will not name) sold public safety agencies on the idea of migrating to the 800 MHz band from VHF and UHF because "the general public can't monitor your radio transmission because there aren't any scanners manufactured that can monitor this frequency range so citizens can't hear what your personnel are saying over the radio". Many agencies bought into this idea by spending millions of taxpayer dollars to make the transition only to find that within two to four years of doing so Bearcat released a scanner that would monitor VHF, UHF and 800 MHz conventional. Before long, scanners were available on the market that would scan proprietary technology like GE's EDAC and Motorola's Smartnet, so you could go down to your local Radio Shack store, Sears & Roebuck or J.C. Penny and buy one or you could order one from a company like Communications Electronics, Scanner World or other radio suppliers through a mail order catalog. Yep, call the company's phone number or mail in a snipping from a magazine to request one of their catalogs and wait for it to arrive in the mail then thumb through it to pick out the scanner or CB radio you wanted then save the dollars to get it. Once the funds were saved go down to the local store to purchase a money order then mail it in with the order form and in about two weeks your USPS mailman delivered your brand new Bearcat or Regency scanner to your door step (Remember those days guys?). I remember first hand because I ordered a Regency mobile scanner to mount in my 1979 Ford LTD II when I worked for the East Point/Fulton County 9-1-1 Communications Center. Came in extremely handy while listening to the frequencies each night while driving to work and made the transition at shift change much easier because I already knew about most of the calls being worked.

Now I realize for a scanner manufacturer to develop and sell a scanner that will monitor a "proprietary" type protocol probably takes a lot of negotiating and an agreement between a two-way radio manufacturer and the scanner manufacturer, plus a lot of money being paid to the two-way radio manufacturer for the "rights or authorization" for the scanner manufacturer to build and sell a scanner with particular protocols, but we all know demand for a product and money talk. My question to all of you is, since many public safety agencies are switching to MotoTRBO and there is or will be a huge demand by the general public to monitor this type protocol with money to be made by both Motorola and the scanner manufacturers what, if anything, would stop something like this from happening?

It happened with EDACS, LTR and SmartNet didn't it?

Think about it...

 

[JRayfield]

Since DMR (the over-the-air protocol that MOTOTRBO uses) is an open standard, then scanner manufacturers will have no trouble in getting the necessary licensing to produce DMR-compatible scanners (for conventional operation, not trunking, since as you point out, the Motorola trunking formats are proprietary). While P25 is an open standard, Motorola owns certain intellectual property rights to parts of the P25 standard, and so anyone who produces a P25 radio must obtain a license from Motorola to do so. But, part of P25 being an open standard involves Motorola being willing to license others (even competitors) in a 'fair and reasonable' manner. The same holds true for DMR.

So, actually, scanner manufacturers may find it easier to develop DMR-compatible scanners as compared to Smart-Net -compatible scanners, since Smart-Net is truly 'proprietary'.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM

FF - Medic,

Yes, MotoTRBO is a proprietary form of DMR depending on which version of it is purchased, however so are other types of two-way radio protocols, such as General Electric's EDACS (now maintained by Harris), Kenwood's NEXEDGE and Motorola's SmartNet type systems, but this hasn't stopped scanner manufacturers from eventually making scanners available to monitor these type systems and others. If I remember correctly, back in the late 70's into the early 80's radio manufacturers (one in particular that I will not name) sold public safety agencies on the idea of migrating to the 800 MHz band from VHF and UHF because "the general public can't monitor your radio transmission because there aren't any scanners manufactured that can monitor this frequency range so citizens can't hear what your personnel are saying over the radio". Many agencies bought into this idea by spending millions of taxpayer dollars to make the transition only to find that within two to four years of doing so Bearcat released a scanner that would monitor VHF, UHF and 800 MHz conventional. Before long, scanners were available on the market that would scan proprietary technology like GE's EDAC and Motorola's Smartnet, so you could go down to your local Radio Shack store, Sears & Roebuck or J.C. Penny and buy one or you could order one from a company like Communications Electronics, Scanner World or other radio suppliers through a mail order catalog. Yep, call the company's phone number or mail in a snipping from a magazine to request one of their catalogs and wait for it to arrive in the mail then thumb through it to pick out the scanner or CB radio you wanted then save the dollars to get it. Once the funds were saved go down to the local store to purchase a money order then mail it in with the order form and in about two weeks your USPS mailman delivered your brand new Bearcat or Regency scanner to your door step (Remember those days guys?). I remember first hand because I ordered a Regency mobile scanner to mount in my 1979 Ford LTD II when I worked for the East Point/Fulton County 9-1-1 Communications Center. Came in extremely handy while listening to the frequencies each night while driving to work and made the transition at shift change much easier because I already knew about most of the calls being worked.

Now I realize for a scanner manufacturer to develop and sell a scanner that will monitor a "proprietary" type protocol probably takes a lot of negotiating and an agreement between a two-way radio manufacturer and the scanner manufacturer, plus a lot of money being paid to the two-way radio manufacturer for the "rights or authorization" for the scanner manufacturer to build and sell a scanner with particular protocols, but we all know demand for a product and money talk. My question to all of you is, since many public safety agencies are switching to MotoTRBO and there is or will be a huge demand by the general public to monitor this type protocol with money to be made by both Motorola and the scanner manufacturers what, if anything, would stop something like this from happening?

It happened with EDACS, LTR and SmartNet didn't it?

Think about it...

 

[JRayfield]

I've done a lot of on-the-air tests with MOTOTRBO, comparing it to wideband and narrowband analog. And I've spent many hours running computer coverage models and discussing all of this with Peter Moncure (one of the owners of Radiosoft, which has the leading computer propagation modeling software on the market (about 70% of the market)). Peter is one of, if not the best, rf engineers in the country. Peter told me that narrowband would suffer a 6 db loss as compared to wideband. However, depending upon the exact equipment used, a gain of 3db could be achieved in the narrowband receiver (with proper design). So, the 'net loss' of narrowband versus wideband would typically be 3db - exactly what your engineering study showed. The coverage models and the on-the-air comparisons that I've done have confirmed these kinds of numbers. And in some cases, where the narrowband receivers were not designed properly (such as some Midland radios that a nearby school was using), the loss was even more, on the order of as much as 8db as compared to wideband (this particular school's system was totally unusable in narrowband. They replaced it all with MOTOTRBO and increased their range considerably as compared to what they had with the old wideband system. This system is on UHF and is in an area of very rough terrain).

By the way, it's very refreshing to see comments from those who actually know something about this subject, and not just see the gripes and complaints from those who think that everyone should either stay on analog narrowband or switch to P25.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM

Exactly. Narrowband has a less forgiving signal-to-noise ratio. We had an engineering study done, and it showed the transition from wideband to narrowband would result in the equivalent of a 3dB signal loss, creating a lot of new dead zones. On the flip side, P25 and Trbo had a very good Bit Error Rate and resulted in the equivalent of a 3dB improvement over our wideband system. With the engineering data out of the way, it was a business decision:

1. Narrowband Analog: Less expensive mobiles and portables, but would need two voter sites. Cost for tower rent would be $2,100 per month, and the leased lines to connect the receivers to the voter would be $1,200 per month. Annualized out to $39,600 of new expense, plus the up front cost of about $50,000 for antennas, transmission line, equipment shelters, tower labor, receivers, voter, test, alignment, etc. Total cost to equip the fleet - $200,000. Due to the new monthly costs, I would be required to eliminate one technician, or do a big salary cut across all five of us in the radio department.

2. P25 conventional: No tower work, no voters, but more expensive gear - $290,000 to migrate. Not even a starter.

3. MotoTrbo - No tower work, no voters, total cost $160,000. Everyone keeps their job and same pay.

 

[JRayfield]

MOTOTRBO works extremely well in rough terrain. It easily outperforms narrowband analog in such areas. I'm speaking from personal experience.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM

Here, the counties like to throw a SPeciaL OPerating Tax at us, or SPLOST. It is also amazing how the batwing sales group in N GA can wheel and deal the unknowing politicians into purchasing a load of cow manure. I truly believe there are going to be a ton of operating issues with the new radios in Habersham and Rabun. The N GA mountains will play havoc with the signals. Especially when they go to tighter specs on transmissions. White is having their own issues with Mototrbo.
Larry

 

[JRayfield]

Where did you get your information, that "Dealers who do make these kind of sales all the time are not held in high regard."? Did someone from Motorola tell you that? Or is that just your 'opinion'?

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
W0PM

For what it is worth, Motorola Direct contacts in our area do not encourage MotorTurbo for use by Public Safety accounts. There can be some issues in grant funding and interoperability. Dealers who do make these kind of sales all the time are not held in high regard. That being said, funding is always an issue and sometimes compromises are made.
Some of those MotoTurbo radios are great analog radios too.

 

[bat504]

Face to face meetings with Motorola contacts. Again- that may not be the same in all territories. It was just my experience.