Motoroal Passport

[wribbs]

I realize this may not be the correct forum to post this question in, but.....

I am considering buying a Motorola Passport system for my company. It will be a four site 5 channel system talking to about 60 mobiles. Does anyone know of any sites that I can read where people have had good or bad experiences with the Motorola's Passport system? Does anyone have any experience using this system? Are there other companies other than Motorola that make mobiles for Passport? Any information anyone can provide would be greatly appreciated.

[KS4VT]

I believe the Passport, like their lastest offering Mototrbo(sp) would be a sole source purchasing of the end user devices vs LTR that is an open format with multiple manufacturers building equipment.

When I was putting in my HOA radio system I investigated the second of the two and while the initial offering was pretty good (free repeater with the purchase of 30 radios) they would be locked into $1,100+ per radio to add to the fleet. I ended up just putting in a conventional system and future radio purchases are now 1/3 the Mototrbo price.

[fwradio]

Passport is NOT a Motorola product. The system is sold by Motorola and produced by Trident Microsystems. You can by a Passport system and radios from almost any manufacturer.

As for the cost, to operate just 60 radios on 4 sites, you are looking at spending around $250K, unless you go Motorola, then expect around $300. The radios aren't the most expensive part, although Motorola Passport radios do cost about 1.5 times any other manufacturer.

The system itself will cost an arm and a leg. And just wait until it breaks. If you don't have a tech support contract with Trident and your equipment is out of warranty it will cost your first born to get them to answer the phone.

[slicerwizard]

Originally Posted by wribbs

I am considering buying a Motorola Passport system for my company.

Ouch. Buying from Motorola just adds cost without adding much in the way of service or support.
Far better to go to the source: http://www.tridentms.com/passport.htm

It will be a four site 5 channel system talking to about 60 mobiles.

As noted, that's a lot of money for 60 mobiles. Even moreso when you add in a spare master card plus a few spare T1 and channel cards, spare microwave gear, etc.

Does anyone know of any sites that I can read where people have had good or bad experiences with the Motorola's Passport system?

Hm, I can't connect to www.PassPortsucks.com, so I guess not...

Good: cheaper than SmartZone

Bad: slow roaming; portables don't work very well; easy to double up on PTT (just like LTR); easy for a troublemaker to stun valid users

Does anyone have any experience using this system?

Oh yeah, we're out there.

Are there other companies other than Motorola that make mobiles for Passport?

Yep. Stay away from the Motorola gear and check out Icom or Kenwood instead.

[KS4VT]

Originally Posted by fwradio

Passport is NOT a Motorola product. The system is sold by Motorola and produced by Trident Microsystems. You can by a Passport system and radios from almost any manufacturer.

OK I stand corrected....

[fwradio]

Originally Posted by slicerwizard

Hm, I can't connect to www.PassPortsucks.com, so I guess not...

That's mean (to me). For a second I thought it was a real site. I have all kinds of bad things to say about Passport. (and I own 3 sites worth of the junk)

[wribbs]

Originally Posted by fwradio

That's mean (to me). For a second I thought it was a real site. I have all kinds of bad things to say about Passport. (and I own 3 sites worth of the junk)

What version of Passport do you have and how long have you had it? What are some of things wrong with it that you don't like?

[fwradio]

Originally Posted by wribbs

What version of Passport do you have and how long have you had it? What are some of things wrong with it that you don't like?

Where to start. I've had it since 2001. We started with v1.3 I believe, and upgraded to 2.2, 2.4, and now 2.8.

The biggest technical issue I have is that one of my sites goes into a failure mode where all of the channels unsquelch. With all of the money put into the development of NTS, they didn't put any gate between the RX input and the TX output. When the NTS sends out an idle message, the unsquelch RX audio (white noise) goes with it. The radios cannot decode the subaudible data, and assume that there is nothing there. The site "disappears" as far as the radios are concerned. A cold start fixes the problem for 12-24 hours (yes, I have to send a tech out every day).

On the expansion side... the system costs way too much to expand. You can only put so many customers on it before you need more channels. Trident Microsystems must think that every SMR operator in the country has the kind of revenue stream that PCS companies have. They charge more than $10,000 for a card that controls 2 channels.

We started talking with TMS in 1997 about putting up Passport. They promised so many features that just weren't available in the current version, but would be in future software versions. When they came out, they wanted big bucks for these software-enabled features that were dangled in front of us 4-5 years earlier as bait.

Good thing that there is a lot of new stuff out there. I'm currently ignoring our Passport network and looking at replacing about 120 LTR controllers with networked LTR controllers. The cost on that is less than the cost of 2 Passport sites with 4 channels.