Struggling emergency radio projects could hamper plans for $16B nationwide system

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Stick0413

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This blog post outlines some of the problems that major radio system projects across the country have experienced, and how these problems could impact future large scale initiatives.

Struggling emergency radio projects could hamper plans for $16B nationwide system | Center for Investigative Reporting

Good article but it is somewhat misleading I think. It mentions STARS in Virginia about all the problems they are having. While yes they have experienced some problems they are being worked out. I know some users of the system both in person and members on this site and have not heard of the problems they state in that post. There will be problems with any huge system or any technological undertaking like that especially when you are rolling it out before it is complete. The only way to nip most of the problems in the butt before they are problems is to build out the system completely first and do extensive non emergency testing. This however is not practical in many cases so they have to work out the bugs as they go. As for P25 systems go with most cases once they have had the time to work out the bugs the systems work great.
 

DickH

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This blog post outlines some of the problems that major radio system projects across the country have experienced, and how these problems could impact future large scale initiatives....

Just as some banks and companies are "too big to fail", some of these massive projects are simply too big to work.
In my opinion many interoperability problems are caused by a lack of experience and training. The equipment, especially trunking systems, have the capability.
 

jim202

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I work every day in the "Radio Interoperability" field. In the travels around the country that are frequent, I
find that it is not the equipment and gateways that are the limiting factors. It is the politics.

There are still to this day agencies that have people working in the radio systems as some sort of a
manager that still haven't herd of the "National Interoperability Frequencies" that have been set aside
for incident mutual aid communications. How much does the government have to do and how many
trade magazine articles have to be published and how many trade shows or training seminars have to
be held before these people wake up and see the light?

Even some of the agencies that have obtained gateways through the CEDAP program from DHS
are not using them. They are boxed up with all the manuals, cables and in some cases even the
radios, only to be stuffed into a closet. They are forgotten for months or years. People leave the
agencies and are replaced by a new person. They dig through all the clutter in the closet and discover
this magic box in the corner.

Then you run into the stand that many department heads take and say I don't need any mutual aid
channels in my radios. If we have something big, all the other departments that come to help us will
use "OUR" channels. Don't know about you, but I have never been able to squeeze a rock and get
any water out of it.

My grandfather use to talk about his mule that would work all day long out in the field plowing it up
for planting. They would take a break for lunch and that mule would be led over to the water trough.
Do you think my grandfather could get that mule to take a drink? Not a chance. That old mule was
just like some of these agency heads. Until they are ready for a change, it won't happen.

The author of the linked article may have a number of facts skewed, but at least the intent was in
the right direction. Virginia may be working through the issues with the STARS program, but the
people there saw a problem with interoperability and started a program called "COMLINC". They
saw early on that the state police "STARS" system would never provide all the agencies in the state
the needed interoperability. They figured that there would never be enough money available to change
every agency in Virginia over to the "STARS" project. Plus there would never be enough frequencies
available to make it work with all the heavy traffic.

The Virginia COMLINC project was originiated in the Lynchburg and Roanonke region. Today it has
expanded to include some 70 locations around Virginia. These location are the normal 911 dispatch
centers in the counties that are currently included in the system. Additional county locations are
being added as the funds are made available. Eventually the state police radio techs will take over the
maintenance of the RIOS gateways in many of the locations.

Will a country wide first responder radio and data systems ever be a reality? I don't know. However,
I will say that it is crazy to think that putting the entire country on the 700 band will solve all the
problems. That would require just an absurd number of sites to cover the entire country with a 95%
coverage. There is way too much open area in the middle of the country where a 700 band site is
too expensive to even consider. The range coverage is so low, that the number of sites goes way
up for regions where no one lives. Even along areas of the east coast, you will have trouble with
site coverages and no one lives there or that there is even a source of commercial power to run
the site on.

I could go on for a long time on the poor thought out planning that this country has done and is still
doing on radio systems. You think the federal government is doing any better in trying to come up
with a holy grail radio system for the first responders? It might help if they had a few people that
knew what radio propagation was all about and how to build radio sites. Until that happens, the
feds are just pouring our hard earned tax money down the bit bucket.

Jim




Just as some banks and companies are "too big to fail", some of these massive projects are simply too big to work.
In my opinion many interoperability problems are caused by a lack of experience and training. The equipment, especially trunking systems, have the capability.
 
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DickH

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Messages
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I work every day in the "Radio Interoperability" field. In the travels around the country that are frequent, I
find that it is not the equipment and gateways that are the limiting factors. It is the politics.

There are still to this day agencies that have people working in the radio systems as some sort of a
manager that still haven't herd of the "National Interoperability Frequencies" that have been set aside
for incident mutual aid communications. How much does the government have to do and how many
trade magazine articles have to be published and how many trade shows or training seminars have to
be held before these people wake up and see the light?

Even some of the agencies that have obtained gateways through the CEDAP program from DHS
are not using them. They are boxed up with all the manuals, cables and in some cases even the
radios, only to be stuffed into a closet. They are forgotten for months or years. People leave the
agencies and are replaced by a new person. They dig through all the clutter in the closet and discover
this magic box in the corner.

Then you run into the stand that many department heads take and say I don't need any mutual aid
channels in my radios. If we have something big, all the other departments that come to help us will
use "OUR" channels. Don't know about you, but I have never been able to squeeze a rock and get
any water out of it.

My grandfather use to talk about his mule that would work all day long out in the field plowing it up
for planting. They would take a break for lunch and that mule would be led over to the water trough.
Do you think my grandfather could get that mule to take a drink? Not a chance. That old mule was
just like some of these agency heads. Until they are ready for a change, it won't happen.

The author of the linked article may have a number of facts skewed, but at least the intent was in
the right direction. Virginia may be working through the issues with the STARS program, but the
people there saw a problem with interoperability and started a program called "COMLINC". They
saw early on that the state police "STARS" system would never provide all the agencies in the state
the needed interoperability. They figured that there would never be enough money available to change
every agency in Virginia over to the "STARS" project. Plus there would never be enough frequencies
available to make it work with all the heavy traffic.

The Virginia COMLINC project was originiated in the Lynchburg and Roanonke region. Today it has
expanded to include some 70 locations around Virginia. These location are the normal 911 dispatch
centers in the counties that are currently included in the system. Additional county locations are
being added as the funds are made available. Eventually the state police radio techs will take over the
maintenance of the RIOS gateways in many of the locations.

Will a country wide first responder radio and data systems ever be a reality? I don't know. However,
I will say that it is crazy to think that putting the entire country on the 700 band will solve all the
problems. That would require just an absurd number of sites to cover the entire country with a 95%
coverage. There is way too much open area in the middle of the country where a 700 band site is
too expensive to even consider. The range coverage is so low, that the number of sites goes way
up for regions where no one lives. Even along areas of the east coast, you will have trouble with
site coverages and no one lives there or that there is even a source of commercial power to run
the site on.

I could go on for a long time on the poor thought out planning that this country has done and is still
doing on radio systems. You think the federal government is doing any better in trying to come up
with a holy grail radio system for the first responders? It might help if they had a few people that
knew what radio propagation was all about and how to build radio sites. Until that happens, the
feds are just pouring our hard earned tax money down the bit bucket.

Jim

Right on Jim ! I should have added politics and lack of education to my observations.

We are very fortunate here in the Portland, OR area, because in the '90s when they started the migration to a Motorola trunking system, the 4 contiguous counties apparently got together and did a thorough planning job.
I only know what channels (Talk Groups) are in our Fire radios, but I assume all the other Public Safety agencies have similar setups. All the fire departments in the 4 counties have most of the other's talk groups, PLUS, 5 Simplex frequencies (non-trunked) for use in difficult places such as hi-rise buildings, etc. We have the 5 national freqs., 5 Oregon interop. freqs. and 5 Wash. state interop. freqs. We also have talk groups for all the city police precincts as well as State police, county Sheriff, airport, etc., etc.
The fire talk groups are used between counties nearly every day for mutual aid runs. And since they are used so often it is just second nature to switch to the right talk group when responding. That's education and training in action. :)
 

N4DES

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Then you have issues where state's give up their ability to deploy and maintain a state-wide system (like Florida's SLERS) that is based on proprietary codec and have little ability of a non-user agency getting connectivity without a very complicated bridge or an agreement that just about requests your first born.

With the current economic situation we may find this to be happening more often just to satisfy the bean counters who don't understand the technology and rather write one multi-million dollar check to the sole system provider and call it a day.
 

jim202

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New Orleans region
I am not sure who you directed your comment to. My position is that many if not most states have not
been strong enough to get all agencies in their state to implement the use of the "National
Interoperability" radio channels in their mobile and portable radios. These are basically a freebee
radio channel to allow off loading of an incident radio traffic from a daily operational channel. This
way the normal radio channel is available for the regular traffic. No one has to fight to get air time.

There are a number of reasons of this push back on the use of the "National Interoperability" radio
channels. Most of them are political. We can't fix stupid, but we can provide the technology to
solve the communications problems between non compatible radio systems. This has been proven
over and over with the use of gateway interop systems.

There are some good gateways and then there are some that are not very user friendly. The results
will vary from agency to agency in the way that gateways are used and by what operators. Not
everyone is a radio inclined person that understands how a gateway functions.

Jim




Then you have issues where state's give up their ability to deploy and maintain a state-wide system (like Florida's SLERS) that is based on proprietary codec and have little ability of a non-user agency getting connectivity without a very complicated bridge or an agreement that just about requests your first born.

With the current economic situation we may find this to be happening more often just to satisfy the bean counters who don't understand the technology and rather write one multi-million dollar check to the sole system provider and call it a day.
 
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SuperFudd

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Any thoughts on how reliable trunked systems will be after a monster huricane or quake?
Is the equipment hardened to survive an EMP or major solar storm?

Don
KC6IPO
 

Stick0413

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Any thoughts on how reliable trunked systems will be after a monster huricane or quake?
Is the equipment hardened to survive an EMP or major solar storm?

Don
KC6IPO

Well in the case of a hurricane or quake they can roll out mobile sites quickly I would assume.
 

SuperFudd

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Mobile sites?
Hmmm...
First there would have to be mobile sites, probably at least as many as stationary ones. Then those "sites" would need passible roads to get to where they need to be. Oh yes, and personel to move, set up and maintain them in the field.
I think not.

The systems can be hardened. Military equipment is. I would bet most, even all, trunked systems are not.

Don KC6IPO
 

jim202

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I take it you didn't pay much attention to what went on right after hurricane katrina. I use to work for one of the cellular companies in the New Orleans area. It doesn't take that much effort to roll in a COW (Cell on wheels), set it up and your on the air. There were a bunch of them brought in to provide temp service in the areas where a tower was taken out.

It doesn't take that much time for a front end loader to shove the trees off the road for a first pass through. Might take a week or so to get the trees cut up and the road opened up to a double lane, Been there and done that on many a time. Normally the local public works has made a first pass through even before any of the backup comm equipment arrives.

You would be surprised at just how organized the radio industry is for a major storm. Between the sat phones and the command vehicles with the sat dishes on them, it doesn't take any time to roll in and be on the air.

Fuel is the biggest problem and the national Guard will bring that in with them. Just make sure your vehicle takes diesel and not regular gas. There were lines a mile long with people waiting to try and get the 10 gallon ration. Most of the stations that could get fuel and a generator to open had to get a cop or the National Guard to keep peace in the lines.

As for FEMA, they can stay home. The ding bats that they sent down for Katrina, didn't have a clue what they were doing. I saw them try and take a fuel truck away from a parish bringing fuel in for their own use. The FEMA person walked up to the truck driver and told him he was taking the truck and fuel. About that time an armed sheriff walked up and asked what the problem was and why wasn't the truck moving on. He heard what the FEMA person said and told the guy that he had 2 choices. He could either step back away from the truck or he could get shot where he stood. That truck was going to the parish public works compound whether he liked it or not. Being a little on the smart side, the FEMA person stepped back and the truck went on it's way.

Next time there is a major storm that hits an area, step up and volunteer your services. It will be an experience you will never forget. There will be a number of people that live there that will be grateful for your effort and time you put in.

You mentioned hardening of a site. Well I guess you will have to define your position. If you mean can they take a direct lightning strike, the answer is yes. I have seen it happen. The tower will steam in the rain from being heated up with the high current that went through it. Checking on the equipment, it generally survives. It does take a good grounding system and a good surge protection system. No one thing by itself will do the job. This includes surge suppression on the power feed, the telephone feeds and the coax cables. All the racks and cable trays are grounded together. All the coax cables are grounded several times. It starts at the antenna, the middle of the tower, at the base of the tower where the cox makes the right angle bend to go to the shelter and last place is the entrance to the shelter.

If your talking about an EMP from an atomic blast, then I guess it won't survive. Not much else will either. So why worry about it.

Jim



Mobile sites?
Hmmm...
First there would have to be mobile sites, probably at least as many as stationary ones. Then those "sites" would need passible roads to get to where they need to be. Oh yes, and personel to move, set up and maintain them in the field.
I think not.

The systems can be hardened. Military equipment is. I would bet most, even all, trunked systems are not.

Don KC6IPO
 
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SuperFudd

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Hi Jim,

All you said about storms sounds very true. I had based my doubts on monitoring of a chain of comercial radio stations based in Jackson Mississippi via the internet for several days starting as Katrina came ashore. It took several days to get the main hyways cleared of dense piles of trees. But then, as you pointed out, that was to have them completely cleared to civilian traffic. Still, I suspect it was very difficult moving emergency equipment and suplies around for a day or two. I recall something about a HAM station near Hattiesburg reporting how food supplies were running low and the residents were getting rowdy as a result. I supose now that it may not have been because Hattiesburg was still cut off from supplies but rather that supplies were not yet available to send.
Still a great many mobile trunked system sites would be needed and they would need to be moved to useful locations and that could take awhile. I suspect Mississippi was not trunked when Katrina hit.
By the way, I understand that FEMA was much more effective in Mississippi than in Louisiana, inspite of the fact that Mississippi was hit much harder, because state and local government worked with FEMA rather than against it.
As for EMP I am concerned with an EMP attack, a nuclear blast just above the atmosphere doing little or no physical or radiation damage on the surface. However it would be expected to destroy most electronics not hardened. This includes vast parts of the electrical grid, the internet, radio, phone and cell systems. It might also disabile most post 1980 vintage cars and trucks. I suspect a solar storm from hell might have the same results only over a much larger area. I suspect most military electronics and systems are hardened but what about police and fire trunked systems, including any mobile backups?
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area we are most concerned with a monster quake. Many including some friends in our police and fire departments fear our county wide trunked system would be useless. Even if it was not damaged, it would be overloaded. For this reason our trunked PD has come up with an excuse to keep the old radio system operational. Also they have asked some of our local HAMs including myself to become a volunteer communications auxilary.

Don
 

SuperFudd

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Allow me to respond to myself. I came across this today from the English Daily Telegraph.

Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation - Telegraph

If the link doesn't work, it reads in part:
Nasa warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation
Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.
National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
 

mancow

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I don't understand where the sudden solar doomsday stuff is coming from and why. Anyone who has followed cycle 24 knows that it is just barely trying to start up from a deep minimum and most solar scientists predict it will be a very weak cycle.
 

DickH

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Struggling emergency radio projects could hamper plans for $16B nationwide system ...

I'd like to see the whole idea abandoned. Those billions of $ could be much better spent.
 

mancow

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Wrong thread, was supposed to be a reply to the Solar Cycle 24 thread.
I blame it on trying to post from my phone. :roll:


I don't understand where the sudden solar doomsday stuff is coming from and why. Anyone who has followed cycle 24 knows that it is just barely trying to start up from a deep minimum and most solar scientists predict it will be a very weak cycle.
 

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Struggling emergency radio projects could hamper plans for $16B nationwide system ...

I'd like to see the whole idea abandoned. Those billions of $ could be much better spent.



With the problems some states are/have had getting a state wide system working I just do not think that there is a snowballs chance in h**l that Harris/Motorola/EADS/Tait/Icom/Kenwood/Vertex/any other company would be able to get a nationwide system to work, never mind come in at or under a buget of $16 Billion. look at some of these systems and what they have cost half a billion here 2 billion there and these are individual states at this price now multiply that by 50. Seems to me that $16billion is a bit of a lowball figure. never mind figuring out where in the RF spectrum to put it... say 800Mhz how many site is that going to take to deliver 95% mobile coverage nevermind 95% on-belt handheld coverage. Of course if you leave it up to some dumb-a** politician to decide then it will cost 150% more
 

DickH

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With the problems some states are/have had getting a state wide system working I just do not think that there is a snowballs chance in h**l that Harris/Motorola/EADS/Tait/Icom/Kenwood/Vertex/any other company would be able to get a nationwide system to work, never mind come in at or under a buget of $16 Billion. look at some of these systems and what they have cost half a billion here 2 billion there and these are individual states at this price now multiply that by 50. Seems to me that $16billion is a bit of a lowball figure. never mind figuring out where in the RF spectrum to put it... say 800Mhz how many site is that going to take to deliver 95% mobile coverage nevermind 95% on-belt handheld coverage. Of course if you leave it up to some dumb-a** politician to decide then it will cost 150% more

Sure, but wouldn't it be great for Charlie on San Diego Engine 18 to be able to pick up his mic and talk to Larry on Boston Engine 55? LOL
 
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