NJSP Digital?

[ScannerGuys]

Has anybody heard when NJSP will go full digital? Also has anybody noticed that certain troop cars don't have any mobile 800mhz radios installed in the cruisers? Especially in the cars near Maurice River area and Bridgeton's areas...they just seem to use the portable radios on their belt...around RT. 47 areas and RT. 347, on 800mhz down there in all those trees that soak up the signal badly, you would assume those portable radios would not work at all?

 

[CaptDan]

This trend was started in Savannah, Ga several years ago. They wanted the radio system to be portable based so a portable radio would work anywhere in the county - so a trade off to pay for the improvements to make the system more effective and they wanted to issue each and every officer his/her own portable radio - they eliminated the installation of mobile radios.

Mobile radio's and the installation cost can be very expensive when you look at an agency with hundreds of vehicles.

Trenton NJ Police tried this in 1972 when they first switched from low band to UHF radios. All of the unmarked cars had a box called a convert-acom that the officers would drop their walkie talkie into - and it would charge and be connected to a roof top antenna, and a remote microphone. Technology just was not up to a necessary level to make it a successful program back then.

Today - a portable has almost as much capability as a hard installed mobile radio - so I see it as a cost saving measure - and maybe a space saving - so many other things need to be in the police cars today - MDT's GPS - cameras and recorders and on and on .

 

[Tech792]

Asbury Park police did this 20+ years ago.

 

[CaptDan]

Yes - Asbury Park did do that about 20 years ago - early 1990's - their Police or Public Safety Director was a retired Trenton Police Captain brought the idea with him.

I only mentioned Savannah and Trenton in my original post as they were sort of pioneers in each phase of it.

Savannah was one of - if not the first - to eliminate a mobile radio being installed in their marked patrol units.

Trenton - which has always been advanced in radio technology was one of the first to use the Motorola converta-com in the very early 70's - I believe Trenton was a beta test site for the converta-coms in the 70's just as it was for the Motorola digital trunking in the early 90's.

 

[kennyloatman]

Are you sure they all don't have car radios? I just heard a couple days ago the dispatcher tell a Bridgeton trooper his portable was unreadable, to try his car radio. Plus I haven't seen any new cars in this area yet , but I would think if they were going to start something like that it would be with the new cursers. Too many dead spots around here as it is to just rely on portables. I believe most of the cars also have the 700 mhz radio installed. Have not seen a car without multiple antennas either.

 

[njemt7212]

Most of their fleet is outfitted with the motorola siren (so one would assume that most if not all have mobile radios) and others have the whelen b-link sirens minus the super undercover or admin cars , I would say that all are going to have mobile radios installed. The only thing I have been seeing is that some cars are coming without SPEN radios in them

 

[nosoup4u]

Something I have noticed when radio repair has been doing radio checks. For example, if they were doing a radio check on a mobile radio with an ID of 42159, you would hear the dispatcher say Radio 228M (Car # 228,M for Mobile). When they are doing radio checks for radios in 15xxx range, they just come back and say radio 0015xxx.