Cumberland County - HARRIS RF COM - OpenSky System

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brey1234

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A tentative date for transition to 800 MHz for Fire and EMS was announced at the radio transition committee meeting of June 5. Tuesday July 24 is being targeted as the go-live date for the services. This date is dependant on acceptance by the Commonwealth of PA of corrective code for the Release 6 portable problem involving reverse channel roaming. The transition committee will decide formally on the July 24 go-live date at their next meeting scheduled for July 10.

http://www.ccpa.net/cumberland/cwp/view.asp?A=1134&Q=536112
 

brey1234

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More Ma/com Radio Woes

Just a day before an expected decision by Cumberland County to go to a different radio system, Shippensburg Police are concerned that the system will fail their area, specifically.
A federal homeland security initiative coming out of 9-11 was to get all emergency responders on radio equipment that can hear and talk to each other. From sheriffs and state police to road maintenance crews and firemen, the goal is, in an emergency, that everyone can hear, find and respond with everyone else.
Shippensburg Police is already on that system and found that in their area of coverage, the radios do not communicate five percent of the time.
The Cumberland County Transition Committee will decide Tuesday whether to implement a new radio system for the county's fire and emergency medical service departments. If approved, all emergency personnel in Cumberland County would transition to the Open Sky 800-megahertz system by July 24.
http://www.publicopiniononline.com/localnews/ci_6329634
 

ctrabs74

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It sure will be a busy day, as those who live in Cumberland County who own scanners will probably be flooding EBay. What's the point of owning a scanner in South Central Pa if there's going to be virtually nothing to monitor on the public safety side?
 

chankel

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According to the information in the RR database, Cumberland County has included VHF-low patches in their new communications plan. This isn't as good as being able to fully monitor the system, as anyone who lives in Chester Co knows - the patches might only repeat the dispatcher side of comms. It may be that Cumberland Co will decide the OpenSky system is not to their liking and seek another means of communication, but I suspect that the county administrators will feel a need to save face and stick with it as Pennsylvania has done with the statewide system.
 

HM1529

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chankel said:
According to the information in the RR database, Cumberland County has included VHF-low patches in their new communications plan. This isn't as good as being able to fully monitor the system, as anyone who lives in Chester Co knows - the patches might only repeat the dispatcher side of comms. It may be that Cumberland Co will decide the OpenSky system is not to their liking and seek another means of communication, but I suspect that the county administrators will feel a need to save face and stick with it as Pennsylvania has done with the statewide system.

The two VHF lowband channels are former Cumberland Co fire channels. They have been set up as interops channels for fire companies from surrounding counties where lowband is still in use.
 

scan-pa

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The System is ready to go.

10am Tuesday, the switch will be made.


Best of Luck to all involved.
 

hosehead88

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Fingers are crossed...

Profiles are loaded...

We are as ready as we can be on the user side (at least at my department).

I will offer some feedback after the next few days...

Of course, after a busy first 6 months of the year, in the last week we have had almost no calls, so it may be a while before we actually get to use them operationally...LOL
 

hosehead88

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12 hours+ in and all is well.

Calls have been run all over the County today, and I have not yet heard any negative feedback.
 

scan-pa

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Dispatcher Audio is very high, but other then that, it seems to be going ok, only other thing was a few units in the field seam to forget which radio to use.
 

voltmaster

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First major 800 test.

Major storms hit Cumberland County last night and the new 800Mhz radio system was put to the test. Some good points I heard were Communication between Police, Fire, Ems, and Borough/Township was very good. The only trouble I heard was when heavy rain was falling in an area the radios had trouble transmitting. The radios activated the cell but the voice was garbled and could not be recognizanced.
 

brey1234

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more problems

Two years after Cumberland County's OpenSky 800 MHz radio system was installed, police departments are still reporting kinks in the system that need to be ironed out.

Middlesex Township police Chief Barry Sherman was ambivalent toward the new radios during last Friday's township supervisors meeting, but he was obviously tired of having to deal with the radio issue any longer.

“It works 100 percent of the time in other places, but we can't get it to work in Country Manor (Estates), and that's about 60 percent of our calls,” Sherman said.

The dead zone area, Country Manor mobile home park, is not only a high traffic area for police but also a dangerous area for officers who find themselves unable to reach county dispatch during an arrest, he said.

“We've already had two incidents where our officers have been under fire and were not able to use the radio,” Supervisor Victor Stabile said. “I don't want one of our officers dying when we know, and the county knows, that this area has a high problem rate and the radio doesn't reach it.
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/07/31/news/news847.txt
 

bauker

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Well?

It has been several weeks now. Any Fire Dept users out there care to comment on how the system is working? Usually no news is good news. I am only looking for feedback from users, not opinions from the know-it-alls.
 

scan-pa

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It is working good. A few people have portable problems, but most is operator error.
 

hosehead88

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I have been using my portable for over a year, and I am having no issues since we went live. Like any radio, there are still spots where signal is weak, but all of our incidents have been free of major problems.

I have been on a few where the 800 radios worked and the low band did not...

So far so good. We have not had a chance to fire up the VTAC repeaters, so I will let you know how that works...
 

brey1234

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Nextel Qrm In Cumberland Co

CARLISLE (Nov. 2, 2007) Cumberland County Commissioners today announced that all portable radios and accessories in use by first responders will be replaced and mobile radio software upgraded at no cost to the taxpayer as part of a national effort to eliminate radio interference by Sprint/Nextel cellular communications traffic.
The County will receive approximately $6 million in upgrades or replacement units that operate on 800 MHz band OpenSky system that was designed and installed by M/A-COM.
http://www.centralpennbusiness.com/view_release.asp?aID=827
 
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