10 Years on ARMER already? time for new radios...

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mmtstc

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Just an FYI to those of you who use control channel decoding software like UniTrunker or Trunk88: It has been 10 years already that Hennepin County has been on ARMER, and as such, they are replacing much of their portable radio fleet of XTS5000's and migrating to APX6000 and 7000 portable radios.

For example, the specific radio ID you have logged for a Hennepin County Sheriff deputy, will no longer be that same radio ID once they get their new radios and I assume that as all agencies that get their radios serviced by the Hennepin County tower get them replaced over the next year or two, you will see a lot of changes.

Mobile radios were installed about a year or two later and will also be replaced on the 10 year cycle, so they will also be coming down the line. I am not sure if they are going to continue replacing their ASTRO Spectras with XTL2500's like they have been doing over the past 4 years, or if they will migrate to the APX Mobile radio series.

The XTS series of radios will be discontinued in 2015, so everyone will have to be migrating to APX or whatever flavor or radio they decide to go with at the time. One of the features of the APX radios is that they support Project 25 Phase II, which is a TDMA (versus Phase I's FDMA) based system that uses a 6.25 khz bandwidth, which would effectively double the capacity of ARMER, but at current, ARMER has plenty of growth before they run out of 800 MHz pairs in my understanding.

As a side note to criminals, these new radios are smaller, 1/2 the weight and the audio quality is noticeably superior to their XTS predecessors, so expect less success in the future. I've been using an APX6000 for about a week now, and they are amazing!
 

n9upc

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If they are going to replace the radio with a new one why would they also replace the ID's? Even with the 7.9 upgrade they still have ID capacity issues. Not to also mention that most agencies are assigned a block of ID's and unless they can show they have to add more ID's, which could result in a participation plan change, they may not be able to get more.

Now if you mean that they will recycle radio ID's for programming that would make more sense then saying they will be getting rid of ID's 100% never to be used again.
 

KD0NDO

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What will they do with all of the old radio equipment?
 

REDave

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What will they do with all of the old radio equipment?

I'm going to guess that they will sell them in lots, auction or recycle them.
 

northscan23

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I would imagine that eventually Minnesota public safety agencies will migrate to the Phase 2 technology in a few years. The Phase II radios I believe can not be monitored by any scanner at this time. But once it becomes more commonly used, I would guess te Radio shack will come out with a scanner that can follow the new system. The prices for the new scanners will be higher.
 
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kb0nly

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Motorola is running a trade-in special on all the old equipment that a lot of people are replacing so I am venturing to say that most are going to the moto grave yard

Everything i have seen pulled so far went to state surplus... To be auctioned at a later date.
 
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kb0nly

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I would imagine that eventually Minnesota public safety agencies will migrate to the Phase 2 technology in a few years. The Phase II radios I believe can not be monitored by any scanner at this time. But once it becomes more commonly used, I would guess te Radio shack will come out with a scanner that can follow the new system. The prices for the new scanners will be higher.

I doubt it.... They don't even have the system done yet, its being scrutinized for budget concerns, overdue construction schedules, and the cost to the counties involved. I am sure some day an upgrade might be necessary, but i don't forsee it for YEARS... The money isn't there. Down here in SW MN we aren't even on ARMER yet, the system hasn't been built for most of these counties.
 

WX0BPR

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I doubt it.... They don't even have the system done yet, its being scrutinized for budget concerns, overdue construction schedules, and the cost to the counties involved. I am sure some day an upgrade might be necessary, but i don't forsee it for YEARS... The money isn't there. Down here in SW MN we aren't even on ARMER yet, the system hasn't been built for most of these counties.

Keywords in that which are good for us.... MONEY and YEARS...
 
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kb0nly

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How is that good for us though? Down here taxes went up to pay for the new radio system.
 

mmtstc

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Many of the counties that are migrating soon, are still planning on using the XTS portable platform, which does not support TDMA Phase II modulation, which Motorola will stop producing in 2014 i think, and stop supporting it like 8 years after that. Most agencies expect a 10 year service life for subscriber equipment, so i can not imagine it will be any less that 10 to 15 years before it becomes a phase II system.

I have never read anything about ARMER migrating in all of the ARMER documents i have read, and I have only heard anecdotely of it being mentioned once in a meeting.

moral of the story, Phase II is an elephant in the room, and that room is in SE Asia, far, far away from here.
 
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Many of the counties that are migrating soon, are still planning on using the XTS portable platform, which does not support TDMA Phase II modulation, which Motorola will stop producing in 2014 i think, and stop supporting it like 8 years after that. Most agencies expect a 10 year service life for subscriber equipment, so i can not imagine it will be any less that 10 to 15 years before it becomes a phase II system.

I have never read anything about ARMER migrating in all of the ARMER documents i have read, and I have only heard anecdotely of it being mentioned once in a meeting.

moral of the story, Phase II is an elephant in the room, and that room is in SE Asia, far, far away from here.

I would have to 2nd this notion as well. I have only heard it talked about one time in my time of being involved in this project.
 

mmtstc

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there are some test and production systems that run as a hybrid Phase I/Phase II, but if we haven't heard any reasonable amount of discussion, i suspect that even a hybrid is far away in a distant galaxy.
 
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