Abandoned Motorola Headquarters

[mmckenna]

Why do many large projects still use them?

There's a saying that goes something like "No one ever got fired for picking Motorola or Cisco".

A lot of it comes down to brand name recognition. A lot of it comes down to someone at the Chief level making the decision what product to go with and ignoring competitive bidding/purchasing rules.

Motorola and some other large companies are known to 'wine and dine' the top level to sway opinion.

And then there's the "sue the crap out of them if we don't get handed the project".

Are they going to figure it out before they drive themselves into the ground?

Some think they already have.

Why hasn't the rest of the radio industry made anything as visually appealing as an APX/XPR? Who is best positioned to challenge M?

Depends on who you talk to. Some like the APX design. Some do not. I don't particularly like it. Now jump back to the Jedi line, and we might be able to come to an agreement.

There's a number of companies that are probably well positioned. It's not like Motorola has a monopoly. They do have some serious competition.

 

[mmckenna]

A thought has occurred to me: Hytera!
They actually do have end to end solutions just like Motorola. Not sure how good they are but they've got CAD, body cams, pttoc and incident management software

Hytera has some nice products.

 

[mmckenna]

Here's a URL of Harris suing a customer because EF Johnson won a bid a few months ago.....

Harris sues Frederick County Virgnia

Spoiler alert : Harris lost the case.

No doubt. Harris and Motorola have been playing this game for quite a while. Look at what happened in Florida, and don't forget the whole Dailey-Wells Charlie Foxtrot.

I'm working on planning out a large multi-million dollar project right now, and looking at the issues we'll run into depending on who wins the bid is something we have to consider. Knowing that the whole mess would get tied up in court for a year or so is something we have to consider. It's why having a purchasing professional on staff is a valuable investment. The hoops we have to jump through are absolutely insane, but it's to protect us if two bidders get in a pissing match because one of them didn't win.

 

[ElroyJetson]

A lot of the suits brought against states, counties, or cities due to the other company winning the bid were based on the contract being written to clearly favor one vendor over another. And a public safety contract should be written to be totally neutral in that respect.

Motorola sued the State of FL and backed out of the contract they WON because they found the booby trap: The buried "state may terminate for convenience" clause. Not for CAUSE, not for failure to perform or meet progress schedules, but for CONVENIENCE. Which means "You won but we can make you build out the sites and then give it all to your competitor" and I suspect that would have happened.

Contracts have been written to require equipment that one vendor doesn't make. Such as when M/A-Com didn't offer a hand held control head option, the State of Fl contract stipulated that they must be offered. (Long ago, previous contract.) And it was written into the same contract, "radios shall not use ramp buttons for volume or channel select functions" when GE/whatever was using ramp buttons on their most common public safety radio types.

I'd like for there to be a process where all public safety contracts and proposals are run through an absolutely neutral consulting agency that is fully informed on the product lines, capabilities, equipment, and services of all vendors and ensures that the contract/proposal is written in a manner that makes sense, totally brand neutral, and written to specify a system that will work in engineering terms. To include regional terrain and infrastructure surveys so that the RF plan gives full coverage as called for by the needs of the agency.

Motorola claimed they could make the State of FL system work to coverage specs with about 30 fewer sites than the Harris proposal, stating that they could do it with "superior technology". But we know how that would work out. They'd have to add more sites after the fact, because RF is RF and neither Motorola nor Harris can break the laws of physics...though both are willing to break certain laws if they can make sure nobody notices for a while. Bidding for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions becomes a DIRTY business.

 

[AK9R]

...were based on the contract being written to clearly favor one vendor over another...

It's called "influencing the spec". When it comes to large contracts, it's the job of the various component and system vendors' sales staffs to get wording into the project specifications that favors the individual vendor's products. I came from a public/education/commercial construction world where it was standard practice for everybody from the HVAC controls guy to the floor tile guy to try to manipulate the spec to their favor. Once vendor-specific wording gets into the spec, the losing vendor can either move onto another project or fight the spec. That's when the lawyers come in.

 

[mmckenna]

I'd like for there to be a process where all public safety contracts and proposals are run through an absolutely neutral consulting agency that is fully informed on the product lines, capabilities, equipment, and services of all vendors and ensures that the contract/proposal is written in a manner that makes sense, totally brand neutral, and written to specify a system that will work in engineering terms. To include regional terrain and infrastructure surveys so that the RF plan gives full coverage as called for by the needs of the agency.

I'm attempting to do this. We'll see how it goes. If it works, I know our officers won't be carrying APX radios just based off costs.

 

[batdude]

Bidding for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions becomes a DIRTY business.

the tower caveat that Harris added for SLERS didn't help.

 

[ElroyJetson]

Do I remember that caveat correctly? Probably not. Please refresh my memory.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Mostly they worked first time and I had to set the nominal levels and check distortion before they shipped.

My former business partner was an FTR, he was at a new install site and noticed lots of levels were off. He asked the tech setting up the system what instrument he used to set levels and was told "we don't touch those, it's done at the factory."

A few week later he was in Schaumburg checking out a new system before shipping and asked the techs to show him how they set levels.
"Oh we don't do that, the field techs are in charge."

 

[speedway_navigator]

View attachment 108592

Anybody got a copy on me?

Can't hear you, turn up your volume.

 

[speedway_navigator]

It somewhat akin to the demolition of the General Dynamics Kearney Mesa facility and the loss of the buildings spiral staircase.

I remember going there as a kid to pick up dad from work when we only had 1 car. Is the playground out back gone too? They had an open house one weekend, got an aluminum coin with GIIIIIID on it or something similar, the Is stood for all the divisions GD had.
Some TV show in the 60s shot a scene in that stairwell.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Marshall TX put out an RFQ that looked to be written so only Trbo could win. One requirement was 'individual call with and without user'. They also wanted the install to meet R57 standards and 1/4" VHF antennas.
Once I pointed out a few other errors in the document they pulled it for revision.

 

[902]

I forget what it was even called; some guy in a cowboy hat pulled an 18 wheeler into the shop once. Just once. It had like a KDT480 terminal).

A synapse must've just fired. It was called CoveragePlus. I've got a manual for it somewhere. They used Loran C receivers for positioning (before GPS).

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

My former business partner was an FTR, he was at a new install site and noticed lots of levels were off. He asked the tech setting up the system what instrument he used to set levels and was told "we don't touch those, it's done at the factory."

A few week later he was in Schaumburg checking out a new system before shipping and asked the techs to show him how they set levels.
"Oh we don't do that, the field techs are in charge."

I can assure you that (back in 1976) TX and RX line levels, including tone remote control levels are set to a nominal value per the 12M specs. If more or less is needed in the field to drive a copper line, indeed the field tech needs to adjust. That is why the techs have line level testers.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

A lot of the suits brought against states, counties, or cities due to the other company winning the bid were based on the contract being written to clearly favor one vendor over another. And a public safety contract should be written to be totally neutral in that respect.

Motorola sued the State of FL and backed out of the contract they WON because they found the booby trap: The buried "state may terminate for convenience" clause. Not for CAUSE, not for failure to perform or meet progress schedules, but for CONVENIENCE. Which means "You won but we can make you build out the sites and then give it all to your competitor" and I suspect that would have happened.

Contracts have been written to require equipment that one vendor doesn't make. Such as when M/A-Com didn't offer a hand held control head option, the State of Fl contract stipulated that they must be offered. (Long ago, previous contract.) And it was written into the same contract, "radios shall not use ramp buttons for volume or channel select functions" when GE/whatever was using ramp buttons on their most common public safety radio types.

I'd like for there to be a process where all public safety contracts and proposals are run through an absolutely neutral consulting agency that is fully informed on the product lines, capabilities, equipment, and services of all vendors and ensures that the contract/proposal is written in a manner that makes sense, totally brand neutral, and written to specify a system that will work in engineering terms. To include regional terrain and infrastructure surveys so that the RF plan gives full coverage as called for by the needs of the agency.

Motorola claimed they could make the State of FL system work to coverage specs with about 30 fewer sites than the Harris proposal, stating that they could do it with "superior technology". But we know how that would work out. They'd have to add more sites after the fact, because RF is RF and neither Motorola nor Harris can break the laws of physics...though both are willing to break certain laws if they can make sure nobody notices for a while. Bidding for contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars or even billions becomes a DIRTY business.

As a tax payer I agree with you 100%, but their are clients who are eager to invent new ways to try and sway the specs and failing that, the evaluation process.

You should not be surprised the amount of vendor bias that exists among the public safety community.

I have only seen a couple of times where one vendor made sense for a sole source, either by the level of regional support available or due to a technology offering.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

A synapse must've just fired. It was called CoveragePlus. I've got a manual for it somewhere. They used Loran C receivers for positioning (before GPS).

Qualcomm Omnitracs (With Eudora!) destroyed that product. Motorola should have been more forward thinking.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

My friend worked for a county 2-way shop when the MX radios were popular. He once told me on any given Monday morning when he‘d show up for work, on his bench he’d find a few broken MX’s with blood, skin, & hair wedged between the radio, & the battery.

There was a fairly well known radio shop near Chicago that warranty serviced the public safety mikes for Chicago PD. They dealt with a lot of broken PSM cables which had a pretty stout safety wire. Turns out CPD had some rogue officers garroting suspects.

 

[jeepsandradios]

That is why the techs have line level testers.

I still carry my HP TIMS Set along with another handheld one. Can never see display on the handheld. The HP is a great device. Use it often.

 

[NVAGVUP]

I still carry my HP TIMS Set along with another handheld one. Can never see display on the handheld. The HP is a great device. Use it often.

I had a Tripplet Audio meter. (Boss wouldn't spring for HP!) It was amazing how many "techs" graduated from the "Helen Keller" school of audio level setting. Very satisfying when you could "Fix" a system (Even a competitor system) by methodically setting system/telco levels.

 

[RocketNJ]

A synapse must've just fired. It was called CoveragePlus. I've got a manual for it somewhere. They used Loran C receivers for positioning (before GPS).

I worked on the CoveragePlus system and remember going for two week training class on it. I used the phone patch part of the system all the time as I was driving around. Our shop got billed for airtime minutes. My boss gave me the nickname Maxx Timeout.

I was Network Services certified!