Any Other Atlanta Metro P25 Upgrades Coming?

[KD4YGG]

With the North Fulton Regional system now coming on-line, I am wondering about two other counties in the metro area and any planned upgrades to P25.

1) Fayette County, currently operating a Motorola system, all analog

2) Henry County, currently operating Harris EDACS Provoice system

Has anyone hear of plans to upgrade either of these systems? Any details or timing?

 

[Metrofire31]

Additional P25 Upgrades

Dawson County should be in the final stages of implementing an RFP for a three-phase conversion from VHF analog for law enforcement, fire and emergency services, and other local government services. This RFP provides for converting from multiple VHF analog radiofrequencies to a multi-site simulcast P25 VHF trunked system. Mid-2015 was scheduled to be the final implementation. For further reference, see the attached RFP:

http://dawsoncounty.org/uploads/fil...lic_Safety_VHF_Radio_Communication_System.pdf

By the way, their current Fire Dispatch frequency - 154.400 - will continue outside the eventual trunked system as a fire paging frequency.

Metrofire31

 

[MTS2000des]

something tells me this will wind up being another 700MHz overlay once they likely won't get the desired in building coverage on VHF, being that the noise floor is already absurdly high in many areas thanks to all this CCC (cheap Chinese crap) polluting the VHF spectrum, mainly LED lighting.

I am sure "Solutions" will cash in on this project like they did in that county not too far away.

 

[rapidcharger]

Dawson county!?! AYFKM?
For what possible reason do they need a DTRS?

 

[N8IAA]

Dawson county!?! AYFKM?
For what possible reason do they need a DTRS?

They have a need for more coverage for all their traffic stops
Larry

 

[DanRollman]

Dawson county!?! AYFKM?
For what possible reason do they need a DTRS?

Nothing wrong with a DTRS in a rapidly-growing county, but maybe they could be fiscally efficient and follow the lead of rural counties like Habersham and go with a MotoTRBO system instead of setting themselves up to be fleeced by a P25 vendor.

 

[uga_scanner]

Not exactly in the metro, but of course Athens-Clarke and UGA are planning to combine to a DTRS in late summer or early fall. Solutions is having a field day with their $$$, of course.

 

[rapidcharger]

They have a need for more coverage for all their traffic stops
Larry

All of their traffic stops occur at basically one intersection it seems like.

Nothing wrong with a DTRS in a rapidly-growing county, but maybe they could be fiscally efficient and follow the lead of rural counties like Habersham and go with a MotoTRBO system instead of setting themselves up to be fleeced by a P25 vendor.

Agreed. There is also NXDN in case they want to use Kenwood and Icom equipment that works really good and costs a lot less. But that doesn't solve the problem of how to waste taxpayer money on silly non-problems when there are other more pressing problems that there's no funding for. for the record, their analog conventional system is one of the best public safety systems I've ever heard and I'm an hour away. If it has problems I would have never known.

 

[DanRollman]

Dawson county!?! AYFKM?
For what possible reason do they need a DTRS?

Here is a timing article that might help explain some of Dawson County's interest in a DTRS.

Exurban Growth On the Rise

"Mike Berg, chairman of the Dawson County Board of Commissioners, said he’s very aware of this. Research commissioned by the county found that Dawson’s population would nearly quadruple over the next 20 years, from about 22,000 now to 100,000. To comfortably accommodate such an explosion, the county has to strengthen its infrastructure..."

 

[N8IAA]

Here is a timing article that might help explain some of Dawson County's interest in a DTRS.

Exurban Growth On the Rise

"Mike Berg, chairman of the Dawson County Board of Commissioners, said he’s very aware of this. Research commissioned by the county found that Dawson’s population would nearly quadruple over the next 20 years, from about 22,000 now to 100,000. To comfortably accommodate such an explosion, the county has to strengthen its infrastructure..."

And twenty years later... It must be necessary now to cover the future
Larry

 

[DanRollman]

And twenty years later... It must be necessary now to cover the future
Larry

It turns out those 78,000 people, and their homes in wildcat subdivisions popping up in parts of the county that had never before seen significant call volumes or need for multi-channel coverage, won't all wait until the same day 20 years from now to move in. Which, of course, is probably why the RFP linked above has this system building out in 3 phases.

In any event, I hear you. I too dislike government overspending where it doesn't need to; or earlier than it needs to. And everyone can debate when radio systems need what kind of upgrades. Now I'll stop with the politics on this one and get back to radios.

Dan

 

[MTS2000des]

and I'll bet they will ditch VHF once they realize how useless it is for in building body worn coverage is these days thanks to all the cheap crap part 15 stuff dirtying up the band. Ask Barrow county how well that's working out for them, seems they're already going to be digging into reserves to pay for a swapout of all their VHF FNE (sans zone core) and subscriber gear to move up to 700/800.

Getting good pairs for trunking on VHF is hard enough in north Georgia. Getting good pairs that play nice with combiners and aren't used 50 miles away by someone else is even tougher,

For Barrow this means all new GTR8000s, combiners, antennas, subscriber hardware.

Dawson county will make the same mistake. Watch history repeat itself.
Some vendor is going to get a double sale out of them I am sure of it.

 

[rapidcharger]

Poor planning, poor decisions, broken calculators, endless sprawl and incompetent idiotic crooked bubba boardmembers. Welcome to GA

 

[bpckty1]

Besides the expansions needed because of population growth, could one of the main reasons for going digital/trunked be because of FCC mandates and lack of support for older equipment made by Batwings?

 

[N8IAA]

Besides the expansions needed because of population growth, could one of the main reasons for going digital/trunked be because of FCC mandates and lack of support for older equipment made by Batwings?

Read post #12, and also understand, that Moto Solutions still sells VHF equipment, but there is no money to be made selling stand alone repeaters. The money is in selling trunk systems with all the equipment and infrastructure that is part of that system.
But, for a county like Dawson to throw money away on a trunk system, is like tilting at windmills.
Why not body cameras and non lethal forms of taking down a criminal?
They could go VHF P-25 like the GSP and DNR. Link through their repeaters and have great coverage.
Larry

 

[rapidcharger]

one of the main reasons for going digital/trunked be because of FCC mandates

Dawson county is fully narrowband compliant. There are no other mandates to go to digital or trunking, just to go to narrowband, which they are and I don't hear any problems communicating when I listen to them. Dawson county is not that big of a county.

 

[bpckty1]

But, how much $$$ will Batwings make, unless they can sell the "upgraded systems"?

 

[rapidcharger]

But, how much $$$ will Batwings make, unless they can sell the "upgraded systems"?

I think the sky's pretty much the limit now and they've found out in recent years that there's essentially no price that's too high. All you need are a few lame excuses and nobody will question them or question the need for it.

Ironically, Motorola's earnings forecast is pretty flat but they don't really have any competition in this space. For whatever reason, the other competitors can't seem to break through and almost looks as though they don't even want to.

If a particular county can't come up with the money to buy a multimillion dollar DTRS, then that's no problem, they'll go to the county next door and sell them one. Then the first county will more than likely join that system eventually. And if the county next door doesn't want one, no problem, they go to the state and sell the state a statewide DTRS. That's why they end up with statewide systems in large states that that are mostly rural and have hardly anyone living there. Then once you've got them all wired up, you sell them software much in the way Microsoft does, giving the systems a pre-determined shelf life and after that, you have to upgrade.

 

[nunyax]

With the North Fulton Regional system now coming on-line, I am wondering about two other counties in the metro area and any planned upgrades to P25.

1) Fayette County, currently operating a Motorola system, all analog

2) Henry County, currently operating Harris EDACS Provoice system

Has anyone hear of plans to upgrade either of these systems? Any details or timing?

Fayette County is having a March 21, 2017 SPLOST vote which will cover a new radio system:

Also on the list is $18.2 million to replace a public safety radio system that Birrell said it out of date with infrastructure at the end of its life and unable to be repaired. Fayette is also one of the few counties in Georgia not operating with the P25 format, she added.

Officials present case for new countywide sales tax - The Citizen

 

[nunyax]

Fayette County is having a March 21, 2017 SPLOST vote which will cover a new radio system:

Officials present case for new countywide sales tax - The Citizen

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS #1428-P: PUBLIC SAFETY RADIO SYSTEM

Fayette County, Georgia is seeking proposals for provisioning of a radio communications system to support mission-critical public safety communications within the county. You are invited to submit a proposal in accordance with the information contained herein.

Proposal Opening Date: 3:00 pm Thursday, March 1, 2018

#1428-P: Request for Proposals