Buying more Harris!

[ElroyJetson]

You will find, if you care to look, that many systems have their full bid solicitations and pricing sheets posted online as they are (usually) considered to be public records.

It's very hard to say that, to give an example close to home, that my county's "upgrade" from a three site EDACS system to a NINE site simulcast system, consisting of two simulcast cells, one with FIVE IDENTICAL sites and the other with FOUR identical sites, isn't going to end up costing a lot more than the original three sites.

Adding six duplicated sites isn't free. All this, for what is ultimately intended to provide comparable coverage when the system switches over to P25 (phase 1 first, phase 2 later after the phase 1 stage is fine tuned and debugged and certified ready for phase 2), as compared to the coverage level we've been getting for the last 15 or so years with regular EDACS?

Sorry. Facts and figures don't lie. Nine complete sites must cost at least three times as much as the original three, assuming the same number of system channels in use.

If it takes nine sites operating in phase 2 TDMA to equal the coverage of a 3 site edacs system, we the taxpayers are most certainly getting hosed. BIG TIME.

 

[DisasterGuy]

I can't speak for your system there as I know nothing about it but I can say that there is no way you should need that many additional sites simple going from EDACS to P25. With my migration we are doubling our number of sites but it is not so much because it is going Phase 2 but rather because those additional sites (from 3 to 6) are providing additional in building fill for areas that currently have less than optimal coverage.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[ElroyJetson]

The county does CLAIM that the additional sites are to improve in-building coverage and fill in some weak coverage areas where cities have grown into over the years, but I know quite enough about in-building coverage issues, having had to address those issues personally far too many times over the past few years, to know that the new sites they have placed are unlikely to make a substantial difference to in-building coverage as it was before the upgrade began. Of course there will be enhanced in-building coverage near the new site locations, but it turns out that those new site locations are for the most part in fairly remote areas without a high building density.

To put matters into perspective, in the county I live in, I don't believe there are more than ten buildings in the entire county that have a tenth floor. We simply don't have the sort of high density urban construction that justifies spending millions to enhance in-building coverage in a mere handful of buildings.

I am far from being anti-technology. But I know enough about radio to know when I as a taxpayer am being sold a bill of goods for extravagant cost.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Cannot comment on the new 200p radio though. Never actually seen one in person yet.

The local Harris Rep brought a 200 into my shop a week or so ago.

I only had a few mins to mess with it but as an admitted "Moto Fanboi" I was impressed with the build quality. He did tell me that they will be coming out with an "RPM 2" to program the 200.

He hopes to get me a loaner unit by the Holidays to play with on my Moto P25 system.

Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[fasteddy64]

The local Harris Rep brought a 200 into my shop a week or so ago.

I only had a few mins to mess with it but as an admitted "Moto Fanboi" I was impressed with the build quality. He did tell me that they will be coming out with an "RPM 2" to program the 200.

He hopes to get me a loaner unit by the Holidays to play with on my Moto P25 system.

Marshall KE4ZNR

That 200 looks very cool. I need to see if I can get my hands on one.