Chicago's OEMC Issues

[werinshades]

Been a bad day at the OEMC. Early this morning, they took the system down for maintenence, and had a crash that lasted until 1100 Hrs. About an hour ago, Citywides 1, 2, 3, 4 all crashed...transmitter went out. This radio system needs to be replaced soon...getting more and more of these issues betwen fire and police as of late...bring on the Digital!

 

[KB9LIQ]

Hope you are joking about digital being any better.

 

[N9JIG]

While Dave has a better read on City issues than I, I don't think it is so much an issue between digital and analog, it is just that the existing system is so old and decrepit. The system for both Police and Fire has been in place for so long and is on it's last legs.

The CPD UHF system over the last 30 years I have been listening to it, has always sounded great and it was well engineered. The VHF and UHF Fire/EMS systems also sound great (at least on the scanner end!) and have served well, but are also decades old.

I still kind of miss the old days when ambulances were dispatched on 154.22, the "Admin" channel. I used to listen to that clear as a bell on my duty Minitor on 154.205. Those things were so wide that I also heard the Oak Park area on 154.19 just as well, it was like having a 3 channel scanner!

 

[KB9LIQ]

That the problem most of the time. It's not that the analog is a bad thing it's just old and not taken care of. Kind of like Macon county Sheriff's, they had a good VHF system in place but getting old. So that is when they switched to Decaturs trunked system but it was not enginereered to work in the county. Now years later they are saying the old trunked system just isn't working for them and they need the new star-com system. Problem is the trunked system isn't working any worse then it did when they put it in other then they have added more uses on it then it was setup for. But thanks to the tax payers they will get a system they can talk all over the state, Why? They don't need that but Motorola is good at selling the government stuff they don't need. The other problem is the county still pay to keep the old VHF system working so they saved no money there as well.

 

[werinshades]

Yes Rich, pretty much what i've been sayin. Their's alot of "digital bashing" throughout the forums, but the current "antiquated systems" that we have, are prone to breakdowns. I'm not saying that a digital system will never have it's moments, but a well-built system with backup's in place is essential for today's communications needs. Weird that all 4 city-wides went down at the same time...never heard that before.

 

[KB9LIQ]

You are right, nothing is perfect. My point in part of the about is the county switched to a system that was not built to do what they wanted it to do. It was a city only system and then they added county units to it. The system is as only good as the design. Analog or digital if it's not design right it will not work right.

 

[werinshades]

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Sounds like a major failure last night....bring on the new and improved Digital !