Hello, I was just on the Motorola website looking at the digital radios selection, and neither MotoTurbo, P25, Kenwood digital, Icom's digital OR Standard Horizon digital have options for low band! Why doesn't CHP move to the VHF band and get new digital radios? Not many radios companies make low band radios anymore, so what happens when they break? are they using radios from the 70's? thanks!
CHP, new radio system, EVER?
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KJ6HCB
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You must not have been following too closely.... they are moving to a 700Mhz system - its just taking a while. A lllloooonnnggggg while.
ScannerDude244
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The CHP is completing a $500M (yes, I said $500 Million) multi-year modernization project that uses VHF-Lowband for the dispatch communications (base radios by Midland, mobiles by Kenwood) and 700 MHz for the Vehicle Repeater System (handhelds by EFJohnson). The vehicle package also allows for VHF-High, UHF, and 700/800 MHz mobile radios to be integrated into the radios suite.
Check around the forums here for various discussion threads about this project that has been ongoing since mid-2006.
I hope not!!!
And what would digital (on low band) get them? It was a disaster for TV broadcasters who stayed on VHF. And even if digital on UHF, sometimes you can make out a weak analog signal, not a weak digital signal (unless loaded with error correction).
The CHP has one of the BEST radio systems around. Ok, they do sometimes get clobbered by skip or other atmospheric noise. What they have covers a HUGE state that contains the highest and lowest points in the continental USA and just aout every kind of terrain you can name.
And what would digital (on low band) get them? It was a disaster for TV broadcasters who stayed on VHF. And even if digital on UHF, sometimes you can make out a weak analog signal, not a weak digital signal (unless loaded with error correction).
The State Of California has a very experienced Comms Dept that takes care of the radios for ALL state agencies...
VHF LOW still has a distinct advantage in some types of terrain...
The extenders that will eventually migrate to 700 Mhz are now on 154.905...(some other states also use this freq for "mobile extenders")
The handheld extenders are usually used within proximity to their patrol vehicle, so a short hop in the 700 Mhz band is feasable...
The only problem with this is that the CURRENT extenders operate on more than just 154.905 Mhz...they also have programmed into the handheld extenders Clemar & CalCord channels (both are also VHF-High)...both very handy to have during an incident all in 1 radio...
I guess the 700 Mhz extender radios will be multi channel and might be able to force the vehicle radio onto Clemar & CalCord simplex when needed, but I really don't know...
There aren't enough VHF High frequencies available in California for the CHP to have statewide allocations of frequencies. This applies to the UHF band as well. On the other hand agencies are cancelling or letting licenses expire for low band frequencies. The CHP has been picking up these frequencies and has been doing so for that last 10-20 years.
As gmclam mentioned, the terrain of California is diverse and the state is quite large. It is far more rugged that people outside of California realize. The CHP did a study of the San Diego and Imperial counties area where coverage for the various frequency bands was compared. Moving up in frequency resulted in the need for installation of additional electronic sites. The number of additional sites required for an analog 800 MHz, if I remember correctly, was 4-10 times more than the number of existing VHF Low sites. This area of the study is moderately mountainous compared to other areas of the state. In addition the experience of other state agencies in the northwestern portion of the state has shown that 800 MHz coverage in this heavily forested area is nearly impossible to achieve. Low band is working quite well all over the state.
I've read that the new mobile installation will allow multiple band operation with the extenders having the ability to remotely control this function. This means that if an officer is some distance from the car and operating on CLEMARS 1 (154.920) and the incident changes to CALCORD (156.075) the officer can use the 700 MHz extender handheld to make the switch without returning to the vehicle.
At any given frequency switching to digital operation reduces the coverage of existing electronic sites. Narrow band conversions resulted in less coverage using pre-existing sites, and a change to digital reduces coverage even more.
I think the $500 million cost of the current effort to upgrade/replace the low band system is small in comparison to an ill advised effort to construct a 800 MHz system.
This subject has been discussed in length on many threads over the years on this website. Do a search on CHP radio and other threads can be found that give more details than presented here.
No, I doubt they will ever leave low band for the foreseeable future, its the best band for what they do and the terrain.
they have a new radio system
500 million dollars was just wasted.. i mean .. spent for the new chp system
500 million dollars was just wasted.. i mean .. spent for the new chp system
Why change something that works perfectly fine now? I think changing just the portables to 700MHz was a bit weird, but they would waste so much more money trying to organize new higher band frequencies state wide.. LowBand is where they need to be.
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