City of Guthrie to go 800Mhz

[xerb1962]

From the city managers weekly update:

[FONT=Verdana,Bold][FONT=Verdana,Bold]On November 30, 2010 The City of Guthrie received notification of a grant award from[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold][FONT=Verdana,Bold]Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security totaling $239,142.00. The grant specifically covers the[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold][FONT=Verdana,Bold]upgrade from our current radio system to the 800 MHz system. This system enables operability[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Bold]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold]with other agencies throughout the state of Oklahoma as well as state wide radio coverage.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold]The grant covers the equipment for all emergency services as well as Emergency Management.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold]This is the first phase of the two phase project with Homeland Security monies coming from[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold]2008, 2009 and 2010. This program is fully funded by the Oklahoma Department of Homeland[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold]Security. With the Council’s approval, The Department of Homeland Security, OKC Urban Area[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana,Bold]Security Initiative and the Department of Public Safety will purchase the equipment as well as [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Bold]absorb the instillation costs.[/FONT]​

Woo Hoo! [/FONT]

 

[HogDriver]

Well...almost state wide!

 

[PolarBear25]

Logan County

It looks like Logan County, and sooner fire are switching as well.

Great News! Logan County Sheriffs' Office was just awarded a $500,000 grant for a new 800mhz radio system. Sheriff Bauman is excited about the award, and looks forward to the new radio system being up and running for 2011.

Source: Logan County Sheriff's Office | Facebook

 

[N5TWB]

Considering this from a broader perspective, wonder how long before all of this grinds to a halt when the honey stops flowing from DC with the new Congress. It is fairly certain neither the state nor the localities have the funds to do these upgrades on their own. This would apply to any of the upgrade projects on RR, no matter where.

 

[okcrescue]

Thanks for the update, Thats good news!

 

[peterjmag]

Awesome news! Go Logan County and Guthrie!

 

[Sparky_one]

Its a good news, worse news thing. Some of the smaller rural departments who are linked to Edmond or Guthrie are not exactly craps and giggles about it. For one thing they can no longer buy off the shelf radios to use. The tone outs are still done on vhf and they can still use the vhf state fireground channels legally. Of course it will help Guthrie talk to Edmond and vice versa. It will also help Guthrie talk with OHP and mediflight.

 

[Sparky_one]

Saturday fire a test of system

Logan county has had to work with departments as far away as Pink, Oklahoma today for their 5000+ acre fire. Much of the activity has been on RMA-2 and their own talk group. Of course Ok. County Fire has played a big part in mutual aid and most of those units only have 5 channels of VHF. SO there has been a bit of a snag there but for the most part it has worked because Oklahoma County EM has provided the link between various comm systems. I think it would be a good future upgrade for OK county fire entities to go 800 down the road if it means keeping VHF in the rigs.

 

[SABRE46]

We have more than 5 channels in all of our rigs... Ops channels, vtacs, state fire etc etc. The money is not available for most of the EOC fire depts to convert to 800. Our dept alone would require a large number of radios and as expensive as they are, its just not feasible.

 

[xerb1962]

I didn't get to listen to much of yesterdays incident. I heard a little bit of the usual chaos on 154.130 that happens when you have a deal like this...

Was there anything patched on the 800 system?

 

[SABRE46]

Several RMAs and a few VTACs were in use...

 

[plaws]

Little Axe, Slaughterville, Norman all contributed to the Cleveland Co Task Force that went up. All are on 800. Others went, too, like Cedar Country, but they aren't all-800.

Musta been folks back here listening since RMA 2D and 2F were both audible on Site 40.

 

[eharlow]

The Cleveland County units utilized 2F for the entire incident. Our units switched to 2B well into the incident after we realized the RMA's actually had great coverage. We were spotty on our normal TG's.

Now we know and knowing is half the battle!