Columbus, Ohio purchase of EFJohnson Radjos

[markle]

What's up with the purchase of EFJ radios, as Columbus is a Motorola TypeII analog system? (Posted in today's RR). Is it to communicte with the MARCS System or are they considering EFJ when they upgrade to digital and possibly bring in the dreaded Provoice modulation?

 

[jbstahr]

What's up with the purchase of EFJ radios, as Columbus is a Motorola TypeII analog system? (Posted in today's RR). Is it to communicte with the MARCS System or are they considering EFJ when they upgrade to digital and possibly bring in the dreaded Provoice modulation?

“The radios will operate on the MARCS (Multiple Agency Radio Communications System) radio network, which includes approximately 280 sites throughout Ohio,” said David Borden, communications administrator for the City of Columbus. “We need a radio that can operate on SMARTNET, SmartZone, and P25 trunked systems, and the EFJohnson radios meet the need. We have thoroughly tested the EFJohnson radios over the State of Ohio SmartZone radio system in both Cincinnati and Cleveland, and they are interoperable with the city’s SMARTNET radio system.”

 

[PJH]

9600BPS trunked systems are an open standard, so you are not limited to just one vendor, which was one of the intents of the P25 standard.

In addition, you can get Smatnet/Smartzone radio's these days from a number of vendors, however most places like to stick with the Motorola radios.

 

[kikito]

In addition, you can get Smatnet/Smartzone radio's these days from a number of vendors, however most places like to stick with the Motorola radios.

And with good reason they stick with Motorola.

The State of Alaska has made several big purchases from EFJ in the past couple of years. I'm not impressed at the obvious difference of the audio quality between the EFJ and Motorola radios. Most of DOD uses Motorola and most of the State/City are using EFJ. The EFJ's sound more "tinny" and almost digitized and also like they pick up more background noise too. I hope (and maybe they have already) they will do some software tweaking to make them sound better in the near future.