Contacting Clayton County IT Dept.

[Buttabean]

Hello fellow hams,
I gotta question, the clayton county public safety radio system is set to be upgraded next year & i wanna know how do i go about contacting their IT dept. to inquire about buying sum of the old radios after they make the switch or how to go about it. Ive sent an email but never received a response back yet & im curious if im even going about it right? I thought maybe some hams may be police officers or fire fighters & know more about this.

 

[sloop]

Every state, agency is different. In N.C., surplus materials (radios) are usually sold at public auction after they have been decommissioned..eg. rendered useless on public service frequencies. These auctions may or may not be opened to the public and may take a year or two to occur. Even then they usually dump all radios together as a unit and you may end up with several to a hundred units from all over the state. It would be better to find out the correct info. through your relatives. If they don't know they work within the dept. and should be able to find out for you.

 

[KG4INW]

Many trade their old radios back in, for credit towards the new system. That often means being sent to a radio dealer or back to the manufacturer. What happens after that, could be a number of things like recycling, auction, etc.

 

[rapidcharger]

And also sometimes they keep their old radios to use when their new radios don't work.

Not that that could ever happen with a p25 system or anything.

 

[MTS2000des]

Hello fellow hams,
I gotta question, the clayton county public safety radio system is set to be upgraded next year & i wanna know how do i go about contacting their IT dept. to inquire about buying sum of the old radios after they make the switch or how to go about it. Ive sent an email but never received a response back yet & im curious if im even going about it right? I thought maybe some hams may be police officers or fire fighters & know more about this.

Under state law, they cannot just sell, trade or give away any equipment to private individuals without the consent of the county commission. The surplus has to be either auctioned off at public auction, or transferred to another government entity.

 

[WayneH]

Moved to the Georgia forum.

 

[n5ims]

Their web site shows where they auction their surplus property. Hopefully that will give you a place to start when trying to find their auctioned items. It also has contact information (including telephone numbers) where you may be able to get the information you're looking for.

Auction - Clayton County Government.

 

[b7spectra]

I wonder where the crooks, er, ah, politicians are going to get the money to upgrade to a DTRS?

 

[MTS2000des]

I wonder where the crooks, er, ah, politicians are going to get the money to upgrade to a DTRS?

Now come on Mike, you know good ol' Victor Hill doesn't want anyone to hear his criminal activity. I'm sure he'll find the millions from somewhere.

 

[Buttabean]

Their web site shows where they auction their surplus property. Hopefully that will give you a place to start when trying to find their auctioned items. It also has contact information (including telephone numbers) where you may be able to get the information you're looking for.

Auction - Clayton County Government.

Now how come the IT dept couldnt have just sent the same link or one similar to inform me of this same thing? Maybe cuz they too busy tryin to re-word the RFP they copied from floyd county so that they can still use it without a "Copyright Violation" case being filed against the county? I dont know but theys nothing for sale yet so the swapp in old equipment to get the new along with keeping some of the old to fall back on is possibly gonna be the standing decision.

 

[Buttabean]

Probably Wont Be Capable of Using Comercial Equipment.

Ive done alot of searching the net & monitoring the local ham repeaters along with reading forums & other stuff & im seeing where it will be hard to utilize commercial radio equipemnt for HAM or anything else unless u have alot of connections & access to the software & cables to program these types of radios so im having to steer towards kenwood, cheap versions of yaesus to get into the local repeaters near my neck of the woods. Living down in a hole has its dis-advantages and not being able to erect antennas up just makes it even harder. But im improvising & pushing foreword. Test is Jan 12 @ 9:00AM sharp & ive made an 80 average on 6-8 test in a row so im hoping for the best. 73's & hope to connect with all the locals soon! See ya on MATPARC N4XTS & if i cant make it in just switch to the .105 or the 3.025 W7QO cause i can hit it with a 4watt HT from inside the apt. lol

 

[kg4ojj]

Butterbean,

Using or programming commercial gear isn't hard. Programming a DSTAR radio correctly can be more difficult. Acquiring the proper programming and (legal copies of the) software can be expensive, especially if dealing with Motorola. However, other manufacturers provide their programming software for little to no money. If you don't want to program your own radios, you should be able to get a local radio shop (or some RR members) to program it for a fee. Otherwise, you don't have to know a guy that knows a guy to buy a commercial radio.....

Personally, I like using commercial gear on amateur radio repeaters. They sound great, are (generally) built like tanks, and filter out nearby RF interference better than most amateur radios. My primary portable is a VHF commercial radio.

However, I have lived in RF holes and a $10,000 portable will not help RF travel better/farther/faster. I was landlocked in an apartment and had reinforced concrete supporting walls all around me. Safe place during bad weather but it sucked for RF transmission with a portable. The answer is a better antenna, even if it is only a magnetic-mount, unity-gain antenna on top of the refrigerator.

Good luck on the exam (I assume you're prepping for the Technician exam),