Cumberland County SO DMR

[a727469]

Thanks, Ok, so this is just the beginning with other towns eventually going for p25 or just SO or just for interop or also for actual day to day use? If interop, I wonder how this will work with other neighboring counties so I assume they will keep analog capability. Interesting that MSCOMNET was not considered.
Sorry for all the questions, but I am somewhat isolated here in Lincoln county🙂. We couldn’t get a simple DMR system working acceptably. 🥲

 

[northstarfire0693]

In the past some counties and cities used P25 conventional. That trend has somewhat gone onto the decline. In general, Maine still uses a lot of VHF analog. Some areas like Portland and L/A went to P25 800 trunked. MSCOMNET is VHF P25 trunked. Some areas went to DMR. I am not sure where the future of comms in Maine is going to go.

 

[sfd745]

The future of Maine communications will be VHF analog as long as possible. There are too many agencies on shoestring budgets that can't afford to upgrade past that. Also, the terrain and other geographic features make VHF analog prime for the majority of this state. P25 will grow, hopefully DMR will fade as the fad that it is, and analog will live on until a better alternative arises.

 

[GraniteScanner]

hopefully DMR will fade as the fad that it is, and analog will live on until a better alternative arises.

So true, controversial opinion but if you cant afford P25 stay analog, don't go DMR. Just sayin.

 

[WRQI583]

They do have P25/DMR capable radios out there. Whether or not they would be affordable is another question, but they have ability to make it all compatible if different departments went with DMR and others with P25. Maine has a really remarkable system where they can connect towers together regardless of analog or digital. It is a very well thought out system.

 

[12dbsinad]

They do have P25/DMR capable radios out there. Whether or not they would be affordable is another question, but they have ability to make it all compatible if different departments went with DMR and others with P25. Maine has a really remarkable system where they can connect towers together regardless of analog or digital. It is a very well thought out system.

There are only 2 and they are Tait and Kenwood/EFJ that make dual mode radios, Motorola you are out of luck. Every time you layer different modes of digital, encryption, trunking, etc it decreases the end goal which is interop between all agencies. I can tell you first hand that the big players do not care. They have no vested interest in local comms and could careless what happens as long as it pads wallets. A good example of this is Portland, SP, Lewiston and Biddo. They isolate themselves and throw a monkey wrench into interop. Just take a look at the Lewiston shooting for example... everyone falls back on good ol' analog conventional because it just works. Not a huge money maker compared to other systems, but it freaking works.

 

[W1MTW]

I was informed by a friend of mine that Windham PD radios are P25 capable. I don't know if the dispatch center will flip the switch yet.

 

[kwell528]

I was informed by a friend of mine that Windham PD radios are P25 capable. I don't know if the dispatch center will flip the switch yet.

Most, if not all, of the County has P25 radios now. See my reply earlier in this post. There are no current plans to make any switches other than CCSO, for now.