Denison new 700 MHz P25 system

[nd5y]

Denison new 700 MHz P25 system. 3 site 4 channel phase II simulcast.

ULS Application - Trunked Public Safety 700 MHz - 0011090758 - DENISON, CITY OF

 

[mwjones]

Looks like I'm going to be busy once the mobile rig is back up and running or an upgrade to my base station antenna.

Honestly, I guess I should do some research to see if this is going to be on another site on the Sherman system (if it ever comes online) or will it be standalone. It would make sense for the two to be linked for interoperability, and eventually add the rest of the County (looking at Van Alstyne with their one channel P25 with Encryption)

 

[Gopher]

Wonder if they will keep their encryption if they do.

 

[mwjones]

Well this is interesting...

Receive a report, hold a discussion and take action on approving a 10-year Lease Agreement with Motorola Solutions to implement a Public Works trunked radio system that will enhance field operations and improve critical emergency communication, and authorize the Interim City Manager to execute the same.

Council Action

Ronnie Bates, Public Works Director, stated the existing radio system we have is a VHF system. In other words, it's like the old CB radios that people used to talk on. It is pretty old and becoming outdated, and there are no more channels to add to it. Currently, we have two channels, and we actually need a few more than this. What we're asking for is that we upgrade to what the current standard is throughout the State of Texas for all public safety radio systems, which is a 700/800-megahertz radio trunk system. This is a statewide system so that you can have interoperability across the whole State of Texas. The reason 9 for it is because we will have one prime site, which would be our Parkdale Water Tower, and then we'll have three additional remote sites. The radio core would still be held at the police station. This will give us four channels, which then gives us sub-talk channels and you can go up to eight sub-talk channels. This allows more people to use the radio. The FCC is not issuing any further channels on the VHF system, and they are phasing this out. The mission critical system will have multiple redundancies. So, if one part of the radio system quits working, public safety will still be able to use the radio system because it's got multiple redundancies in it. Mr. Bates provided two maps, one showing the portable coverage and the other showing mobile coverage. The portable is a handheld radio that you can carry on your person. The mobile coverage is like the unit that is installed into a vehicle. It has more power and is able to reach out a little further. Just using the ETJ of Denison, you can see that the portable still covers about 99% of the area, and the mobile is 100%. Putting this into the Grayson County map, the portables are about 80% and mobile is 99%. If we can work with other communities, we would be able to add some other towers and get the portable coverage expanded a little further. One of the main things to this system is SmartConnect. Right now, with the current radios, if an officer or an employee or somebody goes into a school building, or they go into Walmart for a call, just about any place if it's inside, the radios do not work. This smart system will use a system kind of similar to what your phone does, it'll switch over to Wi-Fi automatically and be able to receive their calls and requests for help or assistance. Also, if you're driving and say there's an emergency, like a hurricane or something like that, with this P95 system, there will be complete interoperability with other cities that you're going to. So, if somebody came in to help us with a tornado or something, they'd be able to use our radio system as well. This will be a 10-year lease. We have budgeted to put up $2 million, which is currently in our CIP funding and has been set aside for this. This will give us five years’ worth of maintenance. The first year is 0% interest. If this is approved tonight, we will be able to get a contract signed and sent off to Motorola. It should take about one year before we are able to use our first radios, and then a couple months after this to close out and final out the project.

Mayor Gott reiterated, for clarity, this is included in the FY2024 budget.

There was no further discussion or questions from Council.

On motion by Mayor Pro Tem Crawley, seconded by Council Member Hander, the City Council unanimously approved a 10-year Lease Agreement with Motorola Solutions to implement a Public Works trunked radio system that will enhance field operations and improve critical emergency communication, and authorized the Interim City Manager to execute the same.

https://mccmeetings.blob.core.usgov...T-Packet-d8fa242973d145adadb683ffae7f31b2.pdf (pages 12-13 of the PDF)

Looks like it will be a Motorola P25 system, which means it will likely not be a part of the Sherman P25 system, which is a Tait system. So much for a common system for interoperability.

The new question is, will this license be granted and system built out before Sherman gets their system online?

 

[riverradio68]

Jones, its not surprising Denison went a different direction of Sherman. There is a rivalry between those two that won't end with a radio system. What sucks is that in the end it only affects the tax paying citizen.

Gopher, EXPECT encryption! But to what level? who knows. They'll probably encrypt the street crews so KXII won't know where the pot holes are being widened ...

Sherman sure is taking their time getting the new system live, I'm pretty sure Greenville and maybe even Hunt will beet them on line. BTW, Howe is supposed to have TG's on Sherman since Howe Fire is first up station back fill to Sherman Fire. (for whatever that's worth) ..

 

[mwjones]

Jones, its not surprising Denison went a different direction of Sherman. There is a rivalry between those two that won't end with a radio system. What sucks is that in the end it only affects the tax paying citizen.

Gotta love local politics... Puts the internal squabbles that make headlines in Austin and D.C. to shame.

Sherman sure is taking their time getting the new system live, I'm pretty sure Greenville and maybe even Hunt will beet them on line. BTW, Howe is supposed to have TG's on Sherman since Howe Fire is first up station back fill to Sherman Fire. (for whatever that's worth) ..

Greenville is already in testing, so they're ahead in that horse race. Haven't been that way since March so I don't know about Hunt (and it will be another couple of weeks before I get my new laptop for the mobile rig and get it configured for a road trip)

The fact that Howe is going to have TG's on Sherman makes sense, one of the 4 simulcast sites is on the water tower behind TI, which should give good coverage to Howe (but we'll have to see how well I pick that site up in Van Alstyne).

Doesn't mean the end of interoperability with Sherman and Denison though, in Collin County the PAWMCo and Frisco systems, despite being independent, have talkgroups that bridge the two systems - PAWMCo has Celina fire and Plano Fire, and they have common TAC channels with Prosper Fire and Frisco Fire respectively on the Frisco system when responding to calls along their common borders. Frisco Fire also has one or more "backup" TG's on PAWMCo they can switch to both on the radios and the consoles in case of a Frisco system outage (they test the backup channels weekly).

 

[riverradio68]

Greenville has two testing TG's up with weekly check-in's by the Fire Chief and radio shop. When I am at the hospital in Greenville each week I have the system going in search mode. I also have my encryption setting to HEAR the annoying sound rather than skip it, and I can say they have tested in clear AND encrypted.

I think Sherman is waiting for TI to get a little more finished before it deploys its system fully. Someone somewhere said TI will have TGID's on the system. Probably for Security and Safety. They have some UHF I suspect will be used for facility maintenance.

Grayson County OEM is a big stickler on Interoperability. Grayson OEM has some kind of interop licensing agreement with Dallas so I'd expect there will be adequate interop between Sherman, Denison and the rest of the county. Then again, Denison could build a wall around itself and slap out a sign at 75@691 that says "Keep Out" ...

 

[mwjones]

Looks like Denison's license got issued, so now the waiting game to see when it starts to come to life (will they beat Sherman on going live?)...

FCC Callsign WSDD379 (DENISON, CITY OF)

FCC Callsign WSDD379 (DENISON, CITY OF)

www.radioreference.com

 

[riverradio68]

Motorola vs. Tait ... Denison will beat Sherman to the playground ... and then take their toys and hide them ...

If I'm not mistaken, Jim Hog/Joe Wells counties down in the Valley deployed a Tait system a few years back that had lots of problems. I've read their DMR networks are pretty dope but the P25 leaves much to be desired. Lowest bidder ain't always the best bidder ..

 

[mwjones]

Motorola vs. Tait ... Denison will beat Sherman to the playground ... and then take their toys and hide them ...

If I'm not mistaken, Jim Hog/Joe Wells counties down in the Valley deployed a Tait system a few years back that had lots of problems. I've read their DMR networks are pretty dope but the P25 leaves much to be desired. Lowest bidder ain't always the best bidder ..

I've been in IT services for 28 (soon to be 29) years, I can't count how many times jobs went to the lowest bidder, and then the cost overruns, project delays and other costs to clean up the mess negated the savings. Sadly, too many of the decision makers refuse to cut their losses and continue to move forward with the failed solution, trying to make their "baby" work, or they take their "golden parachute" and run, leaving others to deal with the fallout.

Of course, part of the blame is also on the vendors that don't have corporate ethics, I've dealt with my share of salespeople that are very stereotypical of the "used car salesman" (not saying all used car salesman are that way, but enough to be ridiculed for it) just to close a deal.

 

[KevinC]

Motorola vs. Tait ... Denison will beat Sherman to the playground ... and then take their toys and hide them ...

If I'm not mistaken, Jim Hog/Joe Wells counties down in the Valley deployed a Tait system a few years back that had lots of problems. I've read their DMR networks are pretty dope but the P25 leaves much to be desired. Lowest bidder ain't always the best bidder ..

Jim Wells County had a Tait system. The equipment itself wasn’t the issue, the design/installation on the other hand was atrocious. Sort of like the one a lot of DETCOG agencies got sucked into.

 

[WB5UOM]

DETCOG got sucked into something...naw that isnt possible is it?
Those folk know everything

 

[riverradio68]

Jim Wells County had a Tait system. The equipment itself wasn’t the issue, the design/installation on the other hand was atrocious. Sort of like the one a lot of DETCOG agencies got sucked into.

I wonder if that's what is slowing Sherman down, flawed system design? I've seen some of the newer Tait radios and they look nice. Kind of like a Kenwood Viking in some ways.

Another possibility is their frequencies aren't playing well with the NTIRN TMS site. That site drowns in throughout a lot of Southern Grayson Co.