Dupage county going to Starcom21
- Thread starter weatherstation5
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Mother M strikes again....
It amazes me that almost every DuPage public official who get quoted regarding the SC21 issue has been led to believe that there is currently no radio interoperabilty between DuPage County public safety agencies. Isn't that why DIRS was created? Isn't that why we have IREACH, 2 IFERNs, ISPERN, V-Tacs, U-Tacs, and firegrounds? Take another gulp of Mother M's Kool-Aid. I'm guessing that they're still gonna need to use some or all of the current interop freqs if the 'big one' hits after placing all of their eggs in the SC21 basket. And what happens if, for some reason, Site 101 should fail? It isn't unheard of.
The quote from the Westmont fire chief was refreshing, and the first time I've read published comments from a public official in the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' camp. Someone with his feet firmly planted in reality. Kudos to reporter Joe Sinopoli for finding an opposing view for his story.
Finally, I wonder if the ETSB folks have compared the costs of narrowbanding against the $28 million price tag (plus ongoing subscription fees) for SC21.
I return the balance of my time.....
It amazes me that almost every DuPage public official who get quoted regarding the SC21 issue has been led to believe that there is currently no radio interoperabilty between DuPage County public safety agencies. Isn't that why DIRS was created? Isn't that why we have IREACH, 2 IFERNs, ISPERN, V-Tacs, U-Tacs, and firegrounds? Take another gulp of Mother M's Kool-Aid. I'm guessing that they're still gonna need to use some or all of the current interop freqs if the 'big one' hits after placing all of their eggs in the SC21 basket. And what happens if, for some reason, Site 101 should fail? It isn't unheard of.
The quote from the Westmont fire chief was refreshing, and the first time I've read published comments from a public official in the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' camp. Someone with his feet firmly planted in reality. Kudos to reporter Joe Sinopoli for finding an opposing view for his story.
Finally, I wonder if the ETSB folks have compared the costs of narrowbanding against the $28 million price tag (plus ongoing subscription fees) for SC21.
I return the balance of my time.....
Well, i wonder how Aurora and Naperville are feeling about now....Everything is going to be "Wonderful" until they turn on the radios and see how they REALLY work....
TrenchFeeder
Member
Agencies are getting so desperate to keep up with civilian technology and squeeze that extra bit of signal from their radios they're willing to try anything, even if it means leaving all Illinois emergency communications EXTREMELY vulnerable by lumping them all on one system.
One car crashes into the wrong tower and Illinois is gonna be in the dark. God forbid anyone actually PLAN to attack SC21, we'd be royally fluffed.
One car crashes into the wrong tower and Illinois is gonna be in the dark. God forbid anyone actually PLAN to attack SC21, we'd be royally fluffed.
28 million of taxpayer dollars for a “sole-source/no-bid” (cell phone style) radio system that will have a (conveniently never publicly stated) monthly (forever) $$ $ervice fee for every one of the thousands of portable and mobile radios that they say they need in the “name of public safety”.
The taxpayer needs protection from the majority of these elitist public safety taxpayer salaried teat suckers. Voter Referendum should decide if a one-time 28 Million Dollars and an undisclosed forever recurring monthly dollar amount is spent in this manner. If it passes a Voter Referendum so be it!
Frank Trout has more common sense in his little finger than all members of the DuPage ETSB board combined. Frank has always acted in the best interest of the public he served as a Police Officer and serves as Fire Chief, whether it be saving a life, which he has a few times, or spending taxpayer dollars
The taxpayer needs protection from the majority of these elitist public safety taxpayer salaried teat suckers. Voter Referendum should decide if a one-time 28 Million Dollars and an undisclosed forever recurring monthly dollar amount is spent in this manner. If it passes a Voter Referendum so be it!
Frank Trout has more common sense in his little finger than all members of the DuPage ETSB board combined. Frank has always acted in the best interest of the public he served as a Police Officer and serves as Fire Chief, whether it be saving a life, which he has a few times, or spending taxpayer dollars
Just how IS that interoperability thing going to work?
Case in point: I recently was involved in a quick setup missing person search where we ran 50+ local on-foot searchers from eight agencies on our stupid old VHF analog repeated system. I asked one of the ISP supervisors if they had any local or IREACH access (supposedly the lowest common denominator) in his "Professional Quality" Starcom portable. After hearing his reply, I supplied one of our stupid old $400 VHF portables so he could talk county-wide to everyone else on the incident. 50+ folks in the field didn't notice anything different, it just worked.
Had that not happened, part of the Incident Command structure would have been isolated by the Starcom incompatability bottleneck.
I didn't have the time (or any inclination whatsoever to jump through all the myriad hoops and complete all the paperwork) to set up any sort of bridge between a Starcom talkgroup and the real world.
So much for interoperability.
Case in point: I recently was involved in a quick setup missing person search where we ran 50+ local on-foot searchers from eight agencies on our stupid old VHF analog repeated system. I asked one of the ISP supervisors if they had any local or IREACH access (supposedly the lowest common denominator) in his "Professional Quality" Starcom portable. After hearing his reply, I supplied one of our stupid old $400 VHF portables so he could talk county-wide to everyone else on the incident. 50+ folks in the field didn't notice anything different, it just worked.
Had that not happened, part of the Incident Command structure would have been isolated by the Starcom incompatability bottleneck.
I didn't have the time (or any inclination whatsoever to jump through all the myriad hoops and complete all the paperwork) to set up any sort of bridge between a Starcom talkgroup and the real world.
So much for interoperability.
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