EF Johnson Technologies, Inc. Receives $900K Contract from City of Marietta

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Thunderbolt

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Company to provide P25 radios for new customer

Irving, TX – June 26, 2008 – EF Johnson Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: EFJI) announced today that it has received a $900,000 order from the City of Marietta, Georgia. The order calls for the company to provide its Project 25 compliant radios and accessories.

Michael E. Jalbert, chairman and chief executive officer, said, “Earlier in the year we announced that we were strengthening our marketing efforts to new federal, state and local government customers. This is the latest demonstration of our implementation of that strategy. The City of Marietta is a vibrant and growing part of metropolitan Atlanta and we are proud to provide them with interoperable communications solutions.”

Rich Tieslau, IT Director for the City of Marietta said, “These Project 25 compliant radios will provide us with two-way radio interoperability with the Georgia State Patrol, Cobb County Fire, Police and Sheriff’s Departments and other public safety agencies in neighboring cities and counties, plus a couple of local university police departments. The new EFJohnson radios are equipped with Over the Air Rekeying (OTAR) and AES encryption which are features we did not have in our analog 800 MHz radios.” The City went through an extensive Request for Proposal process that began in October 2007 with the City’s 800 MHz P25 Radio Selection Committee recommending the purchase of EFJohnson products in May. The City worked closely with local EFJohnson dealer Radio One, Inc. of Norcross, Georgia to secure the sale and will work with them on the equipment installation.
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bigbluemsp

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Good Luck with EFJ.

Every department I researched for my work project that had EFJ P25 Encrypted radios had horrendous problems and received absoultely horrid customer service and trouble shooting from EFJ.
 

wa8pyr

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Good Luck with EFJ.

Every department I researched for my work project that had EFJ P25 Encrypted radios had horrendous problems and received absoultely horrid customer service and trouble shooting from EFJ.

I concur. I have several customers on the system I manage using EFJ radios, and they are very dissatisfied with the product and customer support both.
 

ka5lqj

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E. F. Johnson.......LOL!

Well,

I'm not familiar with their products or work in the 800 mc. range. However, they did make some
BODACIOUS Ham and business radios back in the 50's & 60's. I still have a couple of old. E.F. Johnson
"Messenger One's", the 5 channel, xtal conrolled, Class D rigs. One is still pristine an on CB. The other,
has been "converted" to 10 meter AM (29.000 ->29.200mcs). I've added an RF gain control, s-meter,
lowered the screen grid resistor to 390 ohms and paralleled a .27 mfd cap at 800 wvdc to give up to
95% modulation, replaced all the filter capacitors with higher voltage capacitors and removed the
rectifier tube and installed a voltage doubler. It has a 50 watt input now, and lopes along at 35 watts
out. You can catch me, when the band is open on 29.101.0 (29 Ten/Ten AM!) along with the modified
Hy-Gain 5/8ths wave collinear, the "CLR-II".

If anyone knows of where I might be able to buy an old 27 mhz, Business band FM rig, please e-mail
me. The band still has some business on those freqencies. (27. 470). They're also crystal-controled,
(one channel) with a 30 watt output. I'll convert it to 10 FM.

Respectfully,
73,
'Pray for OUT troops, no matter WHERE they are in this World, protecting OUR Freedom's'

Don/KA5LQJ
 

richardc63

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Good Luck with EFJ.

Every department I researched for my work project that had EFJ P25 Encrypted radios had horrendous problems and received absoultely horrid customer service and trouble shooting from EFJ.

Hi,

I'm looking seriously at their IP25 2600 series conventional bases and voter, and would like to find out more from those with FIRST HAND experience with the equipment & the company (in particular after sales service). I'm not interested in gossip... just the facts... please email me privately. We are in Australia so product support would need to be exceptional for us to pick them.

Cheers,


Richard
 

richardc63

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I've never understood why any government (city or otherwise) would put their money on an "also-ran".


Maybe I never will.


Elroy

Elroy,

I was going to let your comment pass without comment but I've thought again... What is your definition of an "also ran"? I would love to hear what substance lurks behind your comment or is it just a cheap shot? I can think of a number of small companies that in terms of market share could be termed "also rans" that have provided superb product & service to their clients over many years.

Cheers,


Richard
 

af5rn

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Every department I researched for my work project that had EFJ P25 Encrypted radios had horrendous problems and received absoultely horrid customer service and trouble shooting from EFJ.
Every department I ever knew to have Motorola implement their P25 system also had horrendous problems and horrid customer service. So what's the difference? I'll tell you the difference: about $2 million dollars.
 

im800mhz

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I know the 4 or 5 different testing periods that we've had over the years, the radios have failed basic PTT functionality on a 4.1 mixed mode. I never had the same engineer, sales person or support team. At least out here the EFJ staff turnover is pretty bad. We recently had a nearby city start litigation to have their 300 radios returned. They had the same issues we did.

That being said, I hope we end up with a good competitor for Motorola. I do like the Motorola equipment, sales and support. I don't like the price. If another decent company would stay around and not change their name and focus every 6 months the world would be better off. If you look at what is happening in Europe, competition is a wonderful thing...
 

MTS2000des

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Well all you EFJ haters, Marietta PD has been using the 53SL's for over a month now, no problems. They outperform the XTS5000's used on the same Motorola Astro 25 SZ system. The ehanced vocoders blow away the XTS's used by Cobb. The city saved enough money not getting boned by Ma M to buy other communication related hardware for the department (e.g. cellphones, Blackberries, high speed wireless cards, etc).

The bottom line is Motorola thinks they can force their overpriced and often underperforming products down every public safety agencies' throat. Kudos for Marietta for actually writing a REAL RFP that didn't specify a vendor. Kenwood and Icom responded, as did Motorola in addition to EF Johnson. The radios Motorola submitted (XTS2500) for evalution failed tests, especially for weak signal areas, vocoder performance and battery life. The EFJ's excelled in every area. Kenwood submitted a radio but it did not meet the spec at the time (which was to cover both 700 and 800) and Icom currently does not offer any 800MHz P25 radios.
The EFJ's come witha 3 year warranty standard. The local dealer (Radio One) has been very supportive has handled the removal of the old analog Spectra radios and installing the new EFJ's.

Like it or not, Motorola is no longer the king of the hill. Agencies don't have 6 grand to spend on portable radios anymore. The magic homeland security money has dried up. There is no reason digital radios have to cost 500 percent more than a comparable analog one, other than the fact that the vendors (mainly Motorola), feel they can strong arm customers into paying whatever they wish.

And please don't give me this horse crap about Motorola being superior. Plenty of problems with Astro 25, ask the dead firefighters who's wonderful P25 garble-matic vocoders in their XTS5000 failed to get their cries for help out. EFJ's use the next gen vocoder, too bad they weren't carrying 5300's, they might be here to tell us how well they worked.
 

KD8CHP

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MTS2000DES,

I don't think these guys are hatein on EFJ just stating experiences.
 

fwradio

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I know the 4 or 5 different testing periods that we've had over the years, the radios have failed basic PTT functionality on a 4.1 mixed mode. I never had the same engineer, sales person or support team. At least out here the EFJ staff turnover is pretty bad. We recently had a nearby city start litigation to have their 300 radios returned. They had the same issues we did.

That being said, I hope we end up with a good competitor for Motorola. I do like the Motorola equipment, sales and support. I don't like the price. If another decent company would stay around and not change their name and focus every 6 months the world would be better off. If you look at what is happening in Europe, competition is a wonderful thing...

Every instance that I have ever heard of problems with EFJ equipment has been related to Motorola's SmartNet/SmartZone. The same problems don't exist on Project 25 Trunking. Motorola has continually upgraded SmartNet since it first came out. Who's to say they didn't upgrade it to intentionally NOT work properly with the EFJ radios. It's what we call "Motoropoly"
 

MTS2000des

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MTS2000DES,

I don't think these guys are hatein on EFJ just stating experiences.

The system Marietta is using is the Cobb county P25 DTRS, Motorola Smartzone 7.xx.

Sometime in mid October, Marietta FD will be getting their 53SL's and will follow Cobb county Fire's switch to the Cobb DTRS (Cobb county still has their 1993 vintage Smartnet II analog TRS, which will be reduced to 5 channels, and AFAIK, only CCT will use it. It will remain up for interoperability until Fulton county, Atlanta, and Douglasville go digital.) at that time.

Marietta saved alot of money not paying ridiculous amounts of money for radios. The city of Marietta put out a true RFP, solicited bids, and did true, unbiased field tests of those who met the RFP and submitted radios for testing. The fact is the Motorola XTS2500 is a piece of crap. It was submitted by it's maker. The tests were done in places known for trouble with the Cobb DTRS such as the first floor of PDHQ, the Cobb county jail, Kennestone hospital (where i work) et all. And guess what: they sucked. The 2500 shows "out of range" or horrible digital artifacts, the 53SL never lost the system. Our security at Kennestone uses the 2500's. They sound like dog crap. They are all fairly late (HOST/DSP 11) ones at that- you cannot tell one person from another. These radios are garbage.

True tests of the radios' ability to work on the fireground with loud noise from PPV fans, PASS alarm, engine noise, etc were done by MFD officials. guess who the big loser here was: MOTOROLA. guess what radio resulted in usable audio? the EFJ 53SL.

Too bad more agencies aren't bright enough to do real true RFP'ing, bidding and testing like this.
 

rpgbigman

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Some one answer this to for me.
I have about 35 XTS 2500 Radios. I never have to do a Firmware update to these Radios.
but All the EF johnson Radios I have to get updates for them ever 6 to 9 mouths?
We call them EF Junkers at my Dept. or Wheel chocks.
If I didnt' have to update the EF Johnson Ever 6 mouths and PAY! that might be different.
but when I dont' have to update a Motorala then why Waist the time with EF Johnson?
as of now we can turn the EF johnson in for a 400 dollar Refund towards a new motorla?
Wonder why?
 

Grog

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I have about 35 XTS 2500 Radios.


With your ability to structure a paragraph, I'm astonished you don't have 35 fingers.


I never have to do a Firmware update to these Radios.


If you never get your XTS radios updated I bet you'd be in a shock to see just how many updates that are available for them. A motorola is worse than Windows OS when it comes to updates.


All the EF johnson Radios I have to get updates for them ever 6 to 9 mouths?


If any of your radios have mouths I would think twice about getting too close to the microphone, that might be how they reproduce.


We call them EF Junkers at my Dept. or Wheel chocks.


They are rugged, you see that as bad?
 
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