My guess is having “very nice sites” relates to a trunked 700-800MHz system. While that may be true, I’ve never been a fan of any system that requires an array of sites and equipment to make it work. But in today’s world that may be necessary.
I'm an old firefighter. The long standing premise of the fire service is the ability to take everything with you when you respond. That’s not to say everything goes everytime, only what is necessary. But all that they own is on wheels. FD’s use trucks, very large trucks, to carry all their equipment… pumps, hose, extraction tools, etc. And that includes their communication system too. They want to be self-sufficient in all things. I remember times when the police asked the FD for help when their comms system died suddenly… it was back in the day, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen again.
Severe weather incidents such as high winds, tornados, hurricanes may cause a trunking site to go down, damaged by the weather. What happens when services are required to respond to that area that trunked site services? It’s a very real probability. The system may be severely limited or not work at all… especially when that site also supports cell phones.
A VHF High Band repeater system depends upon a repeater much like a trunked system. So what happens if that repeater and any redundancy that may be in place go down? If the responders are equipped with mobile radios powerful enough to be able to switch to simplex they can maintain their ability to contact their base without a repeater in the mix. It’s not a perfect solution but the VHF frequencies are not as susceptible to “line-of-sight” as 700-800MHz frequencies commonly used on trunked systems… that’s why trunked systems need those extra sites. And the infrastructure of a trunked system is much more elaborate and involved than a VHF system. That aspect of a trunked system plays against being able to take everything you own with you. Yes, large trunked systems employ portable mobile sites they can roll out at a moments notice to replace a damaged site but it still takes time to get them transported and set up. Something Fire Chiefs are vehemently opposed to. They tend to practice the KISS adage. They want to know they already have the equipment they need on board their apparatus. Time is a killer during emergencies where the objective is to regain control in a timely fashion.
That being said, I realize trunked systems are here to stay. Fire Chief’s don’t get much say in larger towns and cities when it comes to budgets for one thing. And they an oriented in the fire service, not all that much in the technical aspect of todays comms systems. They can’t speak intelligently on the subject so they leave it up to others and are at their mercy. They are always told to trim their dept. budget down. They would much rather pay for their share of a lesser cost VHF system and allocate more money for other equipment and personnel but trunked systems are designed for multi agency use, necessary for the many needs of the larger towns and cities, and should save the overall municipal budget money over the long run. So, you are probably correct when you say there are some very nice sites in town.
The real kicker here is we can debate all day the advantages and disadvantages. If a proposal is initiated, the pros and cons get weighed during the discovery process, deciding a best fit. But the real decider is cost…Will the voters go for it? And what do you say to them when they say “How much will our taxes go up?”
Do they spend the $20K (just a guess) to fix existing or spend millions on an upgrade? A fix probably won’t be subject to a referendum but the alternate offerings surely will.
Only time will tell.
