Franklin 800 system

[chief700]

I noticed an article in the paper today from Franklin, TN that the city's new 800 system is running about $1,000,000 over budget due to having to have three towers instead of just two. It seems the city disapproved one of the original two towers and thus created a need for three towers. Motorola blames the city, city blames Motorola, don't have enough info to know which came first the chicken or the egg but either way seems to be a pretty expensive over run on a $3.8 million system.

I would think we should soon be able to listen to the Franklin PD and FD as well as other agencies on there. Not sure who else would be on there perhaps Williamson County or Brentwood may even get some access to the system.

 

[stewart00311]

As I have heard in the past I would be really surprised if Franklin will be in the clear in Analog or Digital. I would suspect they will encyrpt most of their comms unknown about weather or not the county or Brentwood would.

 

[chief700]

Analog or digital

I don't know for sure but based on the system price my guess is that they will be adigital. I say that because if you look at $1MM per tower and they planned for two towers on $3.8MM budget that leaves $1.8MM for radios, dispatch equipment, installation, training, etc. doesn't seem like it would be much problem to go digital if you figure 200 mobiles at $3,400 and probably the same number of portables at $2,700 each. That's only a little over $1.2MM which leaves abou $.6MM left over for training, installation, etc. If they don't get digital I question the cost of the system.

Plus, if they want interoperability with Metro they would have to be digital.

 

[firemedic2150]

If they are building a new system from scratch, and buying new radios all around and they dont go digital someone needs to be shot. I think you can order Motorola infrastructure that is not digital, but most stuff they sell new nowdays is digital with the option of analog.

 

[W4EMS]

Politics are way too strong to even think that Brentwood or the county would presently go TRS with Franklin. Even w/o politics one would need to add multiple additional towers due to the terrain. Kinda shoots interoperability in the foot. Not sure if they are funding the system as a city or if they have federal funding but if the latter the feds need to tighten the notch everywhere in regards to mutual aid interoperability.

I would speculate that they would not encrypt normal comms. Lesson learned when Brentwood did this and when two officers were shot no one outside the agency could get any details or provide timely assistance. As such, BW went to normal comms routinely with sensistive data sent by CRT and encryption saved for special ops.

My two cents worth.

 

[CAPTLPOL1]

I knew the Sergeant that was shot and talked to him about the system just a few short weeks before the incident. I made some comments on the system and how silly and easily defeatable it was.