Hampton, VA announces new radio system.

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brueger

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Well, there has been rumors for a while and now it's official.

At Wednesday nights (Feb 11, 09) city council meeting it was announced that Hampton will be purchasing a new radio system from Motorola to the tune of approximately $14 million.

The new system will be P25 compliant and operate in the 700-800 mhz band. The project is slated to take 18 months.

What does this mean for us scanner listeners? Well, the system will probably be like (hopefully) York Co. and Chesapeake's radio systems. If you have a RS Pro-96/2096, the Uniden or GRE digital scanners, you should be ok.

Currently Hampton has been using the M/A-Com EDACS system since 1992.

(More to come)
 

Stick0413

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Well, there has been rumors for a while and now it's official.

At Wednesday nights (Feb 11, 09) city council meeting it was announced that Hampton will be purchasing a new radio system from Motorola to the tune of approximately $14 million.

The new system will be P25 compliant and operate in the 700-800 mhz band. The project is slated to take 18 months.

What does this mean for us scanner listeners? Well, the system will probably be like (hopefully) York Co. and Chesapeake's radio systems. If you have a RS Pro-96/2096, the Uniden or GRE digital scanners, you should be ok.

Currently Hampton has been using the M/A-Com EDACS system since 1992.

(More to come)


Looking at that, as long as they don't go encrypted, you should be ok with the scanner models listed. Now if it is 700mhz the 96/2096 will not be able to track the system. They receive that band but are unable trunk track it.

I am guessing they decided to ditch going to ProVoice like I read they might do before.
 

Stick0413

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Rgr that Aaron,

From what I have read/heard, and correct me if I am wrong, the 700mhz area is used for data.

And, as most know, with any government project you can probably add another 12 months to the project.

Brian
--------------------
Check out Hampton Fire & Rescue
Hampton , Virginia Live Police, Fire, and EMS Scanners


The data could be 700. They can also do voice on 700 too (look at the regional system down there ORION). I haven't heard anything on the new system down there so I can't answer. I will ask a Hampton PD Corporal I know when I talk to him again and see if he knows anything about it.
 

CVASSB

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My Gosh!

The government cannot afford this program right now. This is my opinion. It's like they are lost in a spending frenzy. Other areas,and other states are doing the same thing. All of this is adding up,and it's going to be very costly.
 

brueger

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Money

I agree, the money probably does not need to be spent at this time. Especially, since there is talk (very substantiated rumors) of city employee lay-offs.

Let me give you a little of my background. I am a retired Hampton FF/PM. In my last five years with the department, I was the comm/radio officer (Feb '01 to Sep '06.) Part of my duties was to know just about everything I could about the radio system. I was involved with rebanding, interoperability and purchasing new radios and accessories for the fire dept. One thing to think about - the current system works! Why change something just to have something new? Ok, so one cannot have "immediate and direct" mutual aid comms, but they now have Orion in all of the battalion chief and EMS supv cars. So, spend $14 million to have "immediate and direct" comms? Now, I am just being the devils advocate here because I know that Motorola would probable serve the PS system better than EDACS.

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Arron,

Nothing against your HPD corporal friend, but unless it is the corporal that works with the Capt in the 911 center, he/she is not going to know any more than we do. I will check with my contact at city hall that is part of the radio team to see what he knows.

Cheers

Brian
 

vortex

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Hampton P25

Hey Brian- David here- i agree with you- MA COM could probably not address the issues of instant mutual aid or the city could not afford a MA COM P25 system. Pro Voice was/is available- if they looking for secure comms that would have been the way to go- but encryption will likely be used extensively on the new system
 

brueger

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Hampton P25

Hey Brian- David here- i agree with you- MA COM could probably not address the issues of instant mutual aid or the city could not afford a MA COM P25 system. Pro Voice was/is available- if they looking for secure comms that would have been the way to go- but encryption will likely be used extensively on the new system

Dave,

I saw the fire chief @ Costco tonight and we spoke briefly about the radio system. He told me that the prime reason was interoperability.

Lets just hope that if and when they acquire encryption capability that they only use it for sensitive comms like SWAT, Narc and that sort of thing.
 

N4VKF

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Hamption Radio System

So that Leaves Spotsylvania, Lynchburg, and Harrisonburg on the Edacs in the state?
 

fmon

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It sounds like you had a interesting career.
You can take that to the bank.

Brian has had two distinguished careers.
MSgt, USAF (Ret.)
Capt.(Ret)/Paramedic Hampton, VA.

He occasionally gets around the area as a private pilot and is a very accomplished photographer.
 

tglendye

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And Hanover, but they too are going with a Mot P25 system in the future.

And Rockingham Co. is in w/ Harrisonburg. Of course, they are the only Pro-voice system in the Commonwealth (I believe).

Todd
 

N4VKF

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pro voice

And Rockingham Co. is in w/ Harrisonburg. Of course, they are the only Pro-voice system in the Commonwealth (I believe).

Todd

Spotsylvania uses pro voice on their Narcotics channel. Only a few radios have it programmed.
 

brueger

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Frank, I just now saw your remarks about me. I appreciate it, but even though I am a licensed pilot, I have not flown since Nov of 1989. The cost started to become prohibitive and then I developed an inner ear problem. This same problem led to be having to retire from the fire service (I could have been given a desk job, but there were none open at the time.) because I could not work on a slanted roof or go into a smoky environment.
 

K4APR

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So that Leaves Spotsylvania, Lynchburg, and Harrisonburg on the Edacs in the state?

We have EDACS at the NASA Wallops Flight Facility, on the VA Eastern Shore. However, we are laying the ground work at this time for a ~2 year transition to a Motorola SmartZone system.
 

John

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Whether we agree with spending the money or not, any system installed in the early 90s has got to be a problem to maintain. I doubt they can get most of the parts anymore. A lot of public safety agencies are forced to transition not so much because they want to or even need to for operational issues but for support. You can't have the safety of the community depending on something that you can no longer support with either software or hardware. Even if the hardware is supported most vendors won't support the software end of the system that is that old.

As for interoperabilty, it will greatly enhance that since most of the area is on Motorola and many are P25 already. Having a Motorola system will allow them (politics permitting) to roam onto just about any local government system in the area. Of course that probably means little or no encryption unless they can agree to share keys... but who really needs encryption anyway. Almost all the really sensitive comms in local public safety are still being done by cell phone anyway.

John
 

Thunderbolt

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Rumor has it that the system will be online this December. However, I would be surprised if it's turned on in November for burn in testing of the transmitters. I just hope that they don't go overboard with encryption.

73s

Ron
 

digitalman

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Hampton P25

School Buses already heard on Orion System on HP3- would not be surprised if ALL pd comm are encrypted- lest hope only SIU/SWAT- but concerned when i look at York/Poquoson- with just about total encryption- it is a concern- looks like Fire Dispatch simulcast will be UHF 460.3625- waiting to see if its worth $400$600 for new scanner
 

Jim41

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Hampton System Activity

Obtained the following information using Pro96com tonight:

System: 3B6
NAC: 3B0
WACN: BEE00
Site ID: 201

851.0375 – d
851.2875 – d
851.5625 – d
854.7125 – a
854.9625 – a
855.7125 – a
855.5125 – c
856.5125 – d

Base: 851.00625 / 762.00625
Spacing: 0.00625 / 0.00625
Tx Offset: -45.00 / 30.00
A/C: C / C
Bandwidth: 0.00625 / 0.00625

Only activity indicated was Pvt Data

My decode rate is relatively low. Am getting lots of Unknown Data Packets

Would like to hear reports from others monitoring this system.

The Hampton EDACS system is still active. I doubt that the data above represents the final configuration of this system.

Jim41
 
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