Info on the delays/issues with the Metrocrest Quad Cities Public Safety Radio System

[n5ims]

Some interesting reading on the issues and delays on the new Harris P-25 Phase II system for The Metrocrest Quad Cities Public Safety Radio System (Metrocrest Quad Cities Public Safety Radio System Trunking System, Carrollton, Texas - Scanner Frequencies).

(11/04/2015 meeting minutes) http://www.ntecc.org/DocumentCenter/View/80

Leonard Martin has had discussions with Harris regarding the delays that the cities are experiencing. He feels that the cities should each get a report from their respective finance departments to find out exactly what these delays are costing the cities. Mr. Martin also expressed that he is not opposed to going to court, if it comes to that, because this is costing so much money. He has also informed Harris that Carrollton is not paying another dime towards this project. Mr. Greer stated that these delays cannot go on any longer and that this is embarrassing.

...

A line needs to be drawn, and NTECC needs a target that gives us a solution with a plan. Mr. Phillips suggests that each manager get a report together and get the information to Mr. Ecker, to compile a letter to Harris. Mr. Daniels suggests that the cities agree that if one city doesn’t pay a portion of the contract, the other cities shouldn’t either. Mr. Phillips agreed that each city should report to their respective accounting department that no more payments should be made to Harris until something is done about this.

(12/3/2015 meeting minutes) http://www.ntecc.org/DocumentCenter/View/79

Mr. Leonard detailed the group’s concerns with him, stating that Harris’ reputation is at risk of being damaged, the implementation team has shown a lack of urgency and communication is very weak and inconsistent. Mr. Martin went on to tell Mr. Young that $30,000 per month is being spent on a facility that is not being used because of these delays, in addition to other costs and this is unacceptable. Ms. Mitchell of City of Carrollton stated that Mr. Young sounded surprised to hear of the difficulties that NTECC has been experiencing.

...

Mr. Greer is most concerned because of the fact that there are still damages and suggests that payment be withheld until everything is settled. The letter Mr. Laughlin drafted does detail the financial damages the cities have experienced, however he suggests concessions could take place for future services, instead of trying to get restitution for the past. The relationship with Harris, as the vendor will still need to be solid because of future service requirements that the center will have and salvaging that relationship will be important. Mr. Martin feels that Harris will not take us to court if the cities withheld payment.

 

[BenScan]

Thanks for sharing that.

 

[n5ims]

My monitoring over the last few days makes it appear that 98+% of the activity on the new system is on Carrollton talkgroups. FB PD & Addison PD appear to have returned to the old analog system and it appears that they're using only handheld radios in the field that were originally issued to various departments. Apparently they were reprogrammed for the few talkgroups that are being used but the radio-IDs remained as originally programmed.

This is causing minor issues since they show up on the dispatch console with the "wrong" names. Units are being requested to repeat their unit numbers fairly often. In one case, dispatch told the unit that they were showing up as a public works radio that was supposed to have been destroyed. One would've thought that the old radios would've been kept in storage and labeled with their original use until the new system had been fully migrated to and officially accepted. Had this been done, units could've been reissued their old radios in the event that the new system had problems, as they clearly are having.

Makes me think of the old Vacation movie where the car dealer crushed their old car very quickly to force Clark Griswold to accept the Family Truckster even though it was no where near what he had ordered. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTaTitRENDM

 

[BenScan]

I've noticed a bunch of the funky 64### tgs/patches were not active yesterday.

It sure sounds like a mess from those meeting minutes. I hope they get things working safely and without extra cost to the taxpayers. I wonder if there would have been a significant difference in cost and implementation, had they joined up with FWRR or Denton Co.

 

[TLF82]

I'm really surprised someone has not sued Harris (or Daily Wells) for all of the delays they've incurred from their inability to get a system up and running properly.

 

[bugboy]

I'm still listening to Coppell on the Lewisville system. As far as I know Coppell is not using the Quad Cities but are supposed to migrate in early March.

I'll check into that this evening.

 

[jason51]

Channel 8 News is running a story on this tonight at 10 pm. Should be very interesting.

 

[hiegtx]

One of the issues for the upcoming 10PM news story is that police officers in the member cities lost all communications, other than cellphones, for 30 minutes recently. No way to call for assistance or backup via the radios.

 

[BenScan]

Hopefully they will learn from that, and train everyone on what to do when the regular radio system crashes.

Regardless of whether it's Harris, Motorola, EDACS, etc., I cannot imagine any recently programmed radios not having access to interop simplex and repeater channels. Those channels would not likely be affected by whatever caused the primary radio system to break. They just need the planning and training to make the backup work. They already have the equipment. I know they started switching back to the old analog when the P25 crashed last week. I assume that won't be an option at some point, once the analog system is decommissioned.

One of the issues for the upcoming 10PM news story is that police officers in the member cities lost all communications, other than cellphones, for 30 minutes recently. No way to call for assistance or backup via the radios.

 

[mostinterestingman]

after all the colossal failures Harris has experienced (Vegas, NY State, Oakland) You think they could get a system this small deployed. Unreal.

 

[RadioBoy69]

There is not any radio training now days. Interop channels are only used for training.it is impossible to get anyone to switch off of their primary zone.99 percent of the users dont know how to change zones.

 

[RadioBoy69]

Great story on channel 8 tonight. Sounds like the tax payers are going to take the brunt of this one! You get what you pay for! Im glad i dont live in those cities!!

 

[mostinterestingman]

http://api.tegna-tv.com/video/play/...cription-key=772a19d0a9cc4d659ae4d244473b777d

Link to tonights news cast. OUCH!

 

[n5ims]

The story has finally hit their web site. Empty 911 center a million dollar mess | WFAA.com

 

[dmdx86]

From the audio clips it sounds like classic simulcast distortion that we plebs with scanners deal with every day.

Any chance that Motorola will come in and save the day, or will Harris fool around with firmware updates and tweaks until things are satisfactory?

 

[hiegtx]

From the audio clips it sounds like classic simulcast distortion that we plebs with scanners deal with every day.

Any chance that Motorola will come in and save the day, or will Harris fool around with firmware updates and tweaks until things are satisfactory?

Since the current system is all Harris equipment, the only way Motorola would come in is if the cities cancel their contract with Harris, have all the installed product removed, and issue a new bid proposal request, in which Motorola could participate.

 

[nd5y]

That sucks. I guess we can expect problems in Wichita Falls and Abilene next.

 

[TLF82]

That sucks. I guess we can expect problems in Wichita Falls and Abilene next.

Already happened in Lubbock. The system sat in the test bed for awhile because Daily Wells could not get it to work... Sure it's up and "working" now but I've never heard one person say "Hey! This system is awesome!"

The Harris Phase 2 systems have just been one failure after another.

 

[kem554991]

I agree that this sounds like simulcast distortion. To me it sounds somewhat similar to what happens when you simulcast audio from one digital system through another digital system. I've seen similar problems on the SAUA P25 system, which is a simulcast of the San Antonio/Bexar County EDACS system. By the time the audio has been encoded as EDACS ProVoice, decoded by the ProVoice radio, and re-encoded by the P25 radio, it gets pretty nasty and difficult to understand. This may be oversimplifying the situation a bit, but that does appear to at least partially explain the issue.

EDIT: Also, having those interop frequencies is not only convenient for working with other agencies - it could be a matter of life or death in the event that one of these large, complicated systems goes down. Having them and knowing how to switch to them should be a safety requirement. As I recall, those Harris portables should be capable of VHF as well, so it would probably be helpful to have the old VHF interop channels as well. A vast majority of departments still have those programmed into at least some of their radios.

 

[motorola_otaku]

I cannot believe they issued Unity radios to the rank and file. That is WAY too much radio for the average cop or firefighter. Great tech tool, but the user interface is a kluge-y mess and not intuitive at all.

The GPS thing was a real issue. Motorola put out a bulletin when their systems started showing GPS alarms... but they didn't go offline.