Interop challenges continue.....

[doctordave]

Interesting high speed chase tonight from Baltimore City, through many parts of NW Balt Co and into Carroll County - terminating in a footchase into some poor citizen's house....Troopers stormed the residence w/ weapons drawn, chased the suspect into the basement and made the capture.....the pursuit lasted well over an hour. During much of the chase, 7 Balt City PD cars were fully out of range of the towers and unable to communicate w/ MSP, Balt Co PD or the overhead City & County choppers. Luckily, a City Officer involved in the pursuit had a cell phone and used it to call 911....for over 20 minutes, this was his only link to Dispatch. Since communication was lacking, several City PD units were out of the loop on info regarding stop strips that had been placed by MSP & nearly ran over them.

Nice to know that interop is alive and well.

Dave

 

[mlevin]

Well, if they would stop using the type 1 model of radio with only 48 channels/TGs and use the type 2 or type 3 like Baltimore County does then the City would be able to communicate with the other jurisdictions.

 

[leonzo]

Question- Its always loudly proclaimed that Baltimore City has a NO PURSUIT policy, so is that not true?

 

[leonzo]

Question- Its always loudly proclaimed that Baltimore City has a NO PURSUIT policy, so is that not true?

 

[Metro174]

I heard that chase as well and from what I could gather it involved an armed person who was a suspect in a carjacking. That's one case where City will chase.

 

[mlevin]

They chase if it's a known felon. Other then that they cut it off.

 

[TinEar]

Doesn't everyone have the 460.05 freq in some dark corner of their radios? This freq seems to exist solely to have radio or comm net checks. I know that in the heat of battle, you want to hear the comforting voices of your "homies" and don't think about little used freqs, but perhaps it's time to get serious about a real interop frequency in the area.

 

[ka3jjz]

Doesn't everyone have the 460.05 freq in some dark corner of their radios? This freq seems to exist solely to have radio or comm net checks. I know that in the heat of battle, you want to hear the comforting voices of your "homies" and don't think about little used freqs, but perhaps it's time to get serious about a real interop frequency in the area.

Actually, before everyone goes overboard here, I think it was Dispatcher308 (Nathan?) that said in a much earlier thread on a similar subject that the state does not have policies or procedures in place on when or when not to use interop freqs, such as Icall, Metro or PMARSl channels, and that the state was working on this (meaning, of course, that it will be several years before everyone know when and how to use them). While the various jurisdictions might actually *have* the frequencies in their equipment, that's not the whole issue.
I point out a couple of incidents earlier this year that illustrate this point very well;
a. The Water Taxi tragedy
b. The big Taker spill around 295/695 this past spring. In fact, the Sun paper had an article on the radio confusion that occurred during this incident.

Sadly I have the feeling that more lives will be lost until this issue is fully addressed and resolved.

 

[mlevin]

I have the 460.05 freq in every bank. I have heard it used numerous times. Most of the talking is between dispatchers just like you would hear on F-Mars (154.280) I've also heard instances where the dispatcher will simulcast his/her voice over the 460.05 freq. This way the other jurisdiction involved can get a live playby play of events to relay to their own officers.

In short, it is used just not to it's utmost potential.

 

[TinEar]

" Actually, before everyone goes overboard here,..."

Mike, that's part of the problem. It's time someone DOES go overboard. Someone needs to grab this problem by the neck and wring out a solution. There's also the confusion of having lots of interoperable frequencies. We've got the Metro Net Intersystem freq of 460.05, the I-TAC and RINS frequencies along with the P-MARS freq. P-MARS (866.3625) seems to be used fairly often in the D.C. area while the Baltimore area freq stays quiet. I believe part of the problem is the parochial nature of police work. My experience is military rather than law enforcement but, as I mentioned above, when the heat is on, you only want to hear your own units' friendly voices in your ear. That's who you know and who you trust. Sometimes though, a helping hand from other friendlies can save your butt. And that's the eventual bottom line and the reason it needs to be solved. But, what do I know? </rant>

 

[Dispatcher308]

Whoa there everyone Calm down for just one moment.

1. 460.050 is base to base only and there are no mobiles.(it wouldn't have helped those officers from baltimore city anyway as there portables are 800mhz).

2. The Npspac 800mhz frequencies are availible & there is a Temporary Protocol out on how to use this system. However Balto City wants no part in it at this time, cause they cannot (as mlevin said) use it cause they only have 48 channel radio's.

3. Also Baltimore County tried to get Balto City to program some of Baltimore County frequencies into their portables, so they could have interoprability. But yet again Balto City only has 48 channel radio's.

So you have to sit back and look whose fault is it really here. Baltimore City should have mobile radio's in there cars like many other Jurisdicitions do so if something like this occurs they can either reach there Dispatch or have surrounding Jurisdicitions Talkgroups or put the NPSPAC Channels in them so they can communicate.

Well so much for that. just so you folks know it's not that they don't have anything out there that can help them, they just don't want to use the resources availible to them and maybe now they will look at this incident and learn from it but I doubt they will.

 

[Bugkiller]

The chase that doctordave was talking about was an operation on TG 2000 durg surveillance 153. I was listening to that channel all night. The chase started after the deal went down and they tried to make the arrest. The whole deal was very interesting.

 

[mlevin]

Oh that's what it was. I heard them call for the chopper on my way into work and had to turn the radio off

 

[TinEar]

Since we're on the topic of interoperability, I just got an interesting item from my newswire which I submitted to the home page for publication.

It concerns a development by Motorola for something called the MOTOBRIDGE. Florida will be the first state to get it. Apparently, it is a software gateway switch that will allow a dispatcher to connect anything together no matter which organization or frequency they happen to be using. I'd like a bit more info on it but it sounds extremely promising to solve this major problem.

There are other companies that have come up with proposed solutions for this problem. Raytheon has a van sized solution but the cost is prohibitive. Another small company called Aegis Assessments came up with a briefcase sized solution. It's kind of funky though. Everyone goes to the scene, plugs one of their radios into the piece of equipment, creating a cross network between the radios, and can talk to each other no matter their system or freq. I understand the cost to be about $20K. I almost invested in this company until I learned Motorola was working on solutions and held off. Good thing - the Aegis company's stock price has collapsed. Anyway, if Lindsay sees fit to publish the item I submitted, it's an interesting read.