Interoperability: VHF Radios

[Russell]

There are many opinions and misinformation and even disinformation regarding interoperability. I've been monitoring Dallas and North Texas since the mid to late 70's. Dallas and many suburban cites were on UHF and everybody else was on VHF. The intercity channels 154.95/155.37 were used extensively to communicate between agencies regardles of what band they were on. Many UHF agencies still had VHF radios in their cars and all agencies actively monitored the VHF channels.

The introduction of 800 MHz should not have created the interoperability "problems" we have today. Further these "problems" are really not problems at all. Especially, if everybody maintained the VHF capabilities. Most of Texas is still VHF, the agencies that aren't could only benefit by having VHF capabilities.

How much can VHF radio cost? We don't need complicated crossband switches, consoles, etc. that cost $1.3M or even $50,000. How many VHF radios can you buy for $50K? It seems that interoperatbility is not a technical problem or even an expensive one.

A VHF radio in every car and at least one base station for every agency. What's the problem here?

Russell

 

[2101]

Amen Brother!

 

[rattlerbb01]

The problem is that little Moto bug, or more often now, that Macom fairy buzzing around the ears of the people who make these decisions. Marketing and the media play into the public's opinion heavily too.

 

[Russell]

The problem is that little Moto bug, or more often now, that Macom fairy buzzing around the ears of the people who make these decisions. Marketing and the media play into the public's opinion heavily too.

I suspect that this is the root of all interoperability "problems". "How can I make money off this?" causes more problems than it solves. But this money is our money. It is direclty reflected on our income taxes, slaes taxes, fees, surcharges, etc. Agencies are blowing millions of taxpayer dollars to "solve" a non-problem. As a taxpayer, I don't mind spending good money on good solutions. I would happily back Dallas spending a couple of hundred thousand to equip everbody with VHF radios (154.95/155.37, 155.475, and all the VTac channels).

I have a huge issue with a any city spending $60M on system that does not really address interoperability issues - even if I don't live there. Any city receiving Federal funds any where for these systems are wasting our money. I live in Dallas (and work in Austin), but I still care if Pennsylvania, or New York, or LA, of Gallup, NM, or Pahrump, NV is spending this money. It's our money and we deserve to have it spent effectively and efficiently, or not at all.

Russell

 

[hiegtx]

It's a combination of money, ego, and ambition.

Money for the radio system dealers chasing Homeland Security dollars, or any other source of funding they can scavenge, doing their utmost to convince city, county, or state officials that they need to spend millions to upgrade their radio systems 'before it's too late' or before the grant money runs out. So they push a system with as many bells and whistles as they can, including digital and (if they could) encryption for all, including the garbage collectors and animal control.

The ego is that of the officials, which is stroked by those same radio system dealers. "Buy our top of the line product and your city (or county, or agency) will stand out above it's neighbors".

The ambition? That of those same government employees, many, if not most of them, elected, or appointed by elected officials. The more they get their name in the paper, or face time on the 10:00 o'clock news, proclaiming how they've made the citizens safer by spending millions, the better (they think) their chances of getting re-elected are.

Lost in all the hoopla is the reality that in many cases, whatever communications issues exist could have been solved for a lot less money, as Russell already noted.

As a taxpayer, I don't mind spending good money on good solutions. I would happily back Dallas spending a couple of hundred thousand to equip everbody with VHF radios (154.95/155.37, 155.475, and all the VTac channels).

There are a few scattered, limited, areas of interoperability in practice among fire departments in the Dallas area. Duncanville answers some fire, EMS, and major accident calls either for, or with, Dallas Fire Rescue, as "automatic assist". They have a few pieces of equipment that normally answer these calls that have Dallas radios, so they answer on DFR's Uhf channels (Duncanville is Vhf). In the North Dallas area, "automatic assist" is also active, with Carrolton and Addison units checking enroute to certain calls; Dallas units also respond to calls in their cities. I don't know if Dallas provided the radios to the other cities, but probably should have, since it's to it's advantage. Haven't heard them in a while, but I believe at one time, Plano had at least one company with a Dallas capable radio. The cities do communicate with each other on the fire mutual aid frequency, 154.28, with Dallas generally doing a daily communications test. But on the field level, there is no day to day interop other than the few that do auto-assist calls, and not even all of those. But it wouldn't take millions to fix this.