Milwaukee will have fun being on an island like Watertown FD at the tire fire a couple years ago.
I remember that.
Not long after if my memory is correct, they were complaining about other agencies could not talk to them . Hrrmmm. *facepalm*
Let's look at this closer.
Watertown buys a 800 MHZ EDACS trunk system
ALL surrounding counties, cities, villages, etc are on VHF.
Solution : Buy a 800 MHZ trunk system .
Huh ?
Trunked systems do have their place, normally the engineering criteria is a population area of 200,000 people or more.
Apparently Tencom has missed the interwebz discussion about interoperability. The days of having encrypted or non standard radio system formats for day to day public safety operations are gone.
Sure, encryption is just fine for covert, surveillance, investigation, drug or sting operations who have a real need for it. But to encrypt normal operations is asking for trouble. Same thing goes for selecting a radio format that nobody can use but your agency. That's just absurd.
There are two acceptable formats of public safety radio in 2010. Analog, and P25 digital.
Neither of these formats will lock out manufactures, vendors or what not.
Nextedge, Mototrbo and the like are fine for commercial and business applications. Not public safety.
So now the OpenSky system has taken a step in the direction of actually being used to it's full potential, but it's 6 years overdue and with the normal lifespan of radio systems, the end of life for that product is approaching. How much longer will Harris keep that product going ? Would really suck if they released a bulletin that says in 2012 they will no longer sell radios for OpenSky, and the clock starts ticking for the end of support as well ?
Seems like a bad deal for Milwaukee. Before you know it, they will have to start looking at a new radio system to become start of the art......again.
I don't intend to sound like I am just picking on OpenSky, LTR Passport is another format I am against in public safety use. Yes, there are systems out there that use it. It's a dangerous format for Police and Fire to use.