Jackson County P-25

[MTS2000des]

All consultants drive what the customer wants. If a customer wants a FORD, the consultants job is to write a recommendation for a FORD.
P25 is the LMR standard adapted by APCO over 25 years ago. Why everyone goes to "it's a conspiracy" is interesting. APCO first spearheaded project 16 in the late 80s and then project 25 in the mid 90s to get us where we are today.

While other systems can be utilized, the P25 standard is what the guiding light (APCO) chose over 25 years ago as the way forward for public safety specific digital LMR. Saying that a particular consulting firm somehow slants this based on their preference is not totally accurate. All consultants do what they are told to do.

 

[1268]

No one lol Motorola Solutions themselves. I have seen in a Tusa report where they gave an option of upgrading infrastructure, but it was very vague. As noted above it seems pretty standard that they push whatever the person overseeing the project wants.

This is correct, Moto had a guy that went hot on Mototrbo about 12 years ago or so.... they worked the small counties hard to "bridge" the gap. I was in one of those pitch meetings.

 

[kb4he]

All consultants drive what the customer wants. If a customer wants a FORD, the consultants job is to write a recommendation for a FORD.
P25 is the LMR standard adapted by APCO over 25 years ago. Why everyone goes to "it's a conspiracy" is interesting. APCO first spearheaded project 16 in the late 80s and then project 25 in the mid 90s to get us where we are today.

While other systems can be utilized, the P25 standard is what the guiding light (APCO) chose over 25 years ago as the way forward for public safety specific digital LMR. Saying that a particular consulting firm somehow slants this based on their preference is not totally accurate. All consultants do what they are told to do.

Yes, APCO did facilitate the development of the P25 standard. APCO and the manufacturers persuaded the Federal Government to mandate P25 as the Public Safety Standard on the false premise of interoperability. So as with many other things the government involves itself in the cost to manufacture a NXDN/DMR/P25 radio is roughly the same, but P25 sells for 3-4 times the price of the others.

Here in lies my concerns and disagreement with most consultants. Not all customers hire consultants to promote a certain outcome. I will agree that many do. What I have witnessed over the last 40 years, when it comes to communications systems, most elected officials are not looking for a specific outcome, they are expecting accurate information to make an informed decision. I have witnessed, directors or department heads who are simply ignorant of technology, lacks the desire to inform themselves and doesn't want to be accountable for the decision they make. In those cases, where a specific outcome is not the objective, the consultant should be providing objective information of the technologies available and consider in their recommendations the ability of the customer to fund and support it. In my opinion, that would be consulting, anything other than that is sales.

 

[DanRollman]

All consultants drive what the customer wants. If a customer wants a FORD, the consultants job is to write a recommendation for a FORD.

No doubt about that.

The issue, perhaps, is who the 'customer' is. Is it the county itself? It's residents? The board of commissioners? Or the individual with signing authority to engage the consultant on behalf of the county?

Does the Board of Commissioners know that they are receiving a report whose outcome was pre-determined by the individual county employee who hired the consultant for the purpose of delivering a specific answer to the BoC for approval of the thing the employee wanted to buy? That is certainly not what the report says its purpose is. I think the report says essentially 'I was hired to determine what kind of car is best for the county, and I did an extensive analysis and conclude that a Ford is what the county should get' not 'I was hired to insist that you approve the money the bureaucrat wants for his Ford.'

I'm not sure 'conspiracy' is the right word - I suppose this is just the way government works. But I am not convinced the retired schoolteacher, the housewife, and the insurance salesman who bought yard signs and won races for 'commissioner' in their county of less than 50,000 people realizes it's how this works, notwithstanding the report's own assurances to the contrary. I think they may be naive enough to think the county hired an expert to do real work and then tell them what sort of radio system best balances needs, desired features, and cost effectiveness in their specific circumstances.

 

[lucas2121]

I think it all starts in sales. As stated above "The consultant drives what the customer wants". If MSI, L3Harris, Tait, and Kenwood all come and try and sell P25 systems that's what the customer is going to want, so of course that's what the consultant is going to say is needed. County commissioners are trusting that the consultants and the delegated representatives for their county have done the research to make the informed decision for them, unfortunately that is not always the case. Often they have drank the Kool-aid of what is being sold and their vision is obscured. In Jackson and Habersham, MSI made it easy for them them buy into the P25 hype by discontinuing support and parts for their systems.

 

[MTS2000des]

Individual county employees don't hire consultants. When a consultant or firm is hired, it's a board decision, typically boards require anything above a certain dollar amount ($2500 where I work) to go out for bid via RFP/RFQ process. Consultants are hired based on project scope/need. Much of this is driven by input from stakeholder agencies. That being said, if a given agency say, has a bit of money tied up in say, servicing and keeping Fords on the road in their fleet, than most likely keeping that going provided it is cost effective is the way forward. They would hire a consultant or firm who will find the best way to keep the fleet of Fords. It's just how it often works. No "conspiracy" element to it.

 

[kb4he]

Anyone with direct knowledge of the system. I'm being told even with 13 sites they are having portable coverage problems and still having encryption problems with their Unication pagers. attempting to verify the source.

 

[lucas2121]

I have not whitenessed any portable coverage issues. Pagers do not seem to be well liked here. The issues I have seen with the pagers is in fringe areas or any interference the encryption seems to make them garbled, like the data stream is disrupted and it takes time to recover. They could stand to adjust the levels. Otherwise it works well.

 

[kb4he]

I was with a fireman last week. We could see tower. Full scale on signal strength. Well within a capture area. Witnessed several times the audio being clear and garbled. It may start clear then mid transmission become garbled or start garbled and become clear. AES decryption is failing at some point in the transmission.

 

[lucas2121]

Yes that's pretty standard from what I have seen with the pagers. Not good for sure. I have not experienced that with the portables.

 

[kb4he]

Yes that's pretty standard from what I have seen with the pagers. Not good for sure. I have not experienced that with the portables.

That is my understanding as well. Portables are fine with some non coverage in the southeastern area of the county, but the pagers are having issues everywhere.

 

[wsp44]

What was the reasoning behind them using pagers, does Jackson have VFD's that use them?

 

[lucas2121]

What was the reasoning behind them using pagers, does Jackson have VFD's that use them?

Yes.

 

[1268]

I was with a fireman last week. We could see tower. Full scale on signal strength. Well within a capture area. Witnessed several times the audio being clear and garbled. It may start clear then mid transmission become garbled or start garbled and become clear. AES decryption is failing at some point in the transmission.

On the system, the issues are mostly in 3 areas. The encryption on the fire/EMS dispatch channel is the biggest issue right now (but it has been, though no one wants to admit it is an issue on some TAC traffic), the audio gets garbled.
The #1 problem is the Unification pagers for 3 departments not working correctly and not allowing dispatch traffic to be heard with portables in key situations. 13 towers, and they say we need 4 more!!

 

[1268]

What was the reasoning behind them using pagers, does Jackson have VFD's that use them?

Yes all VFD except West Jackson. 3 more are part time/ 3/4 paid. The rest fully VFD. Not changing soon so they need a solution.

 

[RRR]

How about don't force encryption if there are issues

 

[apx7000xe]

It's mainly a Unication issue. During my time with Tift County, we ran the G4s and used ADP encryption on everything. They constantly had issues with garbled traffic even with LOS to the site. They do great with clear traffic but do not like encryption at all. I'm sure it'll also be an issue with Habersham and Franklin as those are rumored to be AES256 like Jackson.

 

[1268]

I

It's mainly a Unication issue. During my time with Tift County, we ran the G4s and used ADP encryption on everything. They constantly had issues with garbled traffic even with LOS to the site. They do great with clear traffic but do not like encryption at all. I'm sure it'll also be an issue with Habersham and Franklin as those are rumored to be AES256 like Jackson.

I guess I still don't understand why the tone-out talk group can't be on an unencrypted talk group while everything else, like responses and on-scene moves, is on a different talk group like TAC 3, etc? Solves everything... is having one talk group unencrypted a lot of work to program?