Lackawanna PD - Saianet

lkas

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I see today in the DB lackawanna police moved to saianet. Anyone know why? They already had a DMR digital system that seemed to work very well. I am sure there was a cost to switch to saianet. Now to try and grab some unit ids to program them into my sds100 as they appear. IT was nice on the DMR as the unit id name would show up automatically.
 

GTR8000

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Newer than what, SaiaNet? Don't think that would be a factor in any decision. What would be factors are a) the ability to have wider area coverage with SaiaNet and b) the fact that other nearby agencies are migrating to SaiaNet. Hamburg is the only other police agency using NXDN, so moving to the more popular DMR system makes sense.

SaiaNet seems to slowly be filling the vacuum that exists with no actual countywide trunked system.
 

lkas

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Newer than what, SaiaNet? Don't think that would be a factor in any decision. What would be factors are a) the ability to have wider area coverage with SaiaNet and b) the fact that other nearby agencies are migrating to SaiaNet. Hamburg is the only other police agency using NXDN, so moving to the more popular DMR system makes sense.

SaiaNet seems to slowly be filling the vacuum that exists with no actual countywide trunked system.
yeah, word on the street is west seneca and possible town of tonawanda are going there is well. Do you know of any place to get a list of the radio id's? I started manually programming lackawanna this morning.
 

lkas

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Anyone able to pick up Lackawanna on saianet? I heard them this morning on Seneca one tower but have not heard a peep in three hours. I have been scanning Seneca one and highmark stadium sites. Has anyone heard them on any other sites?
 

ak716

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yeah, word on the street is west seneca and possible town of tonawanda are going there is well. Do you know of any place to get a list of the radio id's? I started manually programming lackawanna this morning.

Town of Tonawanda was migrating to P25 conventional last I heard and read (source Town Board minutes) for their NX5300's. Town of Tonawanda, City of Tonawanda and Kenmore are pretty hard-core Kenwood agencies, as FM Communications is right there. WSPD is confirmed; their Town Board approved the funding/contract to transition to SaiaNet. I'd imagine the only thing holding WSPD (and Highway I believe, as they are also a site for the microwave linking to Saia's HQ), is delivery of the units.

Also, FWIW, CW PD has been slightly more active than in the past. Mainly for interop with the agencies using DMR. I don't know if it's just dispatchers being "on the ball" more, awareness, or some directive came out. But to the nay-sayers that say going to SaiaNet is going to cause issues, all it's doing is making agencies use resources they already had and weren't using much.
 
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ak716

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Anyone able to pick up Lackawanna on saianet? I heard them this morning on Seneca one tower but have not heard a peep in three hours. I have been scanning Seneca one and highmark stadium sites. Has anyone heard them on any other sites?
They are active right now on Site-1
 

lkas

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You can use the uniden sentinel software. Lackawanna is not in the sentinel software database yet but there is a work around. Just load in east aurora police. Then edit the TGID to 514401 (lackawanna pd). You can also delete all the sites except seneca one tower (site 1) as that seems to be the only site they are hitting off of. Also, make sure u change the name from east aurora pd to lackawanna pd.
 

dave3825

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Can someone please advise me how to receive lackawanna ny police communications with sds100 scanner Many thanks,

Seeing is how they are on a DMR system shown below, you would need to either already have, or purchase the DMR key for your radio.



You can use the uniden sentinel software. Lackawanna is not in the sentinel software database yet but there is a work around. Just load in east aurora police. Then edit the TGID to 514401 (lackawanna pd).

If he is going to download the system into sentinel, why would he edit an existing tg? Just hit the add button and add the tg manually.

And just another reason why @ProScan is the best software. Updated database entries are instantaneous unlike the other, wait till Monday software...

1674483244163.png
 

Trbogeek

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SaiaNet seems to be good fit for various public safety entities. AMR, Mercy Flight, E. Aurora, Lackawanna, W. Seneca, Lancaster, etc. They offer multiple talk-groups, dedicated Emergency channel, tracking, wide-area coverage, complete interoperability with outside agencies, integrated console solution, fault tolerant infrastructure, all the things Public Safety wants, but is very expensive to design, install, and maintain. It is simple to see that private can fill and maintain these systems, better, more cost effective, than the Public Safety entities can themselves.

Tonawanda, Kenmore, N. Ton, all with Kenwood 5300 series radios will work natively, seamlessly, on a soon to be offered DMR III system. This will offer complete Public Safety interoperability, including priority pre-emption. New Generation radios also offer Cellular integration, effectively allowing National Coverage. P25 is pushed by lobbyists, not because it's better, but because it puts a lock on agencies, and forces end users down an expensive path, making hundreds of millions for the lobbyists. If public monies were not handed out to buy P25 (Note: Many buy the P25 radios, but run them in other formats, mostly analog), the majority of the country would be buying lower tier radios, and be very happy with them.

Just an opinion ....
 

k2hz

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A well designed and implemented County or area wide P25 system has advantages for mission critical public safety that may justify the cost. But, in the absence of such a system, a robust DMR system like Saia is adequate for a village or town PD particularly when it is also used by other area agencies. And, P25 is overkill for typical other users like public works and school buses. The main difference I see for P25 is in the features and quality available on top of the line radios.

For any agency smaller than a large city, and most business users needing other than on-site coverage, a decent multi site trunked system certainly makes economic and performance sense over building your own stand alone system. Every town in Erie County having their own local P25 system would be wasting money on something no better that their present analog systems other than at least getting everyone on the same band and mode for interoperability if they all were UHF P25.
 

Trbogeek

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What are the advantages the P25 protocol has, over a well designed DMR III system, high tier subscriber radios aside? Infrastructure is, or should be the same. Site hardening, robust, fault tolerant site connectivity, redundant zone controllers, redundant Trunk site control channels, RF designed for in building coverage in Urban areas. Well designed RF, system integrity, is the same. The XPR 7000 is the same skeleton as the APX 1000, and due to it's size preferable to Law enforcement. The Kenwood and EF Johnson higher tier radios are slated to have P25 and DMR III in the same radio, more importantly, giving the DMR radio the features requested for fire fighting use, larger knobs, buttons, etc. The cost of building out, maintaining, a well designed P25 phase 2 system is very cost prohibitive and difficult for even counties to maintain. If the end user gets the reliability they expect, features they request, I'm not sure where the real issue is.
 

ak716

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A well designed and implemented County or area wide P25 system has advantages for mission critical public safety that may justify the cost. But, in the absence of such a system, a robust DMR system like Saia is adequate for a village or town PD particularly when it is also used by other area agencies. And, P25 is overkill for typical other users like public works and school buses. The main difference I see for P25 is in the features and quality available on top of the line radios.

For any agency smaller than a large city, and most business users needing other than on-site coverage, a decent multi site trunked system certainly makes economic and performance sense over building your own stand alone system. Every town in Erie County having their own local P25 system would be wasting money on something no better that their present analog systems other than at least getting everyone on the same band and mode for interoperability if they all were UHF P25.

I'm gonna go slightly further off-topic, but it's relevant to what you were saying. All but TWO law enforcement agencies will soon be operating on UHF (Evans PD - analog VHF Hi, NFTA Police - 800 EDACS). That's huge that at least almost everyone is on the same band. The same goes with fire. Every fire dispatch in Erie County is on UHF, and the only one using any digital voice is NFTA CFR ARFF on the SaiaNet system. NFTA Fire is kind of in its own little world, but they have the ability to hop on the analog UHF channels, and those needing to talk to them have the ability for county interop channels. Changes have happened for the better in Erie County, going from VHF-Lo, Hi, UHF, and 800's all being used across the board at the same time to virtually everyone being UHF. Analog interop is in place, regardless of which public safety discipline anyone wants to talk about. Another reason why everyone is doing their own thing, we have no centralized police, fire, or EMS dispatch in the county. Every city, town, or village does its own thing. Sure, the super small towns and villages use ECSO for their dispatch. There are at least 15 stand-alone PSAPs. Consolidations have happened over the last few years, and more are likely coming down the pipeline. While yes, I'd love to have a countywide P25 TRS in the county. Rocking APX 4k's, 6k's, and 8k's on it in an FD, EMS, or LE setting would be great. But looking at it from a view excluding what FEMA shoves down our throats, what's the benefit of going P25? Erie County is saving money, not spending the tens (if not hundreds) of millions building out that TRS. The efficiency of TDMA is on both. I don't know.
 

ak716

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What are the advantages the P25 protocol has, over a well designed DMR III system, high tier subscriber radios aside? Infrastructure is, or should be the same. Site hardening, robust, fault tolerant site connectivity, redundant zone controllers, redundant Trunk site control channels, RF designed for in building coverage in Urban areas. Well designed RF, system integrity, is the same. The XPR 7000 is the same skeleton as the APX 1000, and due to it's size preferable to Law enforcement. The Kenwood and EF Johnson higher tier radios are slated to have P25 and DMR III in the same radio, more importantly, giving the DMR radio the features requested for fire fighting use, larger knobs, buttons, etc. The cost of building out, maintaining, a well designed P25 phase 2 system is very cost prohibitive and difficult for even counties to maintain. If the end user gets the reliability they expect, features they request, I'm not sure where the real issue is.

That is my only gripe about XPRs being used in public safety, specifically firefighting. I've used an XPR7350 for years in one public safety setting, a 7550 for a few years at another agency, and APX4k in another. I haven't had an issue that is due to having an XPR over something else (sure, dead spots do pop up, but that's not a portable issue generally; it's a coverage issue). On the fire side, having an APX4k is great, and I wouldn't change that for the world. It's small, robust, and, most importantly, can be used with a gloved hand without breaking the bank. If Motorola came out with a heavy-duty DMR radio, like the APX4k, I'd be sold. The NXs are nice, I have one personally, and I even demoed one during an evaluation of our equipment before internally in the department committing to go down the road of APX4k's. We tried getting a VP6000 from them to demo as well, but they weren't interested in selling them at that time. The NXs are just not apples to apples when viewing it from a firefighter standpoint with an APX4k. I'd be interested in seeing a VP6000 or 8000 running DMR. I'd think that would be closer to the APX higher-tier radios. It would be nice too if the local Motorola shop were a EFJohnson/Kenwood dealer too, laying them all out on the table, a one-stop shop :unsure:
 

Trbogeek

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I can't confirm, but recently heard NFTA was testing SaiaNet.

Interoperability is created per specific fleets requests, which only helps the DMR case.
 

ak716

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I can't confirm, but recently heard NFTA was testing SaiaNet.

Interoperability is created per specific fleets requests, which only helps the DMR case.
That kind of jives with what I thought I was hearing on a demo TG the other day. Sounded like someone checking coverage in areas of their main bus stops on the verge of their (NFTA) coverage area.
 
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