Lafayette 800 MHz Motorola Trunked System

[Tim-B]

Does anyone have any information on how much longer Lafayette Parish plans to keep its Motorola 800 MHz trunked system up and running? I thought it would have been shut down and dismantled long ago but I recently saw a request for bid submissions advertised for communications companies to submit bids to the city-parish govt. to maintain the system. I programmed this system back into a scanner and started listening and I heard a small handful of utilities people on fleet 6 and transit buses on 5-C and a few S.O. corrections people on 4-F. You would think that this small number of radios could easily be replaced by 700 MHz P25 radios for a much smaller cost than paying a communications contractor to maintain the infrastructure of the 800 system so there must be another reason for them to maintain the old system. Does anyone know why it is still being maintained and for how much longer?

 

[INDY72]

It will most likely convert over or get offlined within a 2 year period since its at eol and is not being supported past 2018.

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[Tim-B]

Does eol = "end of life?"

And by not supported do you mean that Motorola will no longer make replacement parts for the type ii 800 trunked systems?

 

[INDY72]

Motorola has ended all support for SmartZone and SmartNet systems. They only do MotoTRBO and ASTRO-25 TRS. Discontinued them just as Harris did the EDACS format.

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[Tim-B]

I kinda figured that was coming soon that's why I was surprised to see the ad asking for bids and more surprised to see that there were still a few people using the system. I guess that means that Caddo Parish will soon have to either build a new system of its own or move to LWIN. I can't see why they haven't moved to LWIN sooner given the cost of maintaining the infrastructre of that system vs. the cost of simply buying some mobiles and portables to use on LWIN. Could be someone hid this fact from the parish council to keep from losing their head over convincing them to pay an eight figure sum to build that system only to have it go obsolete so quickly.

 

[cajunjerry]

Century has paid for Caddo parish. 5 years ago. Don't know anything about it now

 

[riccom]

Motorola has ended all support for SmartZone and SmartNet systems. They only do MotoTRBO and ASTRO-25 TRS. Discontinued them just as Harris did the EDACS format.

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It is sad because EDCAS was wayyyyy stout, very few issues to think of.

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[INDY72]

That's why ge/ erricson sold it to Tyco and Tyco to Harris. ... Not an single problem. EDACS was an nightmare for everyone .

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[riccom]

Yeah they banked on opensky

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[Tim-B]

I suspect that much of the reason they are not supporting the parts anymore has to due with this amusing story:

http://forums.radioreference.com/ge...48421-great-radio-story-maybe-some-truth.html

That system was installed about a year after the fcc first removed some of the upper uhf tv channels from that band and made the way for cellular phones and 800 MHz trunked systems. It was in 1987. That system worked very well and still does. "Yeah, but it's 30 years old." Really!? Who cares? It works. It does what it is supposed to do and it does it well. Nothing is broken but it will have to be abandoned because motorola invented something new. There are still a few agencies in Louisiana who are on their old conventional analog VHF systems and it suits their needs just fine.

Maaan, I miss the good old days of scanning when everything was analog and there were no high tech systems every few years that made you wait a few years more for the scanner necessary to follow it. Back then you could hear anything you wanted to. It was just a matter of tuning in to the right frequency.


Sent from my subspace radio at starbase 10.

 

[riccom]

The gimic is that it is NEW NEW NEW! Like buying a new car, some people love it and it does what they need, maybe a add on or two.
Then there is the ones who hate there new car, and nothing added on is going to do the job they need it to do, but unlike a car, they can not return it and get there money back, or sell it.
Field test do not mimic real life situation, and to me that is dangerous.
No radio is perfectly done, takes time and tweaking.


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[Tim-B]

If anyone is interested the control channel has changed. It used to rotate through four frequencies and change every night at midnight then for several years it sat on 857.7375 without moving and today it is on 857.5125. I have never seen the control channel on this frequency in 30 years of scanning this system but there it is.

 

[tsmooth]

If anyone is interested the control channel has changed. It used to rotate through four frequencies and change every night at midnight then for several years it sat on 857.7375 without moving and today it is on 857.5125. I have never seen the control channel on this frequency in 30 years of scanning this system but there it is.

Thank Tim

The gimic is that it is NEW NEW NEW! Like buying a new car, some people love it and it does what they need, maybe a add on or two.
Then there is the ones who hate there new car, and nothing added on is going to do the job they need it to do, but unlike a car, they can not return it and get there money back, or sell it.
Field test do not mimic real life situation, and to me that is dangerous.
No radio is perfectly done, takes time and tweaking.


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[Tim-B]

Today the control channel is on 859.7375. They must be doing some kind of work on this system. It's starting to rotate control channels again.

 

[tsmooth]

Hello Tim-B, does anyone live stream Lafayette police?

 

[riccom]

They are encrypted

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[tsmooth]

They are encrypted

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Wow ok thanks

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[kb5udf]

Current System Information

857.512500
857.737500
858.737500
859.737500

I did a bit of monitoring. That seems to work. I had to make a favorites list.

JB

 

[Tim-B]

Did you see it rotate through all of those in a short period of time like the same day? If so it probably indicates that they are doing some type of work on the system. It looks like they did some changes to their license a couple of years ago and they got rid of the frequencies that started with 860.xxxx

 

[kb5udf]

No

That is from my on the air monitoring for quite some time. I am not aware of any rapid cycling between
CC's.

The RR database needs to be updated.