Lawton Radio Woes

[brey1234]

LAWTON--Wichita Mountains Estates Fire Chief Bob Martineau told County Commissioners Monday that the new 800 mHz radios given to the county don't work properly.
"The 800 series radios that we were given by the state and FEMA just don't work," Martineau said. "They don't page."
http://www.kswo.com/Global/story.asp?S=6448751
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Does anyone know what type of radios are used and the format?

 

[WX5JCH]

That would be a part of the OK state DPS system.
http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=RR&sid=844

That's funny, I heard lawton FD paging out just fine last night. Also heard county fire go out on a wreck.

Radio tech's were at Mt. Baker yesterday talking on digital tg# 14928 tech said the signal was loud and clear and he was sitting in his driveway. (where ever that was!).

Note: "However, 7NEWS found out Monday that the new 800 mHz radios do indeed page. They just don't page departments for their own specific calls. Instead, they page emergencies for all 18 county fire departments"

hmm...
Jim

 

[greenthumb]

They sure are looking at the most expensive route to solve this problem!

How about keeping the old VHF frequency, purchasing Minitor pagers, and having the dispatcher use the multi-select function on both the 800 MHz talk group and the VHF channel when putting out pages and allow Minitor, or equivalent, pagers to do the paging work? I've seen a lot of agencies do this without any problems.

 

[WX5JCH]

Lawton seems to be paging just fine, heard 2 tone type twice last night on Lawton fire (800mhz). I guess maybe they didn't get a console at the more rural stations and don't have a keypad to tone out.

Funny, here in western OK our fd's just memorized the 2 tone sounds, they don't actually do anything like turn on a alarm or set off a beeper. They listen to fire mutual aid 154.13 all night -real loud hoping to wake up when their tone is dispatched.

Okie dispatchin' at it's best....

 

[KAA951]

Using the page feature on an 800 portable would not be my first choice for alerting firefighters. My agency issues the 800 portable and a Minitor pager- who wants to carry a portable radio with them everywhere (out to eat, your kids school program, church, the movies etc). Also, the more you carry them the more prone to damage- I would rather replace/repair a $400 pager then a $3,000 portable after it has become a boat anchor while fishing or after it falls off of the tractor and goes under the brush hog.

Also, why can't the dispatch center page each agency seperately (according to the story)? Sounds like a programming or dispatching issue to me. Sounds like someone wasn't planning very well.

 

[greenthumb]

Motorola doesn't have a two-tone pager available for trunking, so there is no way to take care of this issue with anything that will be on the trunked system. As another poster mentioned, the call alert feature is not the best solution, although it does give feedback as to whether or not a radio has received the page.

My question would be why you need to carry a portable radio when you have a Minitor pager? Carry the pager, leave a radio in the car or in the office.

 

[WX5JCH]

I guess somebody forgot to mention that to Lawton fire, their 2 tone pages seem to work fine on 800mhz.