LTR for public safety?

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CT22

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Ok, this is going to stir the pot. But I am curious... why?

Why are so many communities are going with LTR / Passport systems for public safety use. There seems to be a lot now. I seem to remember East Windsor, Windsor, Bloomfield, Cromwell, Newington and maybe some others I forgot about going LTR recently. I thought LTR was marketed more for commercial (community repeater) type of activity. I can understand getting a talkgroup on the local vendors LTR system for administrative communications but for fire, ems and pd?

Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of any benefits LTR/Passport provide over other systems?

If this LTR stuff is so great why do so many people state that the systems they monitor have lots of issues? It seems like I am reading "there back on their temporary conventional channels again" or "they are on the back up LTR system this week" often.

Playing devils advocate if LTR/Passport is SO great and cheap compared to Motorola why didnt the state look at it for the CSP and all other state services?
 

pro92b

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LTR and Passport are two different things. LTR is ok for small towns as long as there is a second system for backup or conventional channels for backup. It does not have networking capability and lacks the advanced features of EDACS and Motorola. Budget challenged towns find it to be the most affordable trunked system.

Passport is capable of wide area networking but I have read about the problems Passport has just as you have. There are police agencies here that use LTR, but not Passport.
 

800crazy1

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what about bloomfields passport system ?? they are passport and from what i read in previous posts , when windsor was trying to hop on the passport band wagon , they wouldve been able to network with bloomfield......and i hate to say it again....but windsor pd/fd are back on there conventional freqs again....not sure why , but it seems windsor cant seem to get it right on there regular LTR system. i wonder who the vendor is ?
 
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N_Jay

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People use LTR because it is cheap, or because they do not understand what features and functions a public safety trunking system should have! (or BOTH!!) :evil: :evil: :evil:
 

CT22

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pro92b said:
LTR is ok for small towns as long as there is a second system for backup or conventional channels for backup. QUOTE]

So basically you spend lots of money for a new system that may not work right but thats ok cause you keep your old system which you told the taxpayers didnt work. I dont see the logic in this.

Seems like LTR is best for the local town truck, landscaper, bus company, etc.

:) Ok, joking aside what classifies a small town?
 

CT22

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pro92b said:
LTR is ok for small towns as long as there is a second system for backup or conventional channels for backup.

So basically you spend lots of money for a new system that may not work right but thats ok cause you keep your old system which you told the taxpayers didnt work. I dont see the logic in this.

Seems like LTR is best for the local town truck, landscaper, bus company, etc.

:) Ok, joking aside what classifies a small town?
 

pro92b

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spatch713 said:
So basically you spend lots of money for a new system that may not work right but thats ok cause you keep your old system which you told the taxpayers didnt work. I dont see the logic in this.

Seems like LTR is best for the local town truck, landscaper, bus company, etc.

:) Ok, joking aside what classifies a small town?

No, the idea is that you don't spend lots of money. Here are the details for one town here that moved from conventional repeaters to LTR. Population is around 10,000. The system is five channels and includes police and public works. The comm company that maintains the system already has a nearby LTR system for commercial users that serves as a backup if needed. No extra cost for the backup. The town is satisfied with system performance and their needs are very basic.
 

CT22

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pro92b said:
...population is around 10,000. The system is five channels and includes police and public works. The comm company that maintains the system already has a nearby LTR system for commercial users that serves as a backup if needed.

It seems as though most people agree that LTR is not really built around public safety but it will work. I dont think that population should effect what type of trunking system you choose (LTR, Passport, Type II, etc) however, I would suspect the amount of channels the system has should be based on population/activity level.

If you need trunking wouldnt you want to be sure that whatever trunking method you choose supports your emergency responders since they are the ones that really benefit from these features. Maybe someone can explain exactly what these features are? It seems like it incorporates distress signalling, PTT ID, remote monitor, radio inhibit and radio check. There has to be more since most signalling formats (MDC, GE Star, FleetSync, DTMF) can do at least a couple of these.

When using this LTR/passport technology why would you need back up conventional repeaters or alternate LTR systems? I was under the impression if a trunking system failed it "failes safe" and operated as a regular conventional repeater and the users hears an alert tone indicating that their units are operating in this mode.

If you depend on someone elses LTR system for backup you kind of lose control of whether or not it has emergency power, fire detection/pretection, intrustion detection, temperature controls, etc? (some of these reason could be why your main system is down). Most business system dont have all this stuff if they can get by without it.
 

ems170

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Well its sad to say but often times municipalities are not sold things based on necessity but rather what looks better on the salesmen's bottom line. Yes trunking can be benificial for larger towns and cities with many users, it can also be benificial for jurisdictions which cover vast square milages. Cities recieve such benefits as were listed in the last post. The main reson they are beneficial are not so much the emergency services (they in most cases have more elaborate communication systems trunked or not) but rather all the smaller obscure agencies within that city. A larger city may have hundreds of small agencies that may not use much air time but still need radio communications. Now it would not be fesable for each service to have thier own system due to cost and logistics. Now smaller towns can and do function just fine on thier conventional systems but are often thrown that "catch all phrase" interoperability. Now these towns may have people in charge of finance that have no knowledge of radio systems or frankly dont care. So when the salesmen come in and say they need this multi-million dollar system so they can talk to thier neighbors it is bs. But enough of my rant some of the other benefits of a trunked system:
1.virtual talkgroups - you cant just make another frequency but you can set up special groups
2. multiple agencies working off one infastructure rather than ten fold redundency of base radios frequency licenses, voters, towers to meet the needs of each user.
3. INTEROPERABILITY everyone on the system can talk to everyone
4. radio ID, radio disable, open carrier disable.
5. I-Calls no more jamming up a dispatch channel to ask who wants what in thier coffee.
6. A stronger over all infastructure because more time and money can be spent on coverage issues than fixing all the individual systems.
7. larger coverage area per system. look how many sites the CSP has for thier statewide
8. Combined voice and data transmission over a single system. MDT's, PDA's and such.
coverage. now imagine a town with that geographic area trying to establish adequate coverage for each police, fire, ems, all other town services.
Now the debate about MA/COM Motorola, LTR well much comes down to the individual user and alow goes into cost and brand recognition. Smaller towns like LTR because they really dont need all the features the other services offer and can get away with it much cheaper. Thats my two sence.
 

BirkenVogt

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The major downfall of LTR is that it is unable to prioritize. So to have a truly safe LTR public safety system you need to have no units of a lower priority on that system. IOW police and fire might be appropriate to put onto the same LTR system but you would not want the garbage truck or dogcatcher on that same system.

However I still think for public safety that conventional is the way to go. When things get really bad and all channels are busy, they are busy either way. At least with conventional you have the flexibility to choose which channels are most appropriate.

Birken
 

cg

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Too bad that the Passport systems haven't worked out. If you look at the design and what they can do, it looks like a great alternative to Moto & GE. The ability to network as well as control radios through ESN (serial numbers) by stun,, deny access, etc. makes it impressive. Regular LTR has shortcomings that the Passport attempted to fix. It would be interesting to hear from users of Marcus's system on a statewide basis if it is working as they need it to. (State Marshalls, Aetna/ASM, DOT bosses, etc)

chris
 

PJH

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LTR and Passport bascially are the same thing.

Now with that being said, Passport is LTR with a few extra features, but operate basically the same. Passport itself was not developed for public safety. It was developed for the SMR operator to cut down on the piggyback radios on the system (thus limited income and other things).

Passport introduced radio priority, radio authentication, and some APCO16 features (as an after thought).

Unlike previously stated, LTR or trunking in general DOES NOT increase coverage area. One has nothing to do with the other. When it all comes down to the nuts and bolts, your still using the same about of infrasture to acomplish the mission.

As stated, the reason why you see LTR/LTR Passport is because its cheap, and the little guys can get into the public safety game. That's pretty much it. A sorta big-wig friend of mine who works for Kenwood (the company itself) even says its a big mistake. Not meant to be, shouldn't be.

Perhaps the inexperence of these "mom and pop" dealers are showing its ugly head in unable to properly setup a system they sold. Its one thing to setup a commerical/public safety/conventional radio system or site, its a whole 'nuther world when it comes to trunking. Just ask Marucs. I think they have yet to properly setup a Pasport system. Not to pick on him, but he isn't the only one to fall flat out there nationwide.
 
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