LTR Public Safety?

[jrm5265]

Our County went MaCom Open Sky, and while I am glad that Motorola didnt automatically get the bid like theyv done for years. The Open Sky has been a dissapointment and I wish that Kenwood would have had a chance to bid an LTR
Just wondering if there are any LTR public safety systems out there......

 

[N_Jay]

Our County went MaCom Open Sky, and while I am glad that Motorola didnt automatically get the bid like theyv done for years. The Open Sky has been a dissapointment and I wish that Kenwood would have had a chance to bid an LTR
Just wondering if there are any LTR public safety systems out there......

Not by agencies that know what they are doing.
LTR is NOT a public safety radio system. It does not even meet the minimums for Project 16.

 

[Josh]

A version of LTR is APCO-16 compliant, I believe it was LTR Multinet.

 

[jerk]

Our County went MaCom Open Sky, and while I am glad that Motorola didnt automatically get the bid like theyv done for years. The Open Sky has been a dissapointment and I wish that Kenwood would have had a chance to bid an LTR
Just wondering if there are any LTR public safety systems out there......

Indiana has several, just click on Indiana, trunking, LTR and you'll see them. There are others as well, but not popular...

 

[N_Jay]

A version of LTR is APCO-16 compliant, I believe it was LTR Multinet.

And from what I understand Multi-Net is no longer available.

Even in its hey-day, they did not sell much of it.

 

[Astrak]

Pima county AZ is a multi-net system.

 

[KE7VJW]

My tax dollars at work for me!!! The multi-net system in Pima County (works so goood) they had to give all of the deputies Nextel phones so they could communicate with each other……

Jim

 

[n4yek]

Sevier County Tennessee uses an LTR standard for Public Safety:
Scanner Frequencies: Sevier County Trunking System, Various, Tennessee

 

[K2KOH]

East Fishkill Police is on a regular LTR System...seems to work

 

[N_Jay]

East Fishkill Police is on a regular LTR System...seems to work

And some agencies purchase patrol cars without the "police package", and they "seem to work" also.

The issue is that there is "Make-Do" and "Made for the application".
They should both be understood and not confused.

 

[cg]

Two municipalities, Windsor and East Windsor, each use LTR in Northern CT and both include PD and EMS within them. One includes FD, the other FD chose to stay conventional repeater operation.

Another, Bloomfield, has dumped their Passport system and gone back to all conventional repeated operations.

The Multinet system in Waterbury CT is being updated by EFJ due to rebanding but has not been finished yet. EFJ will still mfg Multinet equipment but I have not heard of any new systems recently.


chris

 

[Septa3371CSX1]

Chester County in PA uses a LTR Multi Net system. Within the past year they got new radios for the system which can operate as analog and digital in a P25 format. I believe it is called IP25 (someone else would know exactly what it's called). As far as I can tell it isn't much better than what they have now.

 

[N_Jay]

IP25 is EFJ's brand name for their P25 equipment.

Yes, they have radios that support some of their own older formats as well as some Motorola formats.

 

[NeFire242]

So why would you not rather have LTR for public safety? It's trunking, and there is a lot you can do with it.

 

[N_Jay]

So why would you not rather have LTR for public safety? It's trunking, and there is a lot you can do with it.

And a lot you can not.

Take a look at the feature set and compare it to the APCO Project 16 required features. (for a start).

 

[fwradio]

LTR has it's place. It works well for some public safety agencies that use it. It is not a public-safety protocol as far as APCO-16 feature sets go. But if you need to be able to press the button and be heard on the other end, a properly-built LTR system will perform exactly as well as a likewise-built APCO-16 system (analog voice on both obviously). You can even provide some (not all) of the APCO-16 features if you utilize protocols such as Kenwood's Fleetsync on top of LTR.

That being said, I will never recommend to any city/county that they purchase an LTR system, or for that matter a Passport system.

For those that want a quality system, but don't have a need for APCO-25, there are other options that provide APCO-16-type features. They are MPT-1327, which is almost exactly like SmartNet/SmartZone running analog audio and even Kenwood's new NXDN digital trunking which is similar to Project 25 (but not compatible on any level).

Both are good examples of systems that are available and do not cost nearly as much as APCO-16 or APCO-25 systems.

LTR for public safety--it works if done right, but why would anybody build a system that can allow someoone off the street to program radios without the need for any type of system key?

Just my 2 cents.


(SmartNet and SmartZone are trademarks of Motorola, Inc--have to put that so that the Motoropoly doesn't come after me)

 

[N_Jay]

I think people mix up "quality" and "appropriateness".

I don't think anyone was saying that you can not design a quality LTR system.

It just was never intended to support public safety requirements like emergency, console interconnect with priority, etc.

 

[fwradio]

I agree with you on that N Jay. Unfortunately, an LTR system was recently built near me by the local Motorola dealer, for an entire city.

Scanner Frequencies: Burleson Trunking System, Burleson, Texas

<rant>
While the city need something better than what they had, and this system seems to be working well for them, the whole process had a lot of issues. They didn't have the money for a Motorola Project 25 system, and the dealer WOULD NOT sell them anything that was not Motorola. In fact, in the bid process, another Motorola dealer offering the same exact models of radios lost points for non-compliance while the awarded dealer got points, on the EXACT same model of radio (HT-1250LS+). BTW, the consultant who graded the bids used to work for the awarded dealer.

</rant>

Back to the subject. LTR for public safety- bad idea in this day and age. Every city is a possilble target now. We should be building more secure systems that prevent someone from purchasing a radio and easily programming it for access to a public safety system.

 

[radioman2001]

There is nothing wrong with using LTR for public safety, and I take exception to anyone who says it's not for public safety. Why should a small dept like town of East Fishkill spend a million dollars to trunk 5 channels ? Their LTR system works just fine, its not the format, its the engineering of the RF portion that makes or breaks any type of trunking, or conventional for that matter. (Look at NYPD, they refuse to go trunking, multiple times already, they believe in a local transmitters and many voting receivers for each precient, which equates to coverages in buildings and even in basements) If the transmitters or the portables can't talk to one another than it doesn't matter whether it Motorola Type II , EDACS, Open Sky or any of the other formats. As far as security, you don't have to put a radio on a system to cause it problems, just sit next to the receiver site with a 100w mobile and key down on it. BTW I thought MPT-1327 was not allowed in the USA

 

[N_Jay]

I reitterate:

And some agencies purchase patrol cars without the "police package", and they "seem to work" also.

The issue is that there is "Make-Do" and "Made for the application".
They should both be understood and not confused.

And yes, proper engineering is important in any system design.