LTR Public Safety?

[Jay911]

A municipal fire/EMS department here went from 400MHz conventional to an 800MHz LTR trunk for a few years, back in the 1990s. They turfed that for a 400MHz MPT1327 trunk.. and have now dumped that for 400MHz conventional.

The LTR system was never set up really well. This problem was prevalent in both trunk systems I mention above, but one of the biggest issues this town had was that they only ever licensed 3 frequencies for their trunk systems and had 2 EMS talkgroups, 2 Fire talkgroups, and a public works talkgroup. Plus they made heavy use of direct calls/"I-calls" and phone patches. The system was ALWAYS busied out, even/especially when Fire and EMS were going on a call together - and usually at that point, PW was yakking about a sewer main and someone else was on a phone call home to ask what's for supper.

 

[NeFire242]

Sounds like perhaps better training is an issue, and not necessarily an LTR system is to fully blame.

As far as buying radios and just programming it up onto a system, you can do that with almost any system, EDACS, LTR, Type II, etc. There are ways.

 

[DaveNF2G]

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 ?

Then again, why should a little town need five trunked channels?

LTR is not designed for public safety. That doesn't mean that it is totally unusable by public safety agencies. Because it lacks the basic APCO Project 16 feature set, an agency wishing to purchase such a system cannot obtain federal funding.

A major issue with East Fishkill in particular is interoperability. The surrounding agencies do not use LTR, so if anyone wants to interop with EFPD, they must either obtain LTR radios just for that purpose, or EFPD must obtain EDACS radios. The other option is the conventional interop channels, which still require extra radios in most cases.

 

[Jay911]

There is nothing wrong with using LTR for public safety, and I take exception to anyone who says it's not for public safety.

Put an LTR radio into emergency call/alarm.

 

[NeFire242]

A major issue with East Fishkill in particular is interoperability. The surrounding agencies do not use LTR, so if anyone wants to interop with EFPD, they must either obtain LTR radios just for that purpose, or EFPD must obtain EDACS radios. The other option is the conventional interop channels, which still require extra radios in most cases.

Ha, like almost anywhere. Since not every agency everywhere uses the same type of system, someone somewhere has to carry an extra radio. It happens.

They can make one of the LTR repeaters do conventional with a PL tone, and allow the audio to be dumped onto a talk-group for the LTR users.

Again sounds like training and some better setup and advanced thinking.

You can have an APCO16 compliant system, but if no one has it programmed right or are trained, its just as effective as nothing.

Read up on LTR there is quite a bit that can be done, calling, alerting, I-Calls, etc. FleetSnyc, sending messages, etc. Just because Bobs Radio and TV repair down the street has an LTR and doesn't have it setup right or use a feature doesn't mean it can't be public safety.

 

[N_Jay]

Read up on LTR there is quite a bit that can be done, calling, alerting, I-Calls, etc. FleetSnyc, sending messages, etc. Just because Bobs Radio and TV repair down the street has an LTR and doesn't have it setup right or use a feature doesn't mean it can't be public safety.

Lets get real clear. It does not have a control channel so it has no way to send an emergency when the system is busy.
I believe EFJ Multi-Net is the only LTR extension that supports the P16 requirements.

Yes, there are lots of good LTR systems and many LTR based feature enhancements, but that does not make it a public-safety system.

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

 

[pachanga22]

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

I've built MPT systems in the US, never heard that...

 

[pachanga22]

If MPT wasn't allowed, then Privacy Plus would be outlawed as we,, because Moto basically copied MPT and called it PP...

 

[N_Jay]

If MPT wasn't allowed, then Privacy Plus would be outlawed as we,, because Moto basically copied MPT and called it PP...

Ah, nope!!!

Privacy Plus is Motorola's brand for the non-public safety trunking.

Basically Pre-smartnet trunking (mostly Type-I, but also Hybrid) re-branded when SmartNet came out in the 1980's.

It predates MPT1327.

Also, MPT1327 is NOT restricted from US use.

 

[letarotor]

I like LTR personally. It's like any other system, however, it has to be set up properly. Many systems get a bad name because incompent people who claim to be experts try to set them up and fail. There have been many examples of this in my area, some still ongoing! The biggest problem is the people who have to use the systems everyday are seldom consulted nor get any input when administrators are making their decisions, and they get stuck with something they "just have to live with." Money talks and BS walks, and agencies often get stuck with systems that are obsolete before they are installed, nor can they talk to anybody else. Unfortunately, the people who make the decisions on failed systems never have to answer for their mistakes. If they did, things would be a lot different.

Mark

 

[NeFire242]

Well said Mark.

 

[slicerwizard]

I like LTR personally. It's like any other system

No, it isn't. No emergency capability, no busy queue, no prioritization, no protection against hetrodyning (simultaneous keyups), no stunning lost/stolen radios. What happens when your home channel repeater(s) go down? Security guards on Privacy Plus systems are better protected than any copper on an LTR system.

 

[DaveNF2G]

Again sounds like training and some better setup and advanced thinking.

The sequence of events is important here. Everybody else was using EDACS before East Fishkill put up their LTR system. LTR was a bad choice, period.

 

[radioman2001]

Alright lets back to the basics, who is paying for the system? How much do you want to spend for your system, who decides who has priority, how do you do it? What about emergency calls?
Well 1 million for a Motorola Type II system, 450K for EDACS or similar, MPT-1327 , not available when East Fishkill's system was designed and built. Also what about open archetecture, yea Motorola would love to have another system that they are the only bidder every time you need something.
Now for some other facts, you cannot get ANY additional channels in the NYC area, without trunking some of it or all of it. Maybe living in Waterford or Cowtown you can still get conventional channel allocations. Next, if the system is set up properly, you can have emergency override. As for sharing with the public work or others, if you design it properly, and not put EVERYBODY on the same home channel, allocate some of the system for purely emergency services, and get enough channels in your system it can work as well as any of the others.
BTW the only EDACS systems in the East Fishkill area is a commercial-privately owned 800 mhz system, that unless you live right under the tower, doesn't work for crap. As far as interopability, for PD that's what the VHF MRD channels are for. The State Police, Sheriffs, and all local departments have it in their cars. EFPD has a cross patch to the county Sheriff's VHF radio system and it works just fine, the Fire Department is on UHF so they have FD channels in their radio's , and this is with just one portable.
Other departments have 3 radios in their cars, 800, VHF and UHF. Not very interoperable.

 

[DaveNF2G]

BTW the only EDACS systems in the East Fishkill area is a commercial-privately owned 800 mhz system, that unless you live right under the tower, doesn't work for crap. As far as interopability, for PD that's what the VHF MRD channels are for.

What you fail to mention is that all of the other local PDs are operating on that EDACS system which you so easily dismiss. That system was in operation, and in general public safety use, before E Fishkill decided to go for their own system.

It seems obvious that the expense was not terribly important to whoever made the decisions. You can't get federal funding to build LTR. It's not APCO-16 compliant. Adding a talkgroup or two on the NYCOMCO system would not have involved anyone getting any "extra" channels coordinated, either.

I would guess (and this is only a guess) that someone in power in East Fishkill has an axe to grind with NYCOMCO and it was worth it to them to buy a non-interoperable, non-fundable, ultra-cheapo trunked system just so they wouldn't have to use NYCOMCO's EDACS network.

 

[radioman2001]

NYCOMMCO's EDACS is crap, it doesn't work in East Fishkill, as far as an ax to grind, I'm sorry but to rent a radio from NYCOMMCO and at basically the cost of a new radio every 12 to18 months, makes no sense at all. Maybe from a bean counters point of view it's a better deal, since you know each months cost, but I would never put ANYBODY on an 800 mhz system in the woods of Dutchess county. Also East Fishkill did receive federal funding for their system. There may be a some other departments on the EDACS sytem, but no where near ALL, and the ones who are on it are all along the river, looking right up at the tower. The DCSO hasn't abandonded their VHF repeaters either. Using VHF in that area can be dicey, there are too many other agencies on the channels to ensure that you can get through to HQ when you want. From the information I have received from these departments, the regular monthly costs were the reason they went to it, not for APCO compliance, or Federal Funding. Most officers I talked to don't really like the system.
Do you work for NYCOMM CO, seems you have a lot of info on them, and btw NYCOMMCO is building out a number of LTR systems too.