Marathon County chooses Tait for P25 network solution

[citylink_uk]

From the Tait website:

Tait Radio Communications announced today it has been selected by Marathon County, Wisconsin to engineer and install a new 13 site radio system. Tait proposed a TaitNet® APCO P25 multicast system with DES encryption capability and voting. In addition, Tait will supply a TaitNet® QS2 narrowband analog simulcast system to offer Marathon County seamless integration between analog and digital radio.

Marathon Sheriff and other county law enforcement agencies expect to migrate to a P25 VHF system with DES-OFB encryption for ease of interoperable communications within the County. The project will include replacement and improvements to the County's Sheriff, fire and other radio communications systems that are used by law enforcement, fire, emergency medical and other designated county support organizations.


In April 2008, Marathon County issued a Request for Proposals to qualifying vendors soliciting a county-wide multicast/simulcast VHF public safety radio system. The intent of Marathon County was to choose a vendor capable of supplying radio equipment with a customized design, installation and thorough testing to provide various agencies within Marathon County with a voice radio system.


At the heart of the 13 site TaitNet® solution were the TB9100 and TB8100 base stations that have industry leading monitoring and alarm functions accessible remotely through Customer Service Software (CSS). With redundant node features and flexibility the TB9100 and TB8100 provide the level of redundancy to meet Marathon's operational and budgetary needs. Tait TP9100 P25 portables and TM9155 mobiles are also part of the system solution.

Story from news site with more info:
http://www.centralwinews.com/recordreview/county_radio.html

 

[OpSec]

VHF P25 radio: check
DES-OFB module: check

I don't think I'll get the key though...bummer.

 

[bwoodfire45]

Tait

This is the BIGGEST mistake Marathon Co. is going to make. This Tait radio system really (for lack of a better word) SUCKS!!! Ask any agency in Onida Co. and they'll tell you how well the Tait systems work. Very BAD move on Marathon Co. part.

 

[citylink_uk]

We operate many Tait QS2 simulcast & MPT1327 trunked systems here using Tait mobiles and I have nothing but high praise for their reliability. I'd be surprised if it was a hardware issue and more inclined to suspect installation issues.

P25 simulcast networks are still being configured and tweaked, even by Motorola. The timing and overlap has to be managed more carefully than analogue or you can get 'garbled noise' if two sites cancel each other out.

 

[N9NRA]

Marathon County goin` digital

Nice read, however if things go the way the cab company went when they went digital (with full-time encryption), then the county may have a bit of work to do. I happen to live in Marathon County, and i`m kinda waiting to see how this shakes out and if they can work the bugs outta this machine, so we`ll have to wait and see. Should be kinda neat. I did notice however that they don`t mention anything about changing frequencies, anyone happen to know if/when that (any freq changes) will happen? 73 N9NRA

 

[triryche]

I've been told this system won't be trunked and most channels will remain analog except for encryption purposes.

 

[N9NRA]

From what i recall of a presentation i saw when i was taping a County Board meeting for the cable access channel i work at a ways back they were talking about full-time digital (from what i gathered the communications dude that gave the thing said it would be full-time digital, and at some point there would be a freq change, presumably cause the present channels would be going away), the presentation made no mention of going trunked, and a article i read in one of our alternative newies (newspapers) said pretty much the same thing...it would not be trunked, but would be full-time digital, with the possability of encryption, we`ll have to wait and see what shakes out. Should be intresting. N9NRA

 

[N9NRA]

Just had another thought here, ya know folks, the real elephant in the room, so to speak, is gonna be range, in short, will the users be able to even hit the repeaters from everywhere they may be at? Anyone that recalls the old days of digital cellullar can attest to what happens when ya got outside the range of the tower...bye-bye phone call (unless ya had one of the units that could switch to Analog when it heeded to). IMHO the way to do this would be to have radios that could switch to analog when the unit got outta range for a digital transmission, while still mataining the abaility to encrypt when needed...using DVP (although that would be i bit diffiicult in some curcumstances i know), like i said before, this will be intresting to watch. N9NRA

 

[citylink_uk]

Hi,

I gather from the article that this system will be P25 and Analogue simulcast.

Simulcast (in this instance) means that a single frequency will be transmitted from multiple towers at the same time. This enables much better coverage and building penetration across a wide area as opposed to broadcasting from just one tower. In addition to this, the Talk In (Portable/Mobile to Site) coverage would be much improved as there are more receivers, of which the best signal will be broadcast over the multiple sites.

The advantage of simulcast and voting receivers over Trunked is that the radio stays on the same frequency throughout the whole county so there's no handing off between towers. On the Transmit (Portable/Mobile > Tower) side, once your portable/mobile moves out of coverage range of Site A the path from the next site will take over within a few milliseconds.

Having a quick look at the map, it looks like there won't be anywhere in the county that won't be more than 6 miles from a site which should give very good mobile and portable coverage.

 

[N9NRA]

Hi,

I gather from the article that this system will be P25 and Analogue simulcast.

Simulcast (in this instance) means that a single frequency will be transmitted from multiple towers at the same time. This enables much better coverage and building penetration across a wide area as opposed to broadcasting from just one tower. In addition to this, the Talk In (Portable/Mobile to Site) coverage would be much improved as there are more receivers, of which the best signal will be broadcast over the multiple sites.

The advantage of simulcast and voting receivers over Trunked is that the radio stays on the same frequency throughout the whole county so there's no handing off between towers. On the Transmit (Portable/Mobile > Tower) side, once your portable/mobile moves out of coverage range of Site A the path from the next site will take over within a few milliseconds.

Having a quick look at the map, it looks like there won't be anywhere in the county that won't be more than 6 miles from a site which should give very good mobile and portable coverage.

Sounds intresting, i get the feeling this will be (mabey) "P25 in, analog out" (the radios transmiisions to the towers are P25, and the transmissions going out of the sites are analog, at least on the simulcast freq)? That would solve the coverage problem, given that this area is for the most part flat, open territory, with the possible exception of the metro area of Wausau, which happens to be almost smack in the middle of the county. I can tell you guys one thing re voting setups (we have one for the Ham club`s repeaters), they work pretty well with Analog, not sure about the digital thing, as the range given the same power output will be somewhat shorter (but not much if they get the terrain ghost-monster tamed). So, this will be intresting to see how they shake this out. N9NRA

 

[N9NRA]

Just to give ya an idea of that i`m getting at, with the current system they (MCSO) has running now, i can pull it in all the way west to nearly the Eau Claire area if contitions are right (in summer that`s a goodly bit of the time), under normal conditions, i can get `em as far as Thorp (about an hour or two west of where i`m at now), Wausau PD i can`t get that far, mabey half way to Thorp (i can still hear them in Thorp if i hold the Monitor button on my Ham HT in and keep the squelch open all the time, which is rather anoying). The intresting bit (for me anyway), will be how this compaires once they go digital, or at least partly digital. I just wish i had a firm date when this would happen, that way i can set my scanner up and be ready, and once that happens i can run some experiments and see what crops up. N9NRA

 

[citylink_uk]

From the wording of the article and knowledge of previous similar setup's, this is likely to be full P25 Input/Output for larger users such as Police and Fire with Analogue simulcast for either smaller users who will be keeping many analogue radios or for inter-op channels.

 

[triryche]

The word is fire and rescue operations as well as most local municpal channels should remain analog with the P25 mainly being incorporated on Primary law enforcement channels but whether this will be hybrid, clear P25, or the new standard of NAC encryption is yet to be seen. My guess is it may be hybrid analog/P25 at first much like Marinette due to smaller communities not having or being able to afford new radios.

 

[N9NRA]

Marathon County going digital

The word is fire and rescue operations as well as most local municpal channels should remain analog with the P25 mainly being incorporated on Primary law enforcement channels but whether this will be hybrid, clear P25, or the new standard of NAC encryption is yet to be seen. My guess is it may be hybrid analog/P25 at first much like Marinette due to smaller communities not having or being able to afford new radios.

Okay, that works out. I`d bet good money on MCSO doing things like Lincoln County did...run digital and analog both for a while till thay can get all the unit radios set up, and go to full digital as that happens, even now Lincoln County SO is still running Analog now-and-then (but only very infrequently). I was told how long it took to set the cab company`s encrypted digital system up, and that was a bear to do. With any luck the MCSO/WPD system will go okay. I still say this will be really neat to see what happens here, i`ll enjoy giving my `396T a good workout once they do the digital thing. N9NRA

 

[N9NRA]

Just got done taping today`s County Board meeting, and they were discussing the new radio system. One of the aldermen brought both a Motorola and a Tait handheld unit to the meeting and pased `em around to the full board membership. I got to get a quick peek at `em when i had the camera in a tight shot of the guy at the podum talking about the units, from what i heard they`re already testing some of the Tait units in the field, and they`re still shaking out some issues with the system yet (one is what happens when radios need to be repaired, where do ya send `em, and the other one is coverage/recieve issues). As far as i could tell the units looked pretty much the same (might have been intentional). They didn`t go into too much other than the issues i mentioned, so we still gotta wait. I DO know (and i confirmed today when i was at the jaill discussing a donation of some mags i got for reading meterials), that they in fact are testing the new units, however i haven`t heard anything on the jaill freqs yet with the new radios (just reset those channels in my `396T so i can run a few tests to see what shakes out). If i hear more i`ll try to post it. Oh, from what i heard it sounds like the system will be Analog/Digital for a while (like Lincoln County did) till they get all the ghosts outta the machine, so to speak. N9NRA