Some Agreement
"The taxpayers should demand that Local Governments and LE Managers do a better job of supporting the Deputies and Officers putting their asses on the line to get the people's business done and stop letting petty politics and a quest for PC behavior interfere with keeping your streets safe."
I agree comptily to this part....
The sheriff, seems to do more campaning then any chief I ever seen. Thats what I was getting at. I rather have a com van then no van at all. And yes I undrstand that they take time to delpoy. No situation is perfect, but it needs to be a team effort period. Riviraly or not, your my fellow brother I come to save your ass. I might hate some of guys in your department or even you for that matter (understand what I'm saying), but I'm coming to your aid. Their is only one way that I wold not come to your aid, I think you can firgure that out. Everyplace has that one indiviual that seems to fall into that category.
As for interoperability, unless you have a blank check for everyone involved that becomes tricky, No, I don't. But at the same time I think starcom 21 is a bad idea for muncipatilies, when it becomes fail safe then maybe it might be the right direction. My prolbem is the apporach its being marketed on, everyone must first realize no system is perfect. Their claming its better then what they have, that might not be the case. It showed be lke any vendor that is held to demo standards., just my two cents.
Here a case study for ya and others
Local fd drops 16 channel ht1000's proven relabilty for communications in typical activities to go to motorola ht1250's okay. Ht1250 work decidenty well in comparison but have some prolbems. Plus, side more channels for better agency response and fg channels-make sense. Suppiled stock antenas are bad so their replaced out. Come a year later fire admin decides to get kenwood for fleetsync properties and choosed smaller radios with lots of features compared to the ht1250. Massivily fails on lots of platforms, what happens, they go back to the ht1000's. Anyone see a prolbem with this?
Jurisdiction I work in has one city that left vhf and went to uhf 30+ years ago and their system works great for them, they cant talk to anyone else.
I think this is a prolbem in alot of places, however I have seen mutiple agencies just recentily purchase and put in place both vhf and uhf in cars. Depends on the city and what clients they have, more so villages with mall's or schools seem to have both. Or at least a sgt's car that has both. I guess I put more thought into this when I designed my car setup. I have both vhf / uhf mobiles in adition to a scanner, along with two portables vhf and uhf that are carried usually both on me.. While its a major pain in the butt, I found out it works alot better. Plus, the car radios have capability to do LTR, stay ahead with the times or get left behind. Next comes p25 radios. So, I guess I can say I have a mini com car. And I have a very limited budget at that. I do not have 25,000 and upwards to put into a squad car.
Now here inlies the next prolbem, not all officers want to hear both radios. God, I know how much that can be a pain in the ***. Been their done that, plus the mdc/mdt talking and a car radio or the sgt chriping your damm nextel or other command every 20 minutes. In addition to the siren etc. Not fun, however when asked most officers prefer both. They just rather have one off or on, thats find. But having it their is better then not having it. The dept. I did my work with had both vhf and uhf in all their cars even their cso car, they also had a spare repeater kit delpoyable on what was know as the command channel which all officers had in their radios. I guess it pays to have a system tech guy in your department, while another dept have scanners and their own trunked system with portable spares to the localized pd. Okay, but really limited in their capabilities when somthing bad hapened or if the trunked system failed. Not well thought out and has a huge budget, plus a in house guy. So, I guess it varies on knowledge and what they really want it for. All I can say is that it would be in their best interest to have mutiple frequencies and radios based on what they serve and the potential that has been taking place in these environments.
