My thoughts on Florida Public Safety Systems (and monitoring them)

[ElroyJetson]

My opinion of the current state of amateur radio is not exactly what you would describe as generally complimentary. The hobby has greatly deterioriated, at least outside the HF bands, and within the HF bands, it's remarkably clique-ish. Within HF you've got your award chasers, your DX chasers, your contesters, and your ragchewers, which come in two subflavors: Friends group only, and talks-to-anybody, the latter of which is becoming more rare with every passing day. If your call isn't already in his friends list, he won't acknowledge it.

As the general knowledge and skill level of amateur radio drops, the most obvious outward sign of it is the ever-growing collection of various forms of "roger beeps" that are being added into repeaters in addition to being part of the transmissions of aforementioned chinotrash radios that now seem to be the default choice of the 2m/70cm crowd. It seems today that a ham who actually uses a radio made by Icom, Kenwood, or Yaesu is either rich or old or both. And if you use a public safety brand, Harris or Motorola, you're assumed to be an elitist snob with way too much money. (I admit the first part, and deny the last. )

I spent a few hundred dollars to upgrade from a Harris M7300/XG-75M mobile (800 MHz, just my scanner) to an XG-100M just for the pleasure of being able to add 2m and 70cm without having to install two radios. But at the rate I'm actually able to use the additional capabilities, and for the pleasure derived, it'll be years before I got my money's worth out of it.

I remember the days where the SMR-as-rental-radio service was very much a competitor to cellular at the time. I may have even listened in on one or more of those systems with the superradio of the day, my STX-821 with GPS 1.1 controller and full alpha display. Now that's stirring up too many memories. Gonna shut up now rather than try to document more of them.

 

[mmckenna]

But at the rate I'm actually able to use the additional capabilities, and for the pleasure derived, it'll be years before I got my money's worth out of it.

You need to get yourself back in the industry and let some wealthy agency buy you one.

I remember the days where the SMR-as-rental-radio service was very much a competitor to cellular at the time. I may have even listened in on one or more of those systems with the superradio of the day, my STX-821 with GPS 1.1 controller and full alpha display. Now that's stirring up too many memories. Gonna shut up now rather than try to document more of them.

Back on topic.
We all got NexTel phones at work in the late 1990's. They even went as far as to install a bunch of BDA's in some of the buildings.
They worked well, plus I could PTT my guys from anywhere in the country.
I saw use of my trunked system fall off quickly around that time. Our PD was even looking at switching to it (I convinced them that was a bad idea).
When Sprint bought Nextel and then did away with the iDEN, most of the trunked system traffic returned. Their PTT solution never seemed to get quite the steam that NexTel had. Dialing each person was a pain for most of our end users and the radios came back in favor again, and have been ever since.

I've got 11+ years on this trunked system, and I expect I'll get a lot more. When it comes time to replace it, I'll probably drop in another system, but I will absolutely look closely at making sure LTE integration is part of it. It's just too good a feature to pass up.

 

[mmckenna]

We all got NexTel phones at work in the late 1990's. They even went as far as to install a bunch of BDA's in some of the buildings.

I was out in the neither regions of one of those buildings about 2 year ago and found a NexTel BDA that I didn't know existed. Still powered up, still running. I pulled the plug on it.
I've removed a few of those now. A lot of good components in them. Good source of semi-hard line, SMA's, 800MHz filters and the like.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I've considered coming out of semi-retirement and putting in a few years with the local prime P25 contractor, if they'll have me. I would enjoy going hands on with the system on a daily basis and learning what it has to offer. But with one restriction: No tower structure climbing. Leave that for the under 50 crowd. Yes, I COULD do it and in truth I'm probably in better physical shape than most people half my age, but I just don't WANT to anymore. I'm in the gym four days a week and it's been beneficial. But getting a "job" again would complicated my workout program, too.

Still, the extra reliable income would be welcome, too. Maybe they've got a part time option?

 

[mmckenna]

I've considered coming out of semi-retirement and putting in a few years with the local prime P25 contractor, if they'll have me. I would enjoy going hands on with the system on a daily basis and learning what it has to offer. But with one restriction: No tower structure climbing. Leave that for the under 50 crowd. Yes, I COULD do it and in truth I'm probably in better physical shape than most people half my age, but I just don't WANT to anymore. I'm in the gym four days a week and it's been beneficial. But getting a "job" again would complicated my workout program, too.

Still, the extra reliable income would be welcome, too. Maybe they've got a part time option?

From what I've seen, a lot of agencies need a real old skool radio guy to get them through the next few years. Those nursing along old system that are trying to avoid having to go out for an RFP on some bloated system, hoping to hang on until the chief retires, or their county/state finally rolls out a large trunked system.

There are not a lot of young guys in the system anymore. That concerns me, but then again, I'll probably be retired within 10 years and won't give a ••••.

I still occasionally do tower climbing. I'm fortunate that the tallest tower I every have to go up on is about 60 feet. Problem is, it's on top of a 5 story building. Last time I harnessed up was to go out on a steep pitched roof in the rain.
It's young peoples work. I enjoy it only because I rarely do it and it is short climbs. I've got a few people trying to talk me into hanging up my harness for good. They are probably right. I don't want to blow out my knees.

 

[Bote]

I was out in the neither regions of one of those buildings about 2 year ago and found a NexTel BDA that I didn't know existed. Still powered up, still running. I pulled the plug on it.
I've removed a few of those now. A lot of good components in them. Good source of semi-hard line, SMA's, 800MHz filters and the like.

They might also be a good source of broadband noise if any tantalum capacitors have dried up over the years.

As far as the work opportunity front, no matter what frequencies or protocols they're using on subscriber units, the RF still needs to get up to the antenna and that part is governed by the laws of physics, not procurement. That will never go out of style. Even if you can't or won't climb any longer, there is still a need for an experienced RF engineer/technician/worker. "Who connected this transmitter to the RX port??!!"

 

[MUTNAV]

I have such a hard time at work with this. Unfortunately I'm under the larger IT organization, and they don't easily comprehend the idea of NOT doing forklift upgrades to systems every 5 years.

The idea that a well designed and installed PBX or radio system can last 10-20 years (or more) just baffles them sometimes.
I actually had some in the top tier management levels lean on me to replace things early for no good reason other than "That's what we do in the rest of the organization".

I'm happy to be in the far corner of the organization where we actually repair things rather than just replace them. They can have my multimeter when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

It's funny you mention it the way you did.... I was looking at a way to tell exactly when I should replace my van. I fell back to military ideas and my research showed several ways of deciding. The first is to replace it after a fixed amount of time, the second is to continue to repair it until it exceeds a certain cost to perform a major repair, the third is to keep it running as long as it costs less to keep it running than to get a new one.

I used this information when doing a school report on "technology in education", and the only solution that made sense (budget wise and time wise) was to replace equipment on a fixed time frame, otherwise budgets get messed up (and this is supported when taking financial classes, depreciation, resale values etc...).

On a personnel note, my son (literally two nights ago), was asking if he should get a new computer since his is 5 years old, and I had to go down the whole description of when and why to replace something (in his case, as long as its serviceable, its good).


I get what you were saying though, they wanted you to replace things early, hopefully they had a finance guy do the numbers and tell them that vs. a vender saying its a good idea.

Thanks
Joel

 

[mmckenna]

I used this information when doing a school report on "technology in education", and the only solution that made sense (budget wise and time wise) was to replace equipment on a fixed time frame, otherwise budgets get messed up (and this is supported when taking financial classes, depreciation, resale values etc...).

Right, that is one of the reasons they use.
I've had luck with depreciation fund accounts. Put a bit of money aside each year with the plan to replace the system at the end of the expected life span. When that time rolls around, I look at the condition of the system and can decide to roll it over another year, or spend it. I've been doing that with my trunked system for a couple of years now. I built up funds for a 10 year replacement cycle, got to 10 years, system still running fine. I have a bucket of money if I need to start replacing gear. Lowered the rate I recharge users for system access until there's a reason to change it.

I get what you were saying though, they wanted you to replace things early, hopefully they had a finance guy do the numbers and tell them that vs. a vender saying its a good idea.

It's me and the financial analyst Took us about a year to get on the same wavelength and figure out what we were each talking about. We've got a pretty good understanding now. She does the math, I do the tech, works out pretty well.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I have a 22 year old Ford Expedition. Long paid for. Well maintained with respect to mechanical systems, 96 K miles, new tires, brakes, rims, control arms. The engine, a 4.6L 2V V8 is not plaqued with the problems of the newer 5.4 L 3V or V6 turbos. So I could get to 200K miles from the engine. What it needs is fresh paint. I could pay 12K for paint and get another 6 years of useful life. Or I could buy a newer model for 60K cash or finance paying current high interest rates. Which makes sense? Remember I can invest the saved 48K at 4.5% APY.

 

[MUTNAV]

Right, that is one of the reasons they use.
I've had luck with depreciation fund accounts. Put a bit of money aside each year with the plan to replace the system at the end of the expected life span. When that time rolls around, I look at the condition of the system and can decide to roll it over another year, or spend it. I've been doing that with my trunked system for a couple of years now. I built up funds for a 10 year replacement cycle, got to 10 years, system still running fine. I have a bucket of money if I need to start replacing gear. Lowered the rate I recharge users for system access until there's a reason to change it.



It's me and the financial analyst Took us about a year to get on the same wavelength and figure out what we were each talking about. We've got a pretty good understanding now. She does the math, I do the tech, works out pretty well.

Sounds like a great system.... Now if they could get the DOD and GAO to talk to each other a little more (they already do that a lot) then things might work better. Right now the GAO seems to do a lot of after action things, but not a lot of advance work (I'm sure the pentagon has its own finance people, but something clearly isn't working).

Thanks
Joel

 

[mmckenna]

Sounds like a great system.... Now if they could get the DOD and GAO to talk to each other a little more (they already do that a lot) then things might work better.

It's a "right sized" sort of thing.
I've been here at the same employer coming up on 26 years now. It's the right size agency that I can have ownership of all my systems, and I generally get to call the shots.
Much larger, and there would be too many systems for me to effectively manage. As it is, I've got a staff of 4 people that report to me, but most of them don't deal with radio systems.
Much smaller, and it probably wouldn't make sense for them to have me on staff to run these systems (they'd farm it out and be at the whim of the local shops). That was the position they were in before I took over. Radio systems were at the whim of the local Motorola shop and what they wanted to do.

DOD is too large, too much turn over, too complex, hard for employees to have a sense of ownership of their systems. That really impacts any feeling of responsibility.

I'm in the "Goldilocks Zone". Not too big, not too small, just right.

 

[MUTNAV]

I have a 22 year old Ford Expedition. Long paid for. Well maintained with respect to mechanical systems, 96 K miles, new tires, brakes, rims, control arms. The engine, a 4.6L 2V V8 is not plaqued with the problems of the newer 5.4 L 3V or V6 turbos. So I could get to 200K miles from the engine. What it needs is fresh paint. I could pay 12K for paint and get another 6 years of useful life. Or I could buy a newer model for 60K cash or finance paying current high interest rates. Which makes sense? Remember I can invest the saved 48K at 4.5% APY.

96.000 miles on a 22 year old vehicle, that's great... forget another 6 years, you could get another 20 years at that rate (and I hope you do....).

The difference that I'm thinking about is with institutions vs individuals... Like school buses, even when money is tight (in a large school district) they frequently have to replace a portion of the buses every year (believe it or not insurance comes in as a factor also, some insurance companies apparently don't want buses over a certain age being used to move people),

In addition to go to the public after 12 years of costing a minimal amount to keep the buses going, and ask for tens of millions of dollars to replace buses, wouldn't go over well with the public.

The saving money thing that Mmckenna uses would work differently if his funds couldn't be set aside just for radio needs, but gets mixed with the pot of public funds.

On a personnel level, I was going to use the maximum cost to maintain mindset, once the cumulative cost of taking care of the van exceeded a certain amount, even needing the control arms replaced would show a need to get a new vehicle... (ie the cummulative cost of non routine maitenance for a $20,000 car exceeds $25,000, its time to replace, no emotion involved).

As it was an old lady took care of the decision for me by totaling my van by hitting it in the side.



Thanks
Joel

 

[junior71]

I doubt PS agencies will go full time LTE. I do believe it will be more of a back up type option and I don't believe PS agencies will do away with LMR. We're at least a couple decades out. Let revisit this topic closer to that time.

 

[Echo4Thirty]

I doubt PS agencies will go full time LTE. I do believe it will be more of a back up type option and I don't believe PS agencies will do away with LMR. We're at least a couple decades out. Let revisit this topic closer to that time.

Here in the Houston area an EMS agency has already gone LTE full time. They have Harris XL subscribers on BeOn with an ISSI into the regional P25 system as a failover, but in the year plus they have been on LTE, they have had to go to P25 once. For interop, a P25 user can communicate with them on their failover P25 TGs as well as a UHF conventional repeater setup to gateway into their LTE. They have multiple IP links and even tested it over StarLink and it works just fine for them. As a test, one user connected their phone to inflight wifi on a flight to Denver and the dispatch users had no idea he was 30k' in a plane.

The radios have WiFi and they installed hotspots in all of the hospitals for the radios to connect to if they lose cellular as well.

While not a public safety utility, there is an electric provider here in texas that upgraded their 900 MHz edacs system to P25 and during the conversion utilized cellular. It worked so well that they have decided to stay on cellular primarily and only use their statewide 900MHz sites as a failover backup.

With both Harris and Motorola pushing their respective IP solutions that can ride on WiFi or cell, I think we will see this more and more. Cell/Private WiFi when the sun shines and failing to LMR in times of need. New York PD will be the test case when they deploy the NEXT radios.

 

[JethrowJohnson]

Aren't there any dead zones over there, though, or is there actually spotless coverage? Or is there a way that they solved that problem?

 

[Echo4Thirty]

While there is really good cell coverage here, they solved in-building with the usage of WiFi hotspots. Its my understanding they also have a hotspot in the truck that they can connect to as well to utilize the cell antennas on the roof as opposed to the little cell antenna in the radio itself.

 

[radioman2008]

"That's what we do in the rest of the organization".

That reminds me of my first union job (Textile Workers Union of America!! ) where I was refurbishing Xerox machines faster than anyone else and was told to slow down because "you are making us look bad".

lol. when I first got into public work over 20 years ago, it was the same thing, getting pulled to the side, dude slow down.... you're making us look bad. so now 22 years later, I'm not lazy but i don't #1 perform. the organization doesn't appreciate laziness, but they don't reward high production maintenance either, it's just Rasing the bar where next year we are competing with this year's benchmark.

 

[TDR-94]

I doubt PS agencies will go full time LTE. I do believe it will be more of a back up type option and I don't believe PS agencies will do away with LMR. We're at least a couple decades out. Let revisit this topic closer to that time.

Quite the opposite. LMR will eventually be the back up.

 

[ccsprague]

In simplest terms, a gateway connects the P25 core to the Internet, which allows subscribers to use either LTE (FirstNet or Frontline) or WiFi/hotspots to access the trunked system when out of RF coverage, depending on the capability of the subscriber. As long as a subscriber is affiliated with a talkgroup on the RF system, the traffic is still going to be carried over RF network.

That's what I'm really excited about. Having the ability to use the WIFI or LTE in a building for our Radios to talk to other sites outside of range of our towers. I've long wondered when it would get to this level where it's essentially like a Discord/TeamSpeak server with all the talk groups. When people ask me about how trunked radio works on just a few frequencies and I explain to them like how Discord works with the different channels and only hearing those in the TG.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I'm wondering how I can use the LTE capability in my XL-185 for personal applications. Not sure there's anything that could be done with it, as an individual with what is essentially an overpriced, glorified scanner, and an iphone and a PC.