Battalion Chiefs have been reporting to the radio shops to have their "radios in the box" reprogrammed to the new frequencies. The field is being told they will start using the new frequencies sometime in September. No further updates from previous posted information.
This system, does it host all marathon operations communications? Or just superior’s? While on site today at the marathon I noticed marathon staff using radios from comm direct, are those set up on that system, or an independent marathon specific system?
I don't know what else I missed other than what I described. Don't know about Superior's radio issues, but heard a couple of their units dispatched for medical incidents and no one complained on the radio. Radi-Link has been leasing their radios for various city events for awhile now and haven't heard any issues being mentioned.
The "original plan" was to mirror the way Midway was set up. That's the reason for the two stand-alone sites at the airports and the assigned talk groups that were posted on the database. However, CDA (Chicago Department of Aviation), wants total control of O'Hare, but CPD and CFD were already committed to the city's P25 system as well as all of Midway. The ORD Radio Shops are controlled by CDA and not the OEMC. Midway used to have an OEMC radio tech on premises during business hours, but CDA put an end to that and he retired. That's why radio ID's don't follow the OEMC's programming structure on the P25 system also.
Agreed, but I still believe the money tree is bare when they shake it, and since they have a working radio system, it's no longer a priority like before. "Fund reallocation" perhaps?
I had recently asked someone who is "in the know" why the persistence of CFD to move back to the UHF band for dispatching ops and the answer I was given is because the command staff can't scan (reliably) between the dispatch talk groups and the analog fire ground channel.
They have issued them two radios to use on the fireground a couple years ago. The 800 radio zones can be set up to scan multi-bands if they reprogrammed and a "box was checked". They hold up the Command Vans too soon in many instances.
I'm very familiar with the programming and capability of the radios and so is the one I was talking to, but scanning between trunked and conventional still leaves some to be desired, especially on Moto radios.
I'm familiar where this is coming from, but they aren't going to UHF anytime soon.
Why would they do this when they have a house full of actual Motorola radios? Just grab a spare radio for the fire house. About 20 years ago I would sit in station 58 in Los Angeles during busy nights monitoring the field action on the plug buggy radio through the vehicle PA system. Or walk around the station with a spare STX 800mhz portable
It's the CFD way, to have a scanner blaring in the background...LOL! But...that's what they're doing now, leaving a portable on in front or in the tower to listen, but not all the houses do that.
