New communications in Hartford

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firebuff17

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Guess we will have to wait and see.


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garys

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A million, or as the article says "just under" a million is not enough to build a new radio system. It sounds about right to buy portable and mobile radios for a system that someone else is building.

It's certainly not enough to build a city wide trunk system of the type they are currently using.
 

firebuff17

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Well the city is not building and buying a new radio system... I would presume as it’s considering filing for bankruptcy.
Who else would be building out a new system?


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SVFC462

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New Britain is phase 2 P25 and west Hartford is in the process of upgrading to the same type .. it will be interesting to see what happens.

IMO :: when a department upgrades a radio system one of the key priorities besides the best communication for that agency is to be able to communicate with mutual aid agencies. Yes there are systems like intercity, RAFS, CSPERN that are repeated and for direct channels (STOCS, U-tac) .. but if you build a system that doesn’t allow you to talk to your neighbors, it restricts you.


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firerick100

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Whatever happens its not going to be anytime soon with the radio sysstem, it may be a year or more before anything is done, we will find out as time goes on , im sure they will reveal what they will do when they decide what they want to do.
 

garys

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You are also far less likely to get federal grant money if your proposed system doesn't have an interoperability feature in it.

Could they be going on to the statewide system? And of course, what about the rest of the city agencies that are now on the EDACS system?

New Britain is phase 2 P25 and west Hartford is in the process of upgrading to the same type .. it will be interesting to see what happens.

IMO :: when a department upgrades a radio system one of the key priorities besides the best communication for that agency is to be able to communicate with mutual aid agencies. Yes there are systems like intercity, RAFS, CSPERN that are repeated and for direct channels (STOCS, U-tac) .. but if you build a system that doesn’t allow you to talk to your neighbors, it restricts you.


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sefrischling

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EDACS is a dead legacy system, Harris ended support for it in 2017. So all the departments using it, like Hartford, NY/NJ Port Authority Police, etc, are up a creek, and have to find new solutions.
 

sefrischling

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when a department upgrades a radio system one of the key priorities besides the best communication for that agency is to be able to communicate with mutual aid agencies.

... are you familiar with how Connecticut works? Logic ceases to apply.

Let's just look at Groton CT, shall well?
Groton Town PD 800 conventional
Groton City PD VHF
Groton Long Point PD UHF

... they can't even communicate with each other within a single municipal area, with three independent police departments. None can communicate with CSP on the 800 3200 baud SmartZone system or New London, on an 800 P25 9600 baud system, which is where their mutual aid usually comes from.
 

cg

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West Hartford has been bid already.

When the towns have money, everybody wants to do their own thing. When times are tough and everybody wants to share, there is no money for it.

West Hartford, Wethersfield, New Britain, State of CT all have their own systems. Minimal sharing.
State of CT system is designed for mobile radio coverage, portable coverage is OK but not what you would want for urban coverage (although there is a single site in the city now).
Who would control it? who buys new infrastructure? Who determines what features are allowed?

Way too much sharing for it to work in CT without a legislative intervention.

chris
 

garys

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Even if Harris has stopped support, there are a lot of systems that are still using it. There is a market for used EDACS equipment. Mobile County, AL is (has been for several years) building a Harris P25 system. It was supposed to be on line a couple of years ago, but is still in the testing phase. I'm sure that there are other cities/counties that in the same boat.

EDACS will be around for a while.

EDACS is a dead legacy system, Harris ended support for it in 2017. So all the departments using it, like Hartford, NY/NJ Port Authority Police, etc, are up a creek, and have to find new solutions.
 

sefrischling

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I stated clearly EDACS was in use by multiple agencies , however Harris does not allow 3rd party support, no new parts are being made by Harris, so agencies will be switching off faster than you seem to think. Hartford being one of them.
 

cg

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I really doubt they would spend a huge amount to update/improve the existing system (of course we are talking about Hartford).
I believe the system they have is a fairly basic system, single site (plus backup), 16 trunked channels. Problem is they have a ton of subscriber units and lots of dispatch equipment.
Perhaps the dispatch equipment was new when they opened the new Public Safety complex and is compatible with a new system. They could go to 8-10 P25 Phase II channels and save some money on a dozen or so trunked repeaters.
They had bought some used radios from another City several years ago. I doubt that equipment is upgradeable to P25 because the other agency got rid of it due to upgrade during rebanding (and now has to pay Sprint for selling equipment that was supposed to be turned in).
If they used Phase II, gave some frequencies to Wethersfield or West Hartford for expansion of their system in exchange for going on their core, maybe it could be done for a fair bit less than a Hartford only system.

chris
 

connscan

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The City of Hartford has no plan (or money) to replace the EDACS. Harris will end support in December of 2017. They notified all EDACS users of this several years ago. The P7100 and M7100 subscribers are beyond end of support.

Read between the lines you will see that it was the Hartford Fire Department that applied for and was awarded the grant money, not the city ES&T who administers the antiquated EDACS trunked radio system. Perhaps someone at the HFD believes that the status quo is no longer acceptable.

Interoperability is nice but if you're on the pipe and your pump operator cannot hear you calling for water, or if the Chief in the street cannot hear your MAYDAY call, you might as well have a brick in your hand. Case in point, the LODD fire on Blue Hills Avenue.
 
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firebuff17

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So the million dollar question is... what is your opinion on what they will do with the million dollars?


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connscan

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As someone stated earlier in the thread, 993k isn't a lot of money when it comes to radios.

There will certainly be a replacement of all firefighter portables, batteries and speaker mics at the very least. Depending on how much money is left after that, mobiles for apparatus. Let the city pay to replace the admin radios whenever they get around to it.

The difficulty is that the EDACS isn't covering in buildings and that needs to be addressed somehow. The FEMA grant will not cover infrastructure so it's an absolute certainty that the money will not be spent on that.
 
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