New K-county radio system?

[west-pac]

I didn't know K-county was getting a new radio system. I guess I'll have a new signal to chase in the coming months.

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=808322370040760&id=100025890141635

 

[west-pac]

After a couple searches, it appears they may be getting a very similar system to Randolph County, including a multi-tower public safety radio system, and county-wide wifi.

With that being said, and without reading any other news articles, I wonder if they'll be getting P25P2 simulcast; or if it'll be an NXDN system. K-county already has several VHF NXDN public safety freqs.

County Takes Another Step Toward Communication Towers

While no communication towers will be going up this year, Kosciusko County commissioners Tuesday approved a step in the process that could lead to countywide br

timesuniononline.com

 

[west-pac]

According to this article, from June, the radio system will be 3 towers on 700Mhz.

Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department – InkFreeNews.com

www.inkfreenews.com

 

[AK9R]

I counted at least 7 VHF cavity filters in that photo.

 

[west-pac]

I counted at least 7 VHF cavity filters in that photo.

Yea, absolutely....🤔...smh...🤷‍♂️

 

[GTO_04]

The article does mention a "bridge" between VHF and 700/800 MHz radios.

GTO_04

 

[DiGiTaLD]

What's wrong with just sticking with IPSC?

 

[AK9R]

What's wrong with just sticking with IPSC?

It's not what the county's hired consultant convinced them to buy.

The consultant when questioned by a county commissioner about the RFP process, "Absolutely. I’ve done hundreds of these, and what it does is, the vendors now know they’re really in competition and they sharpen the pencil, and you see reductions of 20 and 30% on the values.” I don't think "values" was the word the consultant intended to use. I can see wanting to reduce the cost of the project, but why would you want reduce the value?

 

[west-pac]

What's wrong with just sticking with IPSC?

They never were on SAFE-T....

 

[bdub5]

What's wrong with just sticking with IPSC?

How would the consultant make any money if they don't convince the county to buy different and very expensive hardware?

 

[bdub5]

Let's hope K county has better luck with a J&K designed system than Howard has.

 

[west-pac]

Let's hope K county has better luck with a J&K designed system than Howard has.

Randolph county certainly hasn't. I think their work has stalled, citing craftsmanship concerns with the tower installations.

 

[AK9R]

The towers themselves or the equipment going onto the towers?

 

[DiGiTaLD]

They never were on SAFE-T....

So why not join? What kind of advantage does a largely rural county hope to get by footing the bill for a completely separate system when they could work with IPSC and certainly save a boatload of money on maintenance and upkeep costs, even if they did choose to fund one or two locally funded sites?

I guess the only good thing I can see is that these individual systems being sold by J&K to these counties is that they are at least 7/800 MHz P25 and thus the same subscribers will work on both IPSC and the individual county systems. Its a little better than a radio dealer selling them on a completely different technology such as TRBO or NXDN. If that starts happening, we'll be right back where we were, albeit with much more expensive radios.

 

[west-pac]

The towers themselves or the equipment going onto the towers?

The antenna installers noticed some issues with the tower itself, which put a pause on everything.

 

[west-pac]

So why not join? What kind of advantage does a largely rural county hope to get by footing the bill for a completely separate system when they could work with IPSC and certainly save a boatload of money on maintenance and upkeep costs, even if they did choose to fund one or two locally funded sites?

I guess the only good thing I can see is that these individual systems being sold by J&K to these counties is that they are at least 7/800 MHz P25 and thus the same subscribers will work on both IPSC and the individual county systems. Its a little better than a radio dealer selling them on a completely different technology such as TRBO or NXDN. If that starts happening, we'll be right back where we were, albeit with much more expensive radios.

These counties have control control over their own radio systems this way. None of the metro areas in the state are on SAFE-T, and now these smaller counties are moving off of it also, or never went to SAFE-T in the first place.

The county I live in, Blackford, went to SAFE-T originally, but then fought with busy signals on the Blackford tower from Grant (Marion) and Deleware (Muncie) county radio users, who out numbered Blackford county radio users by at least 30:1. Finally Blackford county LE moved to their own VHF DMR system, citing officer safety concerns. Unbeknownst to the county elected officials, they could've spent 1/10 of the overall DMR costs and could've added more voice channels to the SAFE-T tower, and that would've solved the issue as well. Albeit both solutions would've worked, Blackford county now has complete control over their own public safety radio system.

 

[DiGiTaLD]

complete control

Then we have what I'll call the "sandbox effect". Everybody wants to play in their own sandbox. Interoperability is not realized and we are right back where we were 30+ years ago. Having the same radio ID across systems seems to create some standardization, but then there's the issue of programming multiple systems, each requiring their own ASK (or equivalent dependent on the subscriber and/or system vendor) into one radio, which makes things that much more complex for the dealer or programmer. Then those radio IDs have to be provisioned on each system they are going to be used on.

IMO, what is being created here is actually a less interoperable environment in that when everybody was just on conventional analog, all you had to do was get permission from the neighbor agency to get your dealer to program up the right frequencies and PL or DPL and you had interop. Now its much more complex. With these separate systems there are even more roadblocks to interoperability.

Don't even get me started on DMR for public safety. That's just dumb.

 

[scannerboy02]

Not to get this thing off topic but I absolutely agree with you. It only took 20 years to forget about the events of September 11th, 2001.

P25 has a lot to offer over analog from a safety prospective. Having the ability for standard radio IDs, location information/tracking, emergency key activation, radio inhibit, encryption, etc. is a giant leap over analog, I'm aware analog can do some of these things. What we need is better coordination and funding from the state and federal levels. Not that I want to say 'there ought to be a law' but there ought to be something that makes for building out these systems at the state level and then a manner of funding for local agencies to purchase equipment to join the "state" system. As you said, having a bunch of mismatched systems is worse than the analog days. Of course the major hurdle to all of this usually comes down to politics.

Edit: Perhaps instead of all the money that was given to AT&T to build FirstNet it could have been better used to fund "statewide" P25 systems. I'll be honest, my Verizon devices work in many more places than FireNet devices right now.

 

[west-pac]

Not to get this thing off topic but I absolutely agree with you. It only took 20 years to forget about the events of September 11th, 2001.

P25 has a lot to offer over analog from a safety prospective. Having the ability for standard radio IDs, location information/tracking, emergency key activation, radio inhibit, encryption, etc. is a giant leap over analog, I'm aware analog can do some of these things. What we need is better coordination and funding from the state and federal levels. Not that I want to say 'there ought to be a law' but there ought to be something that makes for building out these systems at the state level and then a manner of funding for local agencies to purchase equipment to join the "state" system. As you said, having a bunch of mismatched systems is worse than the analog days. Of course the major hurdle to all of this usually comes down to politics.

Edit: Perhaps instead of all the money that was given to AT&T to build FirstNet it could have been better used to fund "statewide" P25 systems. I'll be honest, my Verizon devices work in many more places than FireNet devices right now.

You must not be aware that Indiana's statewide public safety radio system, Project SAFE-T, was completely paid for, and installed, by the state, with state and federal funding, and nobody pays user or subscriber fees...for anything. (That I'm aware of).

It's not like Ohio, or Michigan, or maybe even KY, where the cities, counties, or agencies are required to pay for and install their own sites, then pay subscribers fees per radio per month, inorder to have interop capabilities.

 

[INDY72]

Its all about not wanting to be little fish in big lake. Every fool wants to be the bug fish in tiny pond. Stupid but there it is. IPSC has been working for years to get everyone to be able to work together. Look at how the central IN area works. IDPSC and IPSC are shared and it works. Has for years.