Does anyone still have the audio files of City Fire Disp, and City Fireground 2 from the infamous Millwork fire? I'm, honestly wanting to review these to see exactly what went wrong radio wise. Truth be told, I've been speaking to City Fire, PD, and county EMS folks(Will not name names for their security), and I've gotten a common vibe about the P25 PH2 system...They hate it. They don't like it, and it scares some cause it's gone down quite a few times, one fireman said, 'Ya know, it's almost like I can set my watch to the system crashes'... And the kicker is, I've read up on P25 vulnerabilities to jamming, detection of unit ID's, radio pinging, and most of all, the fact of how 'volatile' the encryption mode can be(Eg, forget to flip it on/don't know how/can't, EVEYRONE has to transmit 'open', or if you forget to flip back to open, DISP cannot hear you, you cannot hear DISP. And if you're PD in a situation where you're being shot at? That's BAD!), but worst of all that, is the fact Rowan County, DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE A BACKUP!!! Emergency Services is all about the 'what if' so they can meet that 'what if' head-on and be ready for it. Apparently that was -not- the train of thought when they went to P25. At all. From what I've heard, in certain buildings, there is still coverage issues inside structures in the city of Salisbury, where units have to step -outside- to talk to Rowan. Because, say the fire is at, the train depot's maintenance basement. They have to hope their HT at, what. 5W maximum? Makes it THROUGH the basement ceiling/1st floor floor, and BUILDING, to get to the 800 repeater at the new Telecom center by the Fairgrounds/Station 87/Station 74, then BACK to the bloody command vehicle, less than 200ft away. And unlike a scanner, a Moto P25 radio that Salisbury/Rowan uses do NOT have a 'close call' feature they can turn on to listen to nearby freq's. And even if they did, they couldn't use it because that, IMO, would classify as a form of a 'VFO', of sorts, and thus be illegal for a Part 90 radio. So with that being said, I would honestly like to get a hold of this audio, and preferably audio that includes the P25 going down, showing it's weaknesses, etc. Considering how possible it is now to have another "justin isler/victor monroe' scenario, or something worse...? I'mma bring a case of this to Frank of the Rowan EMA. And see just MAYBE what I can do to talk some sense into him about at the -least-, putting the 154.250/155.7150/154.085/etc backups back in place for when we need them. I was told Rowan primarily went P25 for interop with Cabarrus and such counties... Well only ones that run P25 are Cabarrus; however they are a P25 PH1, which can actually be INCOMPATIBLE with a P25 PH2 system, due to differences in TDMA vs FDMA operation. There is also Mecklenburg, who uses a P25 PH1 also. Iredell uses a standard VHF/UHF system, so if what I'm lead to believe is true, we can no longer 'interop' with Iredell save for the digi-tg's MAYBE on the Motorola Type II SmartZone of Mooresville and the P25 PH1 of Statesville. Davie is out right VHF/UHF standard, so am I again to believe Rowan has lost all interopability with Davie save for using the (IF they can, cause again of differences between PH1 and PH2) VIPER network? Davidson also uses a straight VHF/UHF/VHF-Lo system, For the SO, EMS, FD, and EMA radios. Only real trunking system is the Moto Type II Smartnet of Thomasville City, with only Analog talkgroups...
So with the above, I am to believe if what I have heard, being true of P25 PH2, then Rowan is unable to perform interopability with their fancy 800 system, with the counties of Iredell, Davie, Davidson, and infact Stanly as well as Stanly is VHF/UHF/VHF-Lo, and maybe Cabarrus because of the differences of the lack of backwards compatibility from P25 PH2, to P25 PH1? Rowan and Cabarrus RELY on each other for mutual aid, with the depts of 41, 43, 44/58, 79, 46, 71/51, 70, 40/50, and 49. Mutual aiding frequently, agencies such as(Forgive any discrepancies, haven't been able to 'listen' since they went digi), Kannapolis City Fire, Cab. side of Mount Mitchell VFD, Cold Water VFD to some extent, Rimer VFD, Gold Hill for when they're paged to that area of cabarrus, etc. And have lost interop for stations aiding the VHF/UHF counties too? Surely this CANNOT be the case and I have missed something... Please tell me I have.
As it stands, I am somewhat, to say the least, disturbed of the 'drawbacks' of P25, and that Frank ACTUALLY decided this was a good idea even AFTER the previous 800 Smartnet was proven 'ineffective'. Making something fancier DOES NOT make it BETTER. Infact, that tends to make new problems, and make 'fancier' problems out of the old ones. (PS, when your system is able to be JAMMED by a bloody CHILDREN'S toy, and rendered useless, YOU HAVE A BIG, BIG, BIG PROBLEM!!!)
Finishing Scenario: It's a average day for you at Rowan Telecom. You answer the phone, it's a frantic caller about a working fire at the chemical plant on Cedar Springs Road, in Salisbury. You finish taking the info, then go to your tone-page on the dispatch console. you go to tone out Sals City, hazmat for precaution, Locke for RIC, Spencer, Ellis, South Salisbury, and Faith for on-scene aid and station backup. But something's wrong. You can't tone them out no matter what you do, your computer tells you there is a system error. So you fight with it a bit,t hen call the telecom-department head to ask what to do. He tells you to reset the radio system. So you do. While you're waiting for the P25 to come back up, you could've been using your olf VHF system; but it no longer exists because it was 'replaced' by a 'better' system. So you wait, and wait, and wait. It's just about done rebooting, and your 911 line rings again, so you answer it. It's someone else reporting that fire too, but this time with a large explosion reported. You call by phone Battalion 1 directly, and request he proceed to the scene to check, and explain radios are down. You get a call back after awhile, despite the fact your radios are up and running from Battalion 1, stating the plant has exploded, and to call the State Fire Marshal's Office, and other such Disaster related agencies. You ask why B1 didn't contact via radio, and he tells you, he did try. But it just wouldn't work....*End scenario* Congratulations, you just got hit with a unlikely, but VERY possible double-whammy. In that, you had another crash of your county's 'beloved' P25 system in which oyu actaully needed to reboot the radio system itself; and someone sabotaged the plant KNOWING about your radio system, and was able to successfully(which isn't hard to do on a P25) jam Fire and such radio transmissions. All, which could have been avoided, property and lives coulda been saved, and that place of business would still exist, plus more than likely other parts of the local business area there, if you had the backup frequencies of 154.250, 155.7150, 154.0850, 453.7750, and whatever the old Rowan Sheriff's Dept frequency used to be... If you had those to revert to for Toneout, and the old FG channels of VHF type to resort to, for on scene response, this could have been a lot simpler. Far fetched you say? Maybe... Maybe. But isn't that what FD/EMS/PD/EMA is supposed to take into consideration, and plan for just incase? That the 'absolute worst' at least has a plan of operation, should it come to pass?
So with the above, I am to believe if what I have heard, being true of P25 PH2, then Rowan is unable to perform interopability with their fancy 800 system, with the counties of Iredell, Davie, Davidson, and infact Stanly as well as Stanly is VHF/UHF/VHF-Lo, and maybe Cabarrus because of the differences of the lack of backwards compatibility from P25 PH2, to P25 PH1? Rowan and Cabarrus RELY on each other for mutual aid, with the depts of 41, 43, 44/58, 79, 46, 71/51, 70, 40/50, and 49. Mutual aiding frequently, agencies such as(Forgive any discrepancies, haven't been able to 'listen' since they went digi), Kannapolis City Fire, Cab. side of Mount Mitchell VFD, Cold Water VFD to some extent, Rimer VFD, Gold Hill for when they're paged to that area of cabarrus, etc. And have lost interop for stations aiding the VHF/UHF counties too? Surely this CANNOT be the case and I have missed something... Please tell me I have.
As it stands, I am somewhat, to say the least, disturbed of the 'drawbacks' of P25, and that Frank ACTUALLY decided this was a good idea even AFTER the previous 800 Smartnet was proven 'ineffective'. Making something fancier DOES NOT make it BETTER. Infact, that tends to make new problems, and make 'fancier' problems out of the old ones. (PS, when your system is able to be JAMMED by a bloody CHILDREN'S toy, and rendered useless, YOU HAVE A BIG, BIG, BIG PROBLEM!!!)
Finishing Scenario: It's a average day for you at Rowan Telecom. You answer the phone, it's a frantic caller about a working fire at the chemical plant on Cedar Springs Road, in Salisbury. You finish taking the info, then go to your tone-page on the dispatch console. you go to tone out Sals City, hazmat for precaution, Locke for RIC, Spencer, Ellis, South Salisbury, and Faith for on-scene aid and station backup. But something's wrong. You can't tone them out no matter what you do, your computer tells you there is a system error. So you fight with it a bit,t hen call the telecom-department head to ask what to do. He tells you to reset the radio system. So you do. While you're waiting for the P25 to come back up, you could've been using your olf VHF system; but it no longer exists because it was 'replaced' by a 'better' system. So you wait, and wait, and wait. It's just about done rebooting, and your 911 line rings again, so you answer it. It's someone else reporting that fire too, but this time with a large explosion reported. You call by phone Battalion 1 directly, and request he proceed to the scene to check, and explain radios are down. You get a call back after awhile, despite the fact your radios are up and running from Battalion 1, stating the plant has exploded, and to call the State Fire Marshal's Office, and other such Disaster related agencies. You ask why B1 didn't contact via radio, and he tells you, he did try. But it just wouldn't work....*End scenario* Congratulations, you just got hit with a unlikely, but VERY possible double-whammy. In that, you had another crash of your county's 'beloved' P25 system in which oyu actaully needed to reboot the radio system itself; and someone sabotaged the plant KNOWING about your radio system, and was able to successfully(which isn't hard to do on a P25) jam Fire and such radio transmissions. All, which could have been avoided, property and lives coulda been saved, and that place of business would still exist, plus more than likely other parts of the local business area there, if you had the backup frequencies of 154.250, 155.7150, 154.0850, 453.7750, and whatever the old Rowan Sheriff's Dept frequency used to be... If you had those to revert to for Toneout, and the old FG channels of VHF type to resort to, for on scene response, this could have been a lot simpler. Far fetched you say? Maybe... Maybe. But isn't that what FD/EMS/PD/EMA is supposed to take into consideration, and plan for just incase? That the 'absolute worst' at least has a plan of operation, should it come to pass?
