Old Bridge TRS..."ready to crash"

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NJFFDisp

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The Old Bridge which has been in and out of failsoft for months and in the stages of replacement for over two years is "ready to crash."

Unknown what this means but OB Twp. OEM and Middlesex County OEM have distributed a cache of Middlesex County EDACS radios to all on-duty Police and EMS. Fire has been told to use low-band dispatch.

On 1/5/15 the Old Bridge Town Council award the contact to Tait for a new system, but due to complications with the bid the contract has not been executed (see below page 50)

http://www.oldbridge.com/filestorage/83/976/4931/01-05-15_Reorg_Council_Minutes.pdf
 

GM

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The Police Dept. is currently using Police Mutual Aid 1 on the County EDACS, and EMS units are using EMS M/A 1 talkgroups. Both are in ProVoice digital mode, and sound much better than the aging Motorola system.
 

mmckenna

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The Old Bridge which has been in and out of failsoft for months and in the stages of replacement for over two years is "ready to crash."

Sounds familiar. I see they are running a Type 2 Smartnet system. I replaced ours a few years back when it started to do this. Ours would fail every week or two. The central controller had a number of boards with leaky capacitors that would randomly fail. The battery backup was toast (you have to pull the card out to replace the battery, and that would wipe the system). The old MSF-5000 repeaters we used would drift all over the place (MSF = Might Stay on Frequency). Maybe they've upgraded there's since it was installed, but not surprising if they didn't.

Sounds like a typical "way past its prime" system.
 

NJFFDisp

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As of yesterday all Old Bridge PD and EMS units were back on the OB Twp. TRS, however they still are in possession of the County Radios in the event of another failure.
 

zz0468

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Sounds familiar. I see they are running a Type 2 Smartnet system. I replaced ours a few years back when it started to do this. Ours would fail every week or two. The central controller had a number of boards with leaky capacitors that would randomly fail. The battery backup was toast (you have to pull the card out to replace the battery, and that would wipe the system). The old MSF-5000 repeaters we used would drift all over the place (MSF = Might Stay on Frequency).

I'm still dealing with a substantial number of Smartnet 2 systems (over 10), and a couple hundred MSF5000's. We've seen the leaky capacitor problem, but have replaced them, and all of the 6809 controllers still out there are still going strong.

More problematic than the capacitors is the back plane the cards plug into. Pull all the boards out, take the shelf out and lay it face down on the bench, and reflow every single solder connection on every single edge connector, and the controller has a new lease on life, and all the weirdness goes away.

The MSF's are rock solid. The biggest issue there is tin whiskers in the VCO's. We take them apart and clean them, then realign the radio and they're good for another couple of years.

It's a shame this Old Bridge system has been allowed to go to seed like that when it's really not necessary. Our replacement systems are under construction, but it's our intention that the old systems will be working flawlessly when they're finally decommissioned, and I have no reason to believe we can't do it.
 

NJFFDisp

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Dispatchers complaining they cannot hear units in the field. Car to car communication seems to be better with except to the Laurence Harbor section of town.

All police units are being brought into HQ to be issued a County TRS portable and they will be going back over to the county system once all radios are distributed.
 

GM

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Has anyone with decision making authority in Old Bridge Town Council/Police/Fire Administration explored the option of joining the new County P25 system, instead of building their own P25 TRS? And would the coverage be the same or better using the County TRS or what they are trying to build with the new P25 800 MHz TRS? If Old Bridge is contuinuing to have trouble with their current 800 system, and since the proposed 800 P25 system has delays due to funding and tower construction, maybe it would be better to subscribe to the County 700 P25 system coming on line soon?
 

mmckenna

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I'm still dealing with a substantial number of Smartnet 2 systems (over 10), and a couple hundred MSF5000's. We've seen the leaky capacitor problem, but have replaced them, and all of the 6809 controllers still out there are still going strong.

More problematic than the capacitors is the back plane the cards plug into. Pull all the boards out, take the shelf out and lay it face down on the bench, and reflow every single solder connection on every single edge connector, and the controller has a new lease on life, and all the weirdness goes away.

The MSF's are rock solid. The biggest issue there is tin whiskers in the VCO's. We take them apart and clean them, then realign the radio and they're good for another couple of years.

It's a shame this Old Bridge system has been allowed to go to seed like that when it's really not necessary. Our replacement systems are under construction, but it's our intention that the old systems will be working flawlessly when they're finally decommissioned, and I have no reason to believe we can't do it.

Yeah, we were pouring a huge amount of maintenance into ours. Unfortunately the annual rotation of the MSS shops that we could use made follow through difficult.

Initial install of the system back in 1994 was poorly done. Location chosen for the equipment was poor. System was value engineered to death. No spares, no backup, just bare bones.

Replaced it all with a NexEdge system a few years back. Made sure I purchased spares, training, tools, etc.
 

magic_lantern

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Why build a trunked system at all? A small township such as Old Bridge should have no problem utilizing about 6 VHF frequencies and their current towers for all of its needs. And if you think about it and are knowledgeable on radio systems "Ready To Crash" describes just about any system in operation anywhere, A 10cent fuse blown in the right place, A failed back up power system, A bureaucracy that does not maintain infrastructure.....so on and so on
 

mmckenna

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Trunked systems better utilize the available frequencies and allow things like "subscriber access control". That's a handy thing if a radio gets lost/stolen. Easy to block it from the system.

But I agree, many of these systems are likely way more complicated and expensive than they need to be. Good salesmen can push this stuff on government agencies. Taxpayers are viewed as an endless source of funding.
 

johnls7424

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Far as I know still Old Bridge is still using their SmartNet system. I have not heard anything on Police M/A 1 since.

Like GM mentioned before it maybe more cost effective for them to join the soon to be 700 MHz Phase 2 system the county has decided to build out.
 

GM

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As it seems, Old Bridge's TRS was sounding very poorly earlier in the day today, and as such, the Police Dept. is currently using Police Mutual Aid 1 again on the County EDACS, and EMS units are using EMS M/A 1 talkgroups. Both are in ProVoice digital mode.
 

johnls7424

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Old Bridge is on one day Police Mutual Aid 1 and next day back to their Smartnet system. Their system is in great need of despair. When they had the incident in North Brunswick with the fire I believe the fire Marshall ordered the extra radios to be handed back in so they can use them.
 
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