egear
Member
Does Anyone know why do my local county Baldwin County Fire they put there P25 Systems Alabama Interoperable Radio System (AIRS) to simulcast onto VHF or UHF
P25 Simulcast Question
- Thread starter egear
- Start date
Not sure what you are asking...Do you want to know why they chose to use a simulcast system, or if they've gone simulcast?
egear
Member
yes i want to know why they choose to use a simulcast system
The real answer would be known by the county and radio office chief, but this link gives you an idea why some places choose it.
Simulcast Radio Systems - GL Newsletter
Welcome to our August issue of GL's Consulting Newsletter. We focus on a unique communications technique used in public safety communications systems - simulcast radio
www.gl.com
egear
Member
Thanks, Very Helpful
My interpretation of the question is "why is the Baldwin County fire simulcasting their P25 on VHF analog" — and the answer to that is "cost".
P25 digital radios are expensive, and not every department has the money to purchase those radios. There are still people, if not entire VFDs, still using analog radios and so they have to be linked to the AIRS network so everyone can talk to everyone else.
From what I've gleaned, most of the analog users are north of I-10, in the most rural departments like Lottie, Tensaw and Whitehouse Fork. But a bunch are also in Fairhope, which despite being a big growing city is still dependent on volunteer departments who probably have limited resources. Until that changes, the simulcast of the 911 channels and a few local repeaters will continue.
P25 digital radios are expensive, and not every department has the money to purchase those radios. There are still people, if not entire VFDs, still using analog radios and so they have to be linked to the AIRS network so everyone can talk to everyone else.
From what I've gleaned, most of the analog users are north of I-10, in the most rural departments like Lottie, Tensaw and Whitehouse Fork. But a bunch are also in Fairhope, which despite being a big growing city is still dependent on volunteer departments who probably have limited resources. Until that changes, the simulcast of the 911 channels and a few local repeaters will continue.
kingpin
Trailer Park Supervisor
I can answer that question because I was the system administrator when we went live with it in May of 2012.
Initially, it was built for BCSO, but we opened it up to other departments because we all truly would benefit from having everyone on the same system. The individual departments had been all on VHF since the dawn of time, so to fill those voids until they got new 700 MHz radios, we simulcast the BC Fire dispatch channels along with the 700 MHz talkgroups. As grant monies became available, more fire departments transitioned over to 700. We still did the VHF comms patched in for departments that still had VHF equipment, for interoperability, and the VHF pagers. At the time, pagers were non existent on 700 and that would also do TDMA, so we opted to keep the VHF alive because "it just works" and no extra money needed to be spent.
I left the county a few years ago to move up to other things, but this system will always be my baby. I don't discuss alot of things openly about it because of COMSEC, but I'm glad to see our hard work still paying off.
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