PRINCE GEORGE CO. NEW TRS CONTRACT AWARDED

[W4UVV]

A monitoring friend and I decided today to find what was the latest PG Co. new radio trs situation. After much searching we were successful. On Oct 08, 2019 the Prince George Co. BOS awarded the new trunked county radio system to L3Harris of $11,240,746. I have not read all the documentation which is an attached PDF. From what I glanced at while printing some copies of the PDF printing was that Motorola bid $14 million hgher and lost. Some of my local monitor friends are not going to like what we will read. That being said, "The deed is done."

There is another issue involving millions more the county contracted to pay L3Harris for a 20 year maintenance contract. My monitoring friend and I now will search for it. What confused us was during the last three months of 2019 the new "COMLINC" radio system was discussed by the PG BOS making it difficult attempting sort one new county radio system discussions from another. L3Harris obviously used the successful method of operation it did with Pittsylvania Co.

Keep in mind when printing the below link to be aware some pages are portrait and some are landscape and the attachments are portrait again. The 1-20 page print one sided for "All" worked best for me. When finished I hand replaced all portrait and landscape pages in each's appropriate category resorted for easier reading. But do as you whatever works for you.

Johnand some local monitors
W4UVV

 

[W4UVV]

Harris contract modified on Oct. 22, 2019 by BOS for additional radios for VFD/EMS volunteers. Revised cost= $10,766,140 excluding the 20 year system maintenance contract cost.

John
W4UVV

 

[maus92]

Good luck. Harris nee L3Harris systems are notorious for coverage issues. I guess they didn't interview users in St. Mary's County in Maryland.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

Other Harris users are very satisfied with their products, even replacing older Harris systems with new ones. It's like any engineered product: due diligence, using a reputable consultant, and a common understanding of performance expectations by both the manufacturer and end user are all key to success.

 

[maus92]

Other Harris users are very satisfied with their products, even replacing older Harris systems with new ones. It's like any engineered product: due diligence, using a reputable consultant, and a common understanding of performance expectations by both the manufacturer and end user are all key to success.

Certainly good consultants make a difference. In STM, they spent $30M for a system that has not performed well according to end users - although it is a larger system in terms of sites. The brand new Harris system Worcester County (also in MD) has also not performed to user expectations, a 7 site system. As far as replacing older legacy Harris systems, the upgrade path is a factor: the jurisdiction may already own compatible subscriber radios, so there is a built in financial element. But most larger jurisdictions in Maryland seem to favor Motorola systems; only a few smaller systems are Harris (excluding JNCR.)

 

[BoxAlarm187]

The brand new Harris system Worcester County (also in MD) has also not performed to user expectations, a 7 site system.

Even as flat as Worcester is, 7 sites for 700 square miles seems really conservative for coverage. Interesting. The county in which I live is currently working with Harris on their new 700/800Mhz system, which is also using 7 sites, but is less than 300 square miles.

Yes, carry-over customers certainly may have subscriber radios that allow for a less capital outlay, which is clearly a financial incentive for them. But that being said, Harris is making a far bigger punch in our area in the past 5 years than they have in the past 30 years combined.

 

[maus92]

Even as flat as Worcester is, 7 sites for 700 square miles seems really conservative for coverage. Interesting. The county in which I live is currently working with Harris on their new 700/800Mhz system, which is also using 7 sites, but is less than 300 square miles.

Yes, carry-over customers certainly may have subscriber radios that allow for a less capital outlay, which is clearly a financial incentive for them. But that being said, Harris is making a far bigger punch in our area in the past 5 years than they have in the past 30 years combined.

Yea, site density seemed suspicious, particularly in the northwest part of the county. The new P25P2 system did replace an earlier 3 site EDACS system which also suffered coverage issues. The sysadmins like the Harris infrastructure however (likely due to familiarity,) and that heavily influenced the purchase. But it's the end-users that matter, and they don't like it so much (particularly fire service users in the northwest part of the county, hmmm.....) On paper, the coverage works, but not so well in practice. The county hired a third party consultant to review the system and audit coverage testing, and some issues were found. They recommended some short term fixes like changing / reorienting antennas, and some long term fixes like changing some frequencies, and adding more sites. Similar issues in STMC required additional sites outside of the original scope of the contract, although users also complained about subscriber equipment. STMC also migrated from a previous EDACS system.

For comparison, the county where I reside is building a new 22 site Motorola P25P2 system, replacing a 10 site SmartZone system that was expanded from the original 5 site system (the first in MD) when Nextel interference was problematic. Montgomery County is also building a 22 site system, from an 10 / 11 site SmartZone system. So generally, a considerable number of sites are needed to make P25P2 system meet user expectations, and let's face it, users expect their communications devices to work everywhere - which is not unreasonable for emergency personnel IMO.

 

[W4UVV]

FYI this is not my first post and concerns about Harris Corp.'s equipment performance as the trs contractor for the states of Florida and Pennsylvania each over a 20+ year time frame. It was my understanding that both Florida and Pennsylvania decided enough was enough of Harris' continuing technical issues with no successful resolutions and finally decided "enough was enough!". Both state's cancelled their contracts and I believe subsequently contracted with Motorola. I don't know about you, but that is more than enough to get my attention and have concerns and apprehensions.

Being a SWL before getting my ham radio license in 1961, monitoring shortwave broadcasts on 80 through 15 meters was very popular because, in part, the SW bands had high MUF(Maximum Usable Frequency) propagation almost daily thanks, in part, to major SW sunspot activity. Major sunspot activity these days is gone never to return.

Harris Corp. for many years was one of the major shortwave radio transmitter manufacturers in the world. Some countries like England,with the BBC and the US with VOA had high powered multi-SWfrequency transmitters and huge antenna "farms" of phased rhombic arrays directed to certain parts of the world such as to part of Africa, etc. They also were very expensive in the hundreds of thousand dollars range for one transmitter excluding antenna installation(s).

Then in the early 80's successful commercial communication satellites began launching from Cape Canaveral, FL, Ariene, Guiana, SA. One of the most successful geostationary satellite providers was Intelsat with over 30 satellites worldwide which countries then could rent and transmit usually on of their country tv and radio programing also via satellite. No longer did a country have to have an extremely expensive shortwave radio transmitter operating 24/7.

All the following comments mostly are my recollections and opinions; Harris Corp. obviously saw the "writing on the wall". It was only a matter of time until the SW HF transmitter market was becoming an obsolete product as a result new technology.

Again, I don't know for a fact, and it is supposition only, my guess was Harris wanted to become a "player" in the satellite tv/data component manufacturing community ASAP. There was an electronics company called "MACOM" whose products offered included encryption ICs for satellite tv. MACOM had survival problems and eventually sold the company, I believe, to Ericsson, the Swedish electronics manufacturer, who later sold it to GE. who then may have sold its' operations to Harris. Again, just guesses. All of these aforementioned companies have had established operations in the Lynchburg/Roanoke area for a number of years.

Harris did not have any time to waste attempting to compete with Motorola especially after the Florida and Pennsylvania state contract terminations. Harris previously had a relationship with Pittsylvania Co., and pursued an aggressive proactive method of operation for new trunked radio systems, i.e., on site rep available 24/7, selected number of HTs loaned to the VFD, EMS, SO to "test", etc.

The Prince George, Co. "new radio system" members were comprised of zero individuals who had any technical knowledge of trunked radio systems. If you wish, give the paid consultant advisor some credit for having some knowledge of a trunked radio system. It is not uncommon to require non-technical employees or management to make technical decisions.

I don't know about you, but I have yet to be convinced that a Harris trs control channel is not a dedicated frequency, but the first "open" frequency in the trs group selected by the controller until the next "open" frequency becomes the control channel frequency. Maybe it's a Motorola patent issue that forces Harris to use that scheme.

If you want to read some of the past posts regarding this pre-award discussion regarding a Harris' trs performance at a prior installed site trs and attendant negative comments, you can understand why a number of technically inclined monitors in my area have grave concerns about what soon we will be forced to live with.

Let's recap. $10,000,000=Harris trs
$11,000,000=20 year maintenance contract. (Looks like Harris wants to "homestead" in the county)
$21,000,000 = Total (Any modification to the basic contract is extra)

If you are interested in reading prior discussions on this subject, do a search for "w4uvv" and it will be in one of the stand alone threads.

John

 

[jeepsandradios]

Pitt County is still Harris....

 

[W4UVV]

Pitt County is still Harris....

I know. I believe it was one of the first P2 trs installed in VA.

John
W4UVV

 

[kayn1n32008]

FYI this is not my first post and concerns about Harris Corp.'s equipment performance as the trs contractor for the states of Florida and Pennsylvania each over a 20+ year time frame. It was my understanding that both Florida and Pennsylvania decided enough was enough of Harris' continuing technical issues with no successful resolutions and finally decided "enough was enough!". Both state's cancelled their contracts and I believe subsequently contracted with Motorola. I don't know about you, but that is more than enough to get my attention and have concerns and apprehensions.

Being a SWL before getting my ham radio license in 1961, monitoring shortwave broadcasts on 80 through 15 meters was very popular because, in part, the SW bands had high MUF(Maximum Usable Frequency) propagation almost daily thanks, in part, to major SW sunspot activity. Major sunspot activity these days is gone never to return.

Harris Corp. for many years was one of the major shortwave radio transmitter manufacturers in the world. Some countries like England,with the BBC and the US with VOA had high powered multi-SWfrequency transmitters and huge antenna "farms" of phased rhombic arrays directed to certain parts of the world such as to part of Africa, etc. They also were very expensive in the hundreds of thousand dollars range for one transmitter excluding antenna installation(s).

Then in the early 80's successful commercial communication satellites began launching from Cape Canaveral, FL, Ariene, Guiana, SA. One of the most successful geostationary satellite providers was Intelsat with over 30 satellites worldwide which countries then could rent and transmit usually on of their country tv and radio programing also via satellite. No longer did a country have to have an extremely expensive shortwave radio transmitter operating 24/7.

All the following comments mostly are my recollections and opinions; Harris Corp. obviously saw the "writing on the wall". It was only a matter of time until the SW HF transmitter market was becoming an obsolete product as a result new technology.

Again, I don't know for a fact, and it is supposition only, my guess was Harris wanted to become a "player" in the satellite tv/data component manufacturing community ASAP. There was an electronics company called "MACOM" whose products offered included encryption ICs for satellite tv. MACOM had survival problems and eventually sold the company, I believe, to Ericsson, the Swedish electronics manufacturer, who later sold it to GE. who then may have sold its' operations to Harris. Again, just guesses. All of these aforementioned companies have had established operations in the Lynchburg/Roanoke area for a number of years.

Harris did not have any time to waste attempting to compete with Motorola especially after the Florida and Pennsylvania state contract terminations. Harris previously had a relationship with Pittsylvania Co., and pursued an aggressive proactive method of operation for new trunked radio systems, i.e., on site rep available 24/7, selected number of HTs loaned to the VFD, EMS, SO to "test", etc.

The Prince George, Co. "new radio system" members were comprised of zero individuals who had any technical knowledge of trunked radio systems. If you wish, give the paid consultant advisor some credit for having some knowledge of a trunked radio system. It is not uncommon to require non-technical employees or management to make technical decisions.

I don't know about you, but I have yet to be convinced that a Harris trs control channel is not a dedicated frequency, but the first "open" frequency in the trs group selected by the controller until the next "open" frequency becomes the control channel frequency. Maybe it's a Motorola patent issue that forces Harris to use that scheme.

If you want to read some of the past posts regarding this pre-award discussion regarding a Harris' trs performance at a prior installed site trs and attendant negative comments, you can understand why a number of technically inclined monitors in my area have grave concerns about what soon we will be forced to live with.

Let's recap. $10,000,000=Harris trs
$11,000,000=20 year maintenance contract. (Looks like Harris wants to "homestead" in the county)
$21,000,000 = Total (Any modification to the basic contract is extra)

If you are interested in reading prior discussions on this subject, do a search for "w4uvv" and it will be in one of the stand alone threads.

John

LoL. Pennsylvania was Opensky. Opensky was technology that Harris inherited when they bought out Ma/Com. Harris quickly dumped Opensky for PS.

Regardless Harris has built out the two largest(site count and sq. of coverage) in North America. Both customers are happy with their systems.

The one in my province(Alberta) suffers from coverage issues, but it’s not anything to do with Harris, but our provincial government that paid for it.

Portable on belt coverage would have been about $1B more than the mobile on primary and secondary highway coverage they paid for(~$400M) it’s between 335 and 340 unique repeater sites. Even still there are sites being added to improve coverage. One was just turned up in southern Alberta to fill a gap in coverage with in a fire departments operational area.

To give you and idea of size of the coverage Alberta is 5.55 times the size of Pennsylvania

 

[clbsquared]

Would it be fair to assume that since Harris has already acquired Sussex, that Prince George would just be more skin in the game for them? I certainly hope they do a better job of coverage for PG than they did for Sussex. I hear lots of complaints about subscriber units not being able to TX in a lot of places within the county. Especially the Wakefield area. Some departments have even resorted to reinstalling the older vhf units just so they can communicate with each other. Not saying it's a good idea for them to leave dispatch out of the loop. But if you can't communicate through the new system effectively, what other choice do you have?

 

[BoxAlarm187]

LoL. Pennsylvania was Opensky. Opensky was technology that Harris inherited when they bought out Ma/Com. Harris quickly dumped Opensky for PS.

That's one of the things that I think Harris as a company gets a really bad reputation for - the fabled OpenSky system. It was bad, we all know it, but it doesn't mean that the entire Harris line is crap.

Nevertheless, I think that when you look at some very successful Harris systems in the Commonwealth...

• Lynchburg/Bedford County/Town of Bedford/Amherst (and Campbell is now asking to join)
• Rockingham/Harrisonburg
• Pittsylvania
• New Kent

...you'll see that the users are satisfied with the coverage they're receiving, and the systems have been tailored to meet the end-user needs.

I know that John (W4UVV) is very, very skeptical of the Harris selection, but I believe in time, the system will provide the coverage and performance that the county is expecting.

 

[BoxAlarm187]

I hear lots of complaints about subscriber units not being able to TX in a lot of places within the county. Especially the Wakefield area.

I've only followed the Sussex system dialogue on the outer fringes...isn't that system only running 3 sites in a 500 square mile county?

 

[W4UVV]

LoL. Pennsylvania was Opensky. Opensky was technology that Harris inherited when they bought out Ma/Com. Harris quickly dumped Opensky for PS.

Regardless Harris has built out the two largest(site count and sq. of coverage) in North America. Both customers are happy with their systems.

The one in my province(Alberta) suffers from coverage issues, but it’s not anything to do with Harris, but our provincial government that paid for it.

Portable on belt coverage would have been about $1B more than the mobile on primary and secondary highway coverage they paid for(~$400M) it’s between 335 and 340 unique repeater sites. Even still there are sites being added to improve coverage. One was just turned up in southern Alberta to fill a gap in coverage with in a fire departments operational area.

To give you and idea of size of the coverage Alberta is 5.55 times the size of Pennsylvania

---------------
kayn1n32008,

"Opensky was technology that Harris inherited when they bought out Ma/Com"....that's all the reader has to know regarding Pennsylvania. When Harris bought MACOM it acquired all assets and liabilities agreed to regarding the acquisition. The Pennsylvania General Assembly decided to terminate Harris's contract for whatever specific reasons. Your argument is with the state of Pennsylvania, not me. I just relayed what was reported in the media regarding the state of Pennsylvania after 20+ years terminating its' contract with Harris which was sourced to Harris' inability to resolve long term technical problems PERIOD!.

I have no interest in any further discussion regarding this subject and will not waste time responding. Believe whatever you wish. I couldn't care less.

John
W4UVV

 

[clbsquared]

I've only followed the Sussex system dialogue on the outer fringes...isn't that system only running 3 sites in a 500 square mile county?

I believe so. Unless they've added another tower recently. They have nowhere near the coverage they should have. Heck, Isle of Wight has 6 sites with almost 200 square miles less than Sussex

 

[kayn1n32008]

---------------
kayn1n32008,

"Opensky was technology that Harris inherited when they bought out Ma/Com"....that's all the reader has to know regarding Pennsylvania. When Harris bought MACOM it acquired all assets and liabilities agreed to regarding the acquisition. The Pennsylvania General Assembly decided to terminate Harris's contract for whatever specific reasons. Your argument is with the state of Pennsylvania, not me. I just relayed what was reported in the media regarding the state of Pennsylvania after 20+ years terminating its' contract with Harris which was sourced to Harris' inability to resolve long term technical problems PERIOD!.

I have no interest in any further discussion regarding this subject and will not waste time responding. Believe whatever you wish. I couldn't care less.

John
W4UVV

You compare apples to oranges, on a topic you clearly know nothing about.
Couple that with offering your OPINION as fact makes your post(s) meaningless.

 

[kayn1n32008]

That's one of the things that I think Harris as a company gets a really bad reputation for - the fabled OpenSky system. It was bad, we all know it, but it doesn't mean that the entire Harris line is crap.

Nevertheless, I think that when you look at some very successful Harris systems in the Commonwealth...

• Lynchburg/Bedford County/Town of Bedford/Amherst (and Campbell is now asking to join)
• Rockingham/Harrisonburg
• Pittsylvania
• New Kent

...you'll see that the users are satisfied with the coverage they're receiving, and the systems have been tailored to meet the end-user needs.

I know that John (W4UVV) is very, very skeptical of the Harris selection, but I believe in time, the system will provide the coverage and performance that the county is expecting.

He has zero clue and keeps using Opensky to say ALL of Harris’ equipment is bad.

His opinion is quite meaningless babble.

When taking in account of the coverage spec of AFRRCS(Province of Alberta P25 system) the system performs as per spec. The major complaints on it have been by users expecting portables to work everywhere on a mobile spec. system.

Harris has built successful systems. W4UVV just refuses to understand OpenSky ≠ P25

 

[W4UVV]

That's one of the things that I think Harris as a company gets a really bad reputation for - the fabled OpenSky system. It was bad, we all know it, but it doesn't mean that the entire Harris line is crap.

Nevertheless, I think that when you look at some very successful Harris systems in the Commonwealth...

• Lynchburg/Bedford County/Town of Bedford/Amherst (and Campbell is now asking to join)
• Rockingham/Harrisonburg
• Pittsylvania
• New Kent

...you'll see that the users are satisfied with the coverage they're receiving, and the systems have been tailored to meet the end-user needs.

I know that John (W4UVV) is very, very skeptical of the Harris selection, but I believe in time, the system will provide the coverage and performance that the county is expecting.

That's one of the things that I think Harris as a company gets a really bad reputation for - the fabled OpenSky system. It was bad, we all know it, but it doesn't mean that the entire Harris line is crap.

Nevertheless, I think that when you look at some very successful Harris systems in the Commonwealth...

• Lynchburg/Bedford County/Town of Bedford/Amherst (and Campbell is now asking to join)
• Rockingham/Harrisonburg
• Pittsylvania
• New Kent

...you'll see that the users are satisfied with the coverage they're receiving, and the systems have been tailored to meet the end-user needs.

I know that John (W4UVV) is very, very skeptical of the Harris selection, but I believe in time, the system will provide the coverage and performance that the county is expecting.

----------------
BoxAlarm187:
"I know that John (W4UVV) is very, very skeptical of the Harris selection, etc".

It's not only me with concerns and apprehensions, but also a number of area long term monitors who also feel the same way. It's more of a "lessor of two evils" choice. Motorola has had its' problems in past years and now is paying the price for it's complacency. It did not learn the lesson of applying the same aggressive successful method of operation template Harris used when bidding for the new Pittsylvania Co.trs. Harris basically used the same successful scenario plan for Prince George Co.'s new radio system. So far Harris is winning and Motorola is losing. Either way, time will tell what situation(s) have evolved regarding the Prince George Co. trs.

Presently, a P. G. Co. EMS unit making an emergency run to MCV cannot access its' 460.0250 mhz. county repeater. An EMS crew member must use his/her cellphone to call back to the dispatcher. MCV ER is approximately 20 miles(LOS). Any bets on the new 851-865 mhz. trs approximately 400 mhz. higher doing any better? Most unlikely.. Most county towers are approximately 95 ft. high or slightly lower.
------------------
FYI regarding the Sussex Co./VSP trs, although I now rarely monitor it. Although I have a good solid 5 bar signal strength level, none of my 536s on the same antenna display any talkgroups or "DAT" displays. I have not heard any voice comms in the past 5 months. I finally concluded all P2 signals now are encrypted. The county VFD/EMS had been unencrypted and still may be, but any activity is seldom and I wasn't monitoring at the same time.

John
W4UVV

 

[kayn1n32008]

It's not only me with concerns and apprehensions, but also a number of area long term monitors who also feel the same way.

John
W4UVV

Hahahaha.

‘Long term monitors’

So in other words, people that have no dog in the fight?

Just hating on Harris because of a technology they inherited, that a state bought with known issues when used as a wide area PTT voice system?

Also most likely people that don’t have a foggy clue about networked trunk system design and don’t have any clue that budget determines coverage.