My county will be going to a 700 MHz radio system in the near future. We operate on vhf hi-band at the moment and the powers that be are convinced that vhf is obsolete.
Is 700 MHz a reliable system?
And what is the cost of the equipment?
Thanks
Since you mention 700Mhz, I can only assume they will be going to a DTRS.
Public safety Systems today are very reliable, notice I do not mention Band. That is because Band does not determine systems equipment reliability. Today's systems have many redundancy features.
I cannot answer why the have chosen 700 over VHF.
A couple of reasons may be frequency availability, nearby systems on 7/800, repeater frequency 30mhz spacing.
Also just incase you (OP) did not know, most if not all 800mhz radio's today also operate in the 700mhz band.
As far as cost, that is tough for anyone to answer, there are to many variables.
Some agencies may chose to interface into a another mastersite and would shed some of the costs associated with the master site. The site equipment itself is much cheaper than a master site equipment.
An example would be interfacing with a stste wide system, you get the benefit of staying up to date, (in most cases). Cost savings.
And you can chose what ever band you want, the mastersite does not give a crap about frequency. If state is 7/800 and you want to stay VHF due terrain or just because you love dat dere VHF band. You can do that and have direct interop with the state to boot. As long as you and the state have overlapping coverage in your area.
