found this article in the police magazine, and found it has a lot of good information !?!?
Radios: Your Lifeline is Evolving - Article - POLICE Magazine
What do you think??
Radios: Your Lifeline is Evolving - Article - POLICE Magazine
One of the key goals of P25 was to make it easier for officers and other public safety personnel to communicate with each other. This goal was to be achieved through a uniform standard for digital public safety radios.
Yes. And to communicate, every agency in the location will have to be P25...if so much as one agency decides on a P25 system, while everybody else is Conventional Analog. State Operations / Emergency Services / Disaster coordiantion takes state and federal grants and builds a P25 system.....Unless agencys in that state go P25 alos......then no one......by two way analog radio...can talk to the State.
In Public Safety.......EVERYONE has to be on the same page. Everone has to be on the same page to coordinate - work together, and end the Emergency / Disaster / Problem.....in a timely manner. At teh scene of an emergency / disaster ; one agency on 700 Mhz, one agency on 800 Mhz, one agency on 159 Mhz, and one agency on 453 Mhz does not cut it.
So the United States Government come out with the P25 standard.....which I do not like or dislike, but in this case..... if you set a standard, then you should help pay for it. And nationwide.....that is alot of big bucks. Alot of moo-lah. Alot of Greenbacks. Alot of money to get everybody nationwide......on the same page.
"Hi. I am FEMA. I am here on the east coast to help you deal with this horrible hurricane that just went thorugh. You can talk to me on 770 mhz, in P25 mode."
"Well....Uhhh.....I don't have a 770 mhz radio, and I sure don't have P25. Can you talk to me on 159.800?"
"No. No I cannot. I am from the Federal Government.....and the new standard is P25."
Emergency service director shugs his shoulders and walks off
Unfortunately, P25 Phase I radios cannot be used on a P25 Phase II system, which means agencies that want to enjoy the benefits of Phase II must buy new radios.
If I am not mistaken.....narrow banding was mandatory, as set forth by the FCC. So would that not make Phase 2 mandatory also? Here we go again......More money in the pockets of radio manufacturers. I am not sure.....But I think I smell lobbiest here ( Comms people lobbying the FCC for Narrowbanding ?? )
The Unity XG-100P is a state-of-the-art multiband portable from Harris. It offers end-to-end encrypted digital voice communications and is P25 Phase II ready.
About a $6000 to $6500 dollar portable radio. Which is nice, and I know it is loaded with features. But unless you are an agency in Orange County, California - New York City - Austin, Texas...and you have a real nice budget to work with......the Unity is expensive. I can see where Harris radios and portables are needed....and I can see where they are not.
I can alos see them having to "rob the consumer" a little bit....because they have to justify those outrageous prices they charge for military contracts.
Consumers gets a portable radio for $2500 dollars, and the MIlitary gets the same radio for $7500 dollars. The GAO ( Government Accounting Office ) , some grey haired over weight Congressman, and the DOD IG office would have a coronary incident. Am I not right?
Some new portable police radios are now enabled for Bluetooth mics and there are a variety of products available to add Bluetooth to radios that don't have Bluetooth built in. [/QUOTE ]
:roll: Blue tooth. That is real security right there.
Still, there is no universal acceptance of Bluetooth for mission critical communications.
Ya think?
Kenwood's latest Phase II portable is the TK-5410D. It offers enhanced microprocessing for coverage of the entire 700 MHz and 800 MHz voice bands and MIL-STD 810 toughness. Some of the features include: 100 zones with 1,024 channels, a backlit dot matrix LCD, 16-character alphanumeric aliases, a three-digit sub-display, and several encryption keys.
Kenwood TK-5410D Phase 2 Portable Radio K3
$2,300.00 Thats a more reasonable price.
FF - Medic !!!