Radio Group

[pski]

I don’t know if this ever came up before.

I moved down to Charlotte Back in July and found once thing hard. I was part of a very active radio group in the Providence, RI area. www.pcfn.org.

Is there anyone else in the Area of Charlotte and surrounding counties ever have an interest in starting up a radio group. We did notifications and on/scene reports of fire's, MVA's, PD incidents, etc. The Radio Buff groups are very active in the Northeast. Anyone else interested in doing this. Not trying to make this happen tomorrow but start some discussions and maybe something could be started up down the line.

To give some info, we have 4 radio sites, we owned all 4 frequencies licensed to the group. With the connections with other Fire Departments, we had sites on some city owned towers and some rented space. We operated on 450 and 460 UHF. We were incorporated not-for-profit as an organization. We have bylaws and SOP’s. Regular members had voting rights and associate members who did not. We have a lot of members who are in the news media who used the Radio group secondary to the pagers and a lot of media used the on-scene reports because we gave better reports then some OICs do at times.

Members were paying members. We charged 80 a year. Some other group pay100-130 in some cases. Fees when to keeping the FCC license active and paying for a site location. There is another group call MRS that is so large in MA that is has a fulltime dispatcher on duty during the day (paid by membership dues).

Something I have thought about attempting in Charlotte Metro, but can’t do it alone. Anyone else interested?

 

[jeffmulter]

While I might be interested in participating in a regional radio group, I wonder how successful a group would be in the Charlotte area.

First, I think you may find there are not enough hobbyists and incident-related professionals in the Charlotte area to make it happen.

In some areas of New England, estimates are that 1 in 4 households have scanners to monitor local public safety (Monitoring Times, October 2004 and the Sentinel and Enterprise newspaper, Fritchburg, Ma on August 9, 2004). That's alot of potential members to appeal to.

We are nowhere near that concentration in the Piedmont.

Second, the cost may be excessive for many folks in the Piedmont, particularly any expense over $50 a month. The per-household income here is lower than the northeast U.S.

Third, technologies exist today that weren't available when some of the large radio groups formed in the Phila, N.Y.C. and Boston areas. Text messaging, PCS, Nextel ... all might be viable alternatives.

Personally, I think Nextel is more-attractive than conventional two-way radio. The group connect and direct-talk features (the latter is available on select models) are particularly suited for incident notification and communications between several persons on-location at an incident.

And, despite the doomsayers, Nextel is signing new contracts to improve the iDEN infrastructure, rather than dismantling it.

Mike - you might find some value in reading some of the past posts on the ScanAtlanta list on Yahoogroups, and communicating with the list owner (Mike Martin).

The Atlanta area - obviously more-populated than Charlotte - has had an active core of hobbyists for years. They started a radio group about two years ago, and have use of a repeater licensed to the Metro Networks outlet in Atlanta.

I wish you good luck, Mike ... and welcome to the Charlotte area.


Jeff Multer
Fort Mill, S.C.

 

[pski]

While nextel is a great tool, something I have found out is alot of scanner listeners and newspeople will listen to the radio group (if it is a good one) and use it with out having to wait for a nextel. A radio group allows an unlimited amount of listeners for no additional cost.

I know with nextelthere is a cost for the goup call and even that is limited. Additionaly with all the different trunk radio systems in the area, a person could possibly here incidents in the surrounding counties with out haveing to own 2 or more scanners to listen or forking out 500 for a multi trunk scanner. they could potentially purchase a standard scanner and listen.

Yes, there are more scanner listeners in the north, I think there is just that many more incidents.

Wanted to see what everyone was interested in. IF there was any interest

 

[jeffmulter]

(Disclaimer - I own no stock in Nextel)

The advantage of Nextel - over a group based around conventional two-way radio - is simplicity.

With Nextel, each person handles their own arrangements for their own iDEN phone, whether they subscribe it themselves, or have one provided by their "work" or public safety agency.

Nextel provides everything else ... the antenna sites, repeaters, etc.

With two-way radio, everyone would have to pay dues, and an "honest" person would have to be responsible for collecting the dues.

There would be fees to coordinate and license atleast one frequency, and rent an antenna location (that can be several hundred dollars a month in this market). Atleast two antenna locations would be required to cover Mecklenberg County alone, and liability insurance is often required to rent antenna space.

When someone becomes delinquent in paying their dues, what do you do? You can't take their radio away.

And how do you keep unauthorized users from accessing your licensed channel? Or deal with users who are using modified radio equipment, and might be causing interference on your licensed channel, adjacent frequencies, or other users at the antenna site?

Mike - you are correct about an unlimited number of scanner listeners being able to monitor a two-way group channel. Unfortunately, most of those listeners won't be contributing money to offset the costs of the radio group. Those costs will fall on the shoulders of those who need to have two-way participation, and the $80-$130 monthly figure you previously mentioned is a heavy burden.

Please understand that I'm not trying to discourage you - or anyone else - from undertaking an idea that might bring the monitoring community in the Charlotte area a little closer together.

Sometimes I try to take the role of "Devil's Advocate," just to get someone to think outside the conventional set of ideas.

I mentioned ScanAtlanta's arrangement with Metro Networks previously, and really feel a creative arrangement like this could work in Charlotte.

Locally, Metro has (I believe) one repeater channel (450.1875) and one simplex channel (450.750 ?). The latter channel is never used. The repeater coverage, from previous monitoring, seemed limited north of Harris Blvd along the I-77 corridor.

Anyway, I look forward to reading any ideas you and other hobbyists might offer. The related thread on this forum regarding a get-together is also of interest to me, but will depend on my work schedule, which can vary alot from day-to-day.


Jeff

 

[pski]

Jeff, I made a error in my payment. It is 80-130 yearly, not monthly...I don't know what i was thinking when typing it.

 

[jeffmulter]

I apologize, Mike. You DID mention the $80 as a "yearly" figure.

There's nothing like having a fiscal surplus the first year an organization is operating !

So much for my position that Nextel would be cheaper. $80 is less than two months on my Nextel ... although I'm not the one paying the bill.


Jeff Multer

 

[resq11]

Is it possible to communicate over ham freqs? Knowing that only amateurs can do this, but alot of scanner buffs are hams. If there is no business related venture, then I do not see the conflict. There are plenty of repeaters in the Charlotte region that have little if any activity, and I would think that alot of hams would tune in to hear of traffic problems.

John

 

[resq11]

Is it possible to communicate over ham freqs? Knowing that only amateurs can do this, but alot of scanner buffs are hams. If there is no business related venture, then I do not see the conflict. There are plenty of repeaters in the Charlotte region that have little if any activity, and I would think that alot of hams would tune in to hear of traffic problems.

John

 

[jplyler]

I think it would be great to have a group that hung out on a local charlotte repeater. I'm partial to 440 myself. I don't really talk a lot but do monitor. A lot of the 2 meter machines around sound too much like 11 meters. My vote is for 440 or even 220. There are a few nice 220 machines that are pretty quiet.

Jon N4ZVY