According to a story in today's Free Lance-Star, Stafford County will spend $23 million to switch its radios from analog to digital. They expect to begin using the digital radios in 2010.
Well I remember back when spotsy went trunk they asked fredericksburg and stafford to join them on the system. There are alot of interoperability problems in this region. I have first hand knowledge from when I worked in spotsy dispatch. It is kind of a snub if fredericksburg is going to join the stafford system because they cut off all mutual aid ems to spotsy and stafford years back when the volunteers could not staff enough units for coverage of the city and chose not to fully join the spotsy edacs system and continue to upgrade their vhf system. I doubt spotsy will join the new stafford digital system... they have no moneyIt would be an excellent idea for the City to come on board with the system. Spotsylvania should also think about joining, since they're using a mostly-analog EDACS system. It would be good to get everyone on a P25 system. In Spotsylvania's case, however, they could communicate with Stafford and/or Fredericksburg using the analog 800 MHz mutual aid channels (8Call, etc.).
Do you know any other details about the system?
Thanks,
Dave