Starcom Mandate?

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jeatock

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I was at a meeting recently, and was blind-sided by fire/ems responders from Adams County stating that they were going to be switching all comms to Starcom to "comply with the state interoperability mandate".

What state mandate?

I smell a rat.
 

TGP

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I don't have the articles or Law numbers handy but yes IL mandated interoperability and to
Reduce the number of 911 call centers.

Here in St Clair County we only have 3 I believe 911 Dispatch centers.
Most local Police Dept. lost there dispatchers and is consolidated into a few or the rest by the county.

Reason was per politician's was to save money and better response time.

It's a sad joke in my opinion.

Most all states are doing it as I think it's federally mandated.

Someone here who knows more will correct me and clean it up for you.

Tom
 

jeatock

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Clarification: I was asked how my county responders were going to communicate with mutual aid from Adams when their low level hose-humpers abandoned VHF interoperability in favor of SC21 for routine communications 'per the 2021 mandate'.

That sounds like a scarily stupid interoperability fiasco, and expensive when you count the number of volunteer responders needing a multi-thousand dollar radio to tell the engineer to crank up the pressure. Don't even get me started on the folly of depending on a digital fold-spindle-mutilate system with the closest tower fifteen miles away to reliably convey a mayday or evacuate order two hundred feet.

Dispatch centers and one-SC21-per agency are long standing 'pushes' from the powers that be and their biggest campaign fund donor who collects the access fees. That's been a part of the statewide and county TICP's and SCIP's for quite a while
 

jeatock

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PS: The TICP's and SCIP's are 'strong recommendations' (aka unfunded mandates written by well-funded politicos), but not hard and fast mandates with a drop dead date. The only must do state or FCC mandates I'm aware of in Illinois refer to the metro agencies still using the UHF T-Band, which the FCC is going to take away from public safety and auction off to other uses.
 

jeatock

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First, identify if this is a real mandate, misinformation, or a contrivance of the bureaucracy that will do little other than replace a daily interoperability system that works just fine with expensive bells and whistles that only look good on paper.
 

werinshades

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First, identify if this is a real mandate, misinformation, or a contrivance of the bureaucracy that will do little other than replace a daily interoperability system that works just fine with expensive bells and whistles that only look good on paper.

Ok...let us know how it goes.
 

W9WSS

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I heard the "giving up" of T-Band *might*not* happen. At least that's what's going on in the communications industry for police/fire in the T-Band spectrum.
 

jeatock

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When the SCIIP was still a draft I pissed off many by asking "What happens to Average Joe on the Street when the SC21 system fails/saturates and techs are three hours out?"

How dare I propose such an outlandish and impossible idea!
 

nick1427d

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When the SCIIP was still a draft I pissed off many by asking "What happens to Average Joe on the Street when the SC21 system fails/saturates and techs are three hours out?"

How dare I propose such an outlandish and impossible idea!
Prepare for that because they won’t. Have a backup plan in place betting on some type of failure. The nationwide interops are a start.
 

JohnnyGent

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Not heard a thing in Metro Chicago . Agree let us know if you can confirm anything.
It only covers suburbs/towns/cities/villages with what they claim has a low population. Chicago PROPER will NEVER switch. I can argue both sides but personally I dislike the loss of jobs, and having contractors 15 miles away, that have never been in my immediate area telling first responders where I need help.
Scan On!
 

RoninJoliet

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Here in my area of Will County Wescom PDFD and Bolingbrook have back-up 800 conv- freqys for that problem....They were in use awhile back when tower 113 here was shut down for repairs....
 

JohnnyGent

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Here in my area of Will County Wescom PDFD and Bolingbrook have back-up 800 conv- freqys for that problem....They were in use awhile back when tower 113 here was shut down for repairs....
Yes they do, and if not aware, and if you care, so does both Ducomm & ACDC. I border DuPage, Will, so I listen to both fyi.
Scan On!
 

jeatock

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Here in my area of Will County Wescom PDFD and Bolingbrook have back-up 800 conv- freqys for that problem....They were in use awhile back when tower 113 here was shut down for repairs....

State mandates have always been political instruments designed to benefit 20 Illinois metro counties. The other 85 counties (where many VFD's have annual budgets less than $50,000) are hard pressed to comply, and often lose capability in the name of progress. The Illinois state wide TICP and SCIP reflect that. At home we have a VHF analog multi-site voting system that works well and puts all county responders on the same page. /\/\other doesn't like that.

Life & Safety Critical fire ground comms should always be on a simplex system - a FF working interior attack calling MAYDAY should go direct to me, or me calling EVACUATE direct to interior without any fixed infrastructure to fail. Using repeaters and trunking systems for that purpose has historically filled the LODD's with fatalities.

Here in downstate rural Forgotonia we all use the VHF MABAS-IL 'color' channels for ops. That works perfectly in the half mile 'bubble' on scene. Mutual aid responders with a different band radio or a proprietary 'special' channel make interoperability a challenge.

It makes no difference whether all mutual aid partners use VHF, UHF or 800... as long as there is a common path without gateways, repeaters or 'Dispatch- call the water-haulers on their channel and tell them they are backing up to the wrong drop tank!' components. That situation is my biggest fear in this thread.

"Get a grant" suggestions are pointless. AFG used to be $3B annual. This round AFG is less than $700M, and is earmarked for training. What little federal grant money is available to VFD's goes elsewhere. Illinois is, well, Illinois.

And no, I still can't confirm or deny anything.
 
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kb9hgi

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Adams County just updated their repeaters last year. So they going to change again? Where I live in Quincy Starcom does not work when ISP is in my neigborhood they have to use cell phone.
 

W9WSS

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Kane County has ZERO FUNDS for upgrades to Starcom21. A reliable source informs me that the Sheriff's network is entirely VHF and that they have no intention of transitioning to Starcom21 at this time, or soon. However, Tri-Com is in the process of switching to Starcom21, but they cover individual municipalities that do have funds to make the very expensive changes. Quadcomm is also going to Starcom21 but they too are governed by individual towns.
 

K9JLR

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I was at a meeting recently, and was blind-sided by fire/ems responders from Adams County stating that they were going to be switching all comms to Starcom to "comply with the state interoperability mandate".

What state mandate?

I smell a rat.

I don't know of a mandate forcing anyone to go to STARCOM per se. Someone probably had information mixed up. They are probably referring to the state interoperability plans linked above. Hancock County Sheriff's Department switched to STARCOM a few years back, but all of their Fire/EMS ops are on VHF, as is McDonough County. I haven't heard serious conversations about switching to STARCOM around here by local fire or EMS ops.
 
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