StarCom21 Contract Questions

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Jordo2114

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Does anyone here have experience with transition a public safety agency to StarCom? Do they make you buy Motorola only products or can you use any 800 P25 subscriber? If you have existing towers will they put equipment on them and work a deal with the agency in exchange for tower usage? Just curious as our county public safety system is small with an even smaller budget, but making the jump to StarCom one day would be a huge improvement for safety as our system now is very lacking coverage wise.
 

N9JIG

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All of that would be negotiated with StarCom21. Each agency's costs are dependent on many factors. The ability to provide sites may reduce the overall cost if they provide a benefit to the system as a whole but could well be offset by the expense to the agency if the site additions are needed for their benefit and they do not help other locales.

If the infrastructure in place provides sufficient coverage and no additional infrastructure is needed then it is really only a matter of acquiring radios and console equipment as well as connectivity fees for the consoles and monthly access charges per radio.

Other manufacturer's radios are allowed but certification and programming can certainly be a pain.
 

mroop2014

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So our county sheriff recently went to Starcom. They were given the options by Motorola to have either use their own acquired "user equipment" and Motorola charge them more money for the "site equipment" or they could buy all Motorola everything and then get price cut on the "site equipment"

Keep in mind that once your county takes the step to go to Starcom they will come in and do a study on the area and see what close existing towers there are and if you need to add a tower and where you need to add it.
 

Jordo2114

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Thanks for the info! We have 1 StarCom tower in our county now and 2 of our own sites but, i'm not sure what the next closest site would be. Its a long shot for us but multiple counties that border us are going to it I believe. I use StarCom where I work and its pretty impressive the amount of coverage we have statewide even in the rural areas!
 

officerdave

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My county is on StarCom. All radios are MOTO . Moto had towers in our county for State Police coverage, the County added 4 more to improve building interior coverage. Large consolidated center to our south, has gone MOTO. Their Director was able to negotiate favorable terms with MOTO that made the numbers work. My agency runs L3Harris radios on StarCom for interops. No issues once you get the ok from MOTO and the State. I believe Clark County , very rural , when they went to StarCom , used existing tower and new in-car repeaters for better coverage. I helped with some system testing with them , but its been a while, so my info might be off.
 

ducksoup65

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Certification of non-Motorola radios is no longer a hassle. Any CAPCOM compliant radio is allowed on Starcom (HARRIS, KENWOOD, EFJ, etc..). Also, programming is straight forward for any radio dealer that has an authorized system key and keeps up on the system moves, adds and changes. Non-Motorola equipment works the same as Motorola as it is an open standard system.
 

usswood

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I wonder, back when STARCOM first came on-line, they were only running repeaters at 25 watts.... you would definitely need more tower coverage for interior building coverage at that low level of power! Indiana Safe-T runs its repeaters at 100 watts, so the need for additional towers, in-car repeaters and such, is greatly reduced.
 

officerdave

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When we first went to StarCom , it took a while to sort out our Harris radios on the system. We worked it out and the radios work fine. Our City has a lot of Harris radios on the system , mostly for fire interops. I can tell you it took some " push" from State Radio ( I made some calls as well as others) to get MOTO to open up to all vendor radios. now..... if only I could get my Harris radios to work on the EFJ system that covers half my jurisdiction. Oh well always something in the land of " I got mine and I ain't gonna share "
 

Jordo2114

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Our county is currently on NXDN so I imagine they would like to stick with Kenwood or Icom stuff if possible. Does anyone know of any counties using Kenwood on SC21......Icom just released the 800 P25 radios not all that long ago so I doubt they have been tested yet.
 

officerdave

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Our county is currently on NXDN so I imagine they would like to stick with Kenwood or Icom stuff if possible. Does anyone know of any counties using Kenwood on SC21......Icom just released the 800 P25 radios not all that long ago so I doubt they have been tested yet.
Sir Since your are on a NXDN system, do your Kenwood radios also have P25 Phase II in them? EFJ now owns Kenwood, but their P25 radios will work on StarCom. Have your people contact Will County radio , as they are on a new EFJ system and run EFJ/Kenwood radios. I would guess they have some on StarCom for interops. I only have VHF Kenwoods for analog use , so no help there. I would also bet the ICOMS are COPCOM certified and should work on StarCom.
 
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