Tait versus the other big guys

[speedway_navigator]

I work with a consultant who is working with a county getting bids on new radios. Yesterday we unboxed Tait, Harris and Motorola portables for the 7 eval teams.
The Kenwood dealer forgot to ship his radios. Each vendor is going to do a presentation Friday and the teams will have 3 weeks to test them.

I like the N50 size and menu screen but could not find a way to read signal strength. I did figure out how to read it on the Harris, then the pizza guy came and dropped off lunch, never got around to looking at the Tait.
I have a few questions

Does the N50 have that dBm feature? I heard from our county tech it does not meet NFPA specs but his N70 does.
Why didn't my pizza have extra sauce?
Have you guys seen any problems with Tait 9900s over the XL200 or N series?

Someone mentioned the emergency button looked harder to press on one than the others.
I read AARs on firefighter injuries and deaths, don't recall any where the FF used the button instead of using the mic to yell mayday.
My years of monitoring have only heard false activations when the radio gets bumped.

thanks

 

[wsp44]

IMO the Tait 9800 and 9900 have a great feel to them, in the southeast tait doesn't have a big presence, but they are slowly growing, we see alot of the TB9400 for repeaters and they are rock solid. For the subscribers side I've only used them in a DMR T2 and P25 conventional environment, so I can't speak on the P25 trunking side of thing, but the hardware seems rock solid. I know that they've had some quirks that have mostly been resolved with FW. The CPS for tait subscribers isn't user friendly.

Hopefully the Kenwood dealer will deliver some VP8/VM8's, They are killing it right now with multi protocol and rock solid hardware, and the CPS Armada is fantastic.

I'll echo your sentiments about the Emegency button and I'll also touch on the NFPA rating. The Emegency button is a great idea on paper, and as somebody who has been in a harry situation with fire, I can tell you when things get real, the last thing you are looking for is the orange button.

Check with the "county tech" on those NFPA specs. There are only two radios actually compliant with NFPA 1802, and the N70 isn’t one of them. Also, don't get too hung up on the ratings. If it’s hot enough in there that the radio is about to quit, the firefighter is already in deep trouble. By the time that radio hits its limit, his facepiece is melting and his gear is breaking down, he isn't worried about a transmission anymore, he will more than likely end up in a burn unit.

 

[speedway_navigator]

I'll echo your sentiments about the Emegency button and I'll also touch on the NFPA rating. The Emegency button is a great idea on paper, and as somebody who has been in a harry situation with fire, I can tell you when things get real, the last thing you are looking for is the orange button.

Check with the "county tech" on those NFPA specs. There are only two radios actually compliant with NFPA 1802, and the N70 isn’t one of them. Also, don't get too hung up on the ratings. If it’s hot enough in there that the radio is about to quit, the firefighter is already in deep trouble. By the time that radio hits its limit, his facepiece is melting and his gear is breaking down, he isn't worried about a transmission anymore, he will more than likely end up in a burn unit.

This is the point in an after action where the button was discussed.

I agree with your heat comments, I've wondered why a DAS needs a 2 hour time rating.
I'm not in the fire service so I might not be aware of why an IC would leave FFs in an IDLH situation for that long.

 

[mmckenna]

I agree with your heat comments, I've wondered why a DAS needs a 2 hour time rating.
I'm not in the fire service so I might not be aware of why an IC would leave FFs in an IDLH situation for that long.

But, but, but whaddabout quarterly sales figures! Won't someone PLEASE think of the profits!?!?!?!?

 

[wsp44]

I agree with your heat comments, I've wondered why a DAS needs a 2 hour time rating.
I'm not in the fire service so I might not be aware of why an IC would leave FFs in an IDLH situation for that long.

I'm not in the DAS business, but the 2 hour time rating feels like one of those “great idea on paper” things, just like the emergency button. I've seen a few requirements that had fire ratings like this in RFP's that were drafted by consultants... Impractical as hell, but I guess that’s why they’re the professionals… right?


Also, the whole mayday/emergency thing can come back to SOPs/SOGs, and these are usually derived from past events within the agency. Some agencies are proactive and some are reactive. Complacency kills.

 

[Cameron314]

The two hour rating is a standard rating in the building industry.

 

[mjdewey]

Our agency purchased two Tait TP 9400 handheld radios and one TM9400 mobile last June. They performed very well and we carry them daily. They have alot of features and cost less than the Batwing radios.

 

[ResQguy]

I work with a consultant who is working with a county getting bids on new radios. Yesterday we unboxed Tait, Harris and Motorola portables for the 7 eval teams.
The Kenwood dealer forgot to ship his radios. Each vendor is going to do a presentation Friday and the teams will have 3 weeks to test them.

I like the N50 size and menu screen but could not find a way to read signal strength. I did figure out how to read it on the Harris, then the pizza guy came and dropped off lunch, never got around to looking at the Tait.
I have a few questions

Does the N50 have that dBm feature? I heard from our county tech it does not meet NFPA specs but his N70 does.
Why didn't my pizza have extra sauce?
Have you guys seen any problems with Tait 9900s over the XL200 or N series?

Someone mentioned the emergency button looked harder to press on one than the others.
I read AARs on firefighter injuries and deaths, don't recall any where the FF used the button instead of using the mic to yell mayday.
My years of monitoring have only heard false activations when the radio gets bumped.

thanks

There are only 2 NFPA 1802 certified radios on the market, your list includes neither of them.

 

[speedway_navigator]

I heard one of the eval team members asked about ADP encryption on non Motorola radios because the hospitals in our county use it.
One of the non bat wing engineers said they offer it but why use a method he could probably break while in the meeting.

 

[VA3ADP]

Food for thought, our local Municipality uses both Tait and Motorola. Tait is used strictly by public works and non emergency city services. While Motorola is used by emergency services (Police/Fire). I haven't heard about too many issues with the Motorola equipment but the Tait portables seem to have terrible coverage indoors when compared to the Motorola's.

 

[PACNWDude]

I have a county that maintains /\/\otorola infrastructure, but went with Tait for cheaper subscriber radios, just as I brought ~140 Motorola radios for interoperability for a local fire department. That received some groans, until some complained about the Tait radios not working as well inside buildings too. Then, they reached out to see what signal quality we had on the Motorola radios (we left the side button default where one shows Receive Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). Other than Tait being slightly less sensitive indoors, they appear to work well, at a lower price.

 

[MarkHamSSE5000]

As another point of reference, this past fall, the NYPD was testing some Tait equipment (I believe the TP9800 portable and various speaker mic offerings) on the analog Citywide 1 channel at various sites around Manhattan. See NYPD encryption technical thread for a brief discussion.

 

[speedway_navigator]

The Tait TP9900 rx spec is -121 dBm / 0.2 µV all bands, APX 6000 varies from 0.211 700+800 down to 0.149 to 0.158 for VHF and UHF.
Motorola does not list specs in dBm for some reason, Tait does both.
Would there be some program setting that would affect where squelch breaks?
I know this was an issue in analog days.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I know at one point the TP9800 and TP9900 had a firmware issue where once the first P25 trunking system was created with a system key and then written into the radio and read back...it would let you add and edit any other P25 system you wanted without a system key. I don't know if that got fixed or not as there was never enough interest in them locally.

As to the specs, Motorola is notorious for listing their specs as "equal to or better than" so typically you will see better than what is spec'd per the spec sheet when you actually get everything hooked up. One of the other points of consideration, the N50 (which is the successor to the APX4000) does offer Smart Connect via WiFi in addition to WiFi programming via either Radio Management or Radio Central.

Anyway, to view RSSI on a Motorola you need to have an RSSI button assigned. The radio will then display both Motorola's HEX signal value and a signal level in dBm along with the Site ID and Alias (if programmed). Don't think you can do it with conventional though.

 

[Onelick]

Just a quick note about the emergency button because I don't want to get off topic.
I recently retired after 30 years with a city FD in Metro Washington DC. Our emergency buttons were used mainly during EMS calls and other "non fire" calls where less than stellar individuals were threatening our employees. Whether they were looking for more drugs, threatening us because we were working on their enemy, a domestic...the list goes on. It definitely saved some lives. If I had to guess though, I would say 60% of the activations were accidental. I would also say that it was 100% not used during Mayday situations during a fire.

Onelick

 

[speedway_navigator]

Did your dispatch acknowledge the alarm where the < stellar folks could hear and realize the PD was on the way?
Would that have aggravated your situation?

 

[K6GBW]

I used GE and Motorola radios during my career, but there was one time we had a Tait mobile radio set up as a small base. Honestly, I thought the quality was excellent and it worked just as well as the Motorola radios did. If I was issued a Tait portable I wouldn't think twice about it. The biggest issue with Motorola isn't the radios, it's the silly games they play to keep squeezing money out of you.

 

[MTS2000des]

I've seen the TP9800 at APCO last year...like Icom, waiting on follow up from their reps. One would think a system with over 9K of active paying subscribers in the largest metro area of the SE would be of interest, but they've been ghost not just to us but a neighboring county next door. Oh well, more N70s keep flying out the door to our users because MSI seems to be the only one that actually wants to sell and ship a product.

Sidenote to the BDA/DAS discussion, as someone who now lives in a new class A apartment complex mid rise (6 stories built in 2018), of course it has a mandated BDA for the AHJ, the head end is located on the 5th floor in a dedicated "IFC510 room". I haven't asked, but unless all the cabling is in conduit or fire rated, how effective is such a system gonna be if this place is in flames? The BDA/DAS industry has been great at selling lots of interfering boxes of snake oil, but the real world says IDLH comms should not rely on anything in a compromised structure.

 

[wsp44]

I've seen the TP9800 at APCO last year...like Icom, waiting on follow up from their reps. One would think a system with over 9K of active paying subscribers in the largest metro area of the SE would be of interest, but they've been ghost not just to us but a neighboring county next door. Oh well, more N70s keep flying out the door to our users because MSI seems to be the only one that actually wants to sell and ship a product.

Semi-local Tait dealer in GA here... A 9K+ subscriber system in a major metro city shouldn’t be chasing vendors for follow-ups.

If you’re open to it, we've got a couple dealer demos, I’d be glad to get a TP9800 in your hands for a no strings/pressure/obligation demo. Just a fair evaluation on your end, I'd love to hear your feedback on it. I can also make this happen pretty quick.

If you are serious about this we can exchange contact info in PM's and get some logistics ironed out.

 

[speedway_navigator]

A 9K+ subscriber system in a major metro city shouldn’t be chasing vendors for follow-ups.

From MTS2000's tag line the system users are probably busy chasing 1 click's < stellar clients.