Torrington, CT: Police radio system upgrade is nowhere near completion

[Thunderbolt]

TORRINGTON, Conn. — The police department continues to have issues with its communications system, and on Tuesday, public safety commissioners were told a fix could be months down the road, with an ultimate fix costing millions of dollars.

Torrington police radio system upgrade is nowhere near completion- The Register Citizen

 

[APX7500X2]

1- Qet quotes from real radio companies on 3 site simulcast on the 800 you are already using (1.7mil)..WITH Guaranteed coverage and performance in a CONTRACT!
2- Decide that the price is too much
3- Get a quote from a radio company with 3 or 4 employees that work out of a garage at someone’s house
4- Go with the cheep radios and operate on a frequency that’s not licensed for you and transmitting from a location not on the license that is someone else’s anyway
5- Try to get Joe bobs communications company to fix the radio system that has not worked since day 1
6- Joe Bobs radio service has no radio engineers that go to school every year to keep up on things so they have no idea the issues of building a real public safety radio system.
7- Joe Bobs calls the manufacture of the radios, they come out and see the issue is how the system was designed and leave because its not the radios fault.

The fix? Go buy the original system from a real radio company and pay 2.5 mil now because you waited. Give the other radios back and sue for your money back.

 

[mmckenna]

The fix? Go buy the original system from a real radio company and pay 2.5 mil now because you waited. Give the other radios back and sue for your money back.

I hope you are not suggesting that if this agency had chosen Motorola radios they wouldn't have this issue. That just isn't true. What likely would have happened is that any Motorola dealer would have the proper tools to engineer the system before installing it. Suggesting that Motorola is the only company that makes good radios shows a bit of ignorance on your part, and I'm sure that isn't what you are trying to say. With a screen name like yours, I'm guessing you are a big Motorola fan. No problem with that, I like their gear too, but I have a fair amount of Kenwood gear also and neither brand is better than the other.

The issue is that going from a 25KHz channel to a 12.5KHz channel results in a loss of coverage. Doesn't matter what brand radio you are using, Motorola or Kenwood it's just the way it is. Any salesman that tells you otherwise is not telling you the truth. Going digital likely can help a bit, but not enough to overcome the loss in coverage. By going back to the "old" system, they likely went back to 25KHz analog channels.

Any radio shop worth it's salt should have known this and properly designed the system, or at least controlled the customers expectations. Sounds like that didn't happen. That is a failure on the radio dealers part, not Kenwood. Suggesting this is Kenwood's fault isn't accurate, although maybe they need to do a better job of picking and choosing who their dealers are. Sounds like this dealer is giving Kenwood a black eye. I'd be surprised to see if they are still a Kenwood dealer when this is all over.

As to the radios selected, our PD is using Motorola MTS-2000's, XTS-2000's Kenwood TK-5210's and NX-200's. Our fire department uses all Kenwood gear, including the TK-5210. If you don't think these radios are capable of performing the task, you'd be up against a lot of agencies, including CalFire, that would disagree.

 

[mmckenna]

Any sales guy that claims "Guaranteed coverage" is hiding something. This is where the change orders start to fly. Suddenly that Guaranteed coverage starts to cost a lot of money. Motorola is famous for this, just ask any agency that has contracted with Motorola recently on a large project.

It also would not surprise me at all that the 1.7 million price tag shot up to 2.5 million based solely on the idea that now there is increased pressure to fix the issue, they see it as an easy sale. The trouble with these sorts of situations is that politicians get involved. Politicians are worried about not getting re-elected and will do whatever it takes to get the votes. That includes spending huge amounts of money they don't have. One thing that goes without saying is that government employees rarely get fired for picking the highest cost bid. Usually that is Motorola and Cisco. Big companies have a big image and can hide problems better than the smaller company. They can absorb the cost of problems when it turns political. In the end the taxpayer pays for it, but who the heck cares about the taxpayer? All politicians know the little guy doesn't matter.

The key issue here is that the radio dealer didn't do their job. That is the issue. It isn't Kenwood's fault and switching all the Kenwood radios out to Motorola radios isn't going to solve the issue. Adding simulcast sites and likely a bunch of other stuff is what's going to fix this, doesn't matter who the manufacturer is.

 

[Firebuff66]

If you read the post APX didn’t pick on Kenwood or propose Motorola as the solution.
I think he is saying he thinks the system was not designed properly and that the radio company cannot handle systems like this.
In #7 he says it’s not the radios (Kenwood) fault.

You take a Ford 2 wheel drive short bed truck and use it on a farm where you have to have a 4 wheel drive long bed truck, do you think ford sucks? or is it the wrong option for the job?

I think that’s what’s happening here, Kenwood does not suck, the vendor designed the system wrong.
No Bashing Kenwood or Motorola needed

 

[w2csx]

I agree with Firebuff66, it's not about the radio brand, it's all about doing it right the first time in designing a system that will work for you. I think that Torrington in trying to save themselves money is finding out just like others have found out that in the long run you will end up spending that money you thought you were saving in straightening out the cheap system.

 

[mmckenna]

Correct, but if you reread my post, you may see that I was saying the same thing. I think we need to be careful referring to it as a "cheap system". The equipment isn't cheap, the design and engineering of that particular system was cut short. That is a big issue, but shouldn't be confused with blaming Kenwood or the NexEdge protocol. There are plenty of NXDN systems out there that work very well. My issue was the suggestion that if "real" radios were used, they wouldn't be having this issue. Those were comments made by APX7500X2, and what I had the issue with. Often it is really easy for those outside the industry to claim that if they'd gone with brand X, they wouldn't be having any issues. I've had to deal with this occasionally, and most recently when we switched from a Motorola trunked system to a Kenwood trunked system. We had a certain amount of backlash based on the brand name. To the uneducated, all they see is that the "good cops" on TV and in movies are all using Motorola radios, so that must mean that Motorola is the only company that makes good radios. This is false and just shows a lack of understanding.

 

[w2csx]

What I (me) meant by "cheap system" is you have the Torrington Government trying to save money on a
radio system and end up spending that money and more to fix the "cheaper system". What I think they
should have done is updated and improved the old system.

 

[mmckenna]

What I think they should have done is updated and improved the old system.

Yup, I can agree with that!

 

[APX7500X2]

My issue was the suggestion that if "real" radios were used, they wouldn't be having this issue. Those were comments made by APX7500X2.

If you read correctly "1- Get quotes from real radio companies"
And if you read correctly I said after getting 4 quotes go with the cheap radio meaning the cheap quote.
No one bashed Kenwood, in fact read the end where it says it’s not Kenwood’s fault.
The only radio bashing was you bashing Motorola. The Quotes they got were 1 From Motorola Corporate (Stay on 800 and go 4 site simulcast), 1 From a radio shop in the state (Stay 800 Simulcast 2 sites add RX Sites), 1 From a Tait shop in state (Stay 800 and 6 site simulcast) and the final from a radio shop in their area quoting Kenwood Next Edge or Motortrbo (Move to VHF for better coverage and use DMR digital) They went the cheap way, in they went for the lowest possible cost and got exactly what they paid for.
If 3 large radio companies/vendors say stay 800 and simulcast and then joe bobs radio shop comes in and says we can do it for a tenth of the price, and you don’t smell the poop, it’s your fault
If you design a radio system correctly, the name on the radio will not matter, it will work as designed
But knowing how to design a system is the key

 

[mmckenna]

Thanks for clarifying that. I've run across a lot of people that insist if it doesn't say Motorola on the radio, it isn't worth anything. Glad to see you were not one of those people.

And I don't mean to bash Motorola. We use a lot of their stuff at work, and all my personal mobiles are CDM's. I really like most of their radios. What I don't like is the tactics their sales force use to make a sale.