UCA Governing Board meeting notes

[gldavis]

From the Oct 30, 2024 meeting.
"Afterwards, some agencies participated in soft cutover, some didn't, some brought the radios they were using, but now that it is final cutover, people are showing up with boxes of radios that were found in their closet that haven't been powered up, that may or may not, need new code plugs. For every radio, it's not just one size fits all, and a code plug, or a personality-it depends on the make and model of the radio, and the flash, the software that's in that, and the level of software. Continued examples of unique situations being faced by those programming radios. This has happened in every county, with at least one agency saying they would like to change or add this talk group, technically, the answer could be no changes, but UCA wants to be accommodating."

 

[PMJ2kx]

You know, from an emergency management perspective, that's disappointing to hear. This was a major, planned event. An event that was in the works for years. I'd be curious to see where the communication failure took place because based on limited, outside information, UCA and L3Harris were rather communicative with end users about when and where things would take place.

And even if they weren't, there were plenty of resources online to direct them to point people to contact with questions. Heck, they could have checked here...we all knew!

 

[WX4JCW]

You know, from an emergency management perspective, that's disappointing to hear. This was a major, planned event. An event that was in the works for years. I'd be curious to see where the communication failure took place because based on limited, outside information, UCA and L3Harris were rather communicative with end users about when and where things would take place.

And even if they weren't, there were plenty of resources online to direct them to point people to contact with questions. Heck, they could have checked here...we all knew!

Basically it wasnt a priority until the oh crap moment

 

[theaton]

I've heard talk of counties trying all different radios to see what works. The modulation is all over the place with some radios loud and overmodulated while others can barely be heard. It's hard to know where to set your scanner volume.

 

[kirkco]

Amen. I can't wait for SL County to start transitioning next week - that will be a "fun" adventure.

 

[MANGUSWEST]

Amen. I can't wait for SL County to start transitioning next week - that will be a "fun" adventure.

as of midnite 14 dec 2024 salt lake county and salt lake city are no longer transmitting on the 800 mhn frquencies..am recieving no fire.paramedics /police on those frequencies.only salt lake city international airport broadcasting on their assigned 858.2375 freq.

 

[MANGUSWEST]

as of midnite 14 dec 2024 salt lake county and salt lake city are no longer transmitting on the 800 mhn frquencies..am recieving no fire.paramedics /police on those frequencies.only salt lake city international airport broadcasting on their assigned 858.2375 freq.

other 800 frqs still active are being used by uta transit police /utah state prison and salt lake city international airport.freqs are860.2350/851.0350/857.9600/860.075/859.2625/852.3750/852.5375/856.9600/8527500/858.9750/852.5350 salt city parking enforcement is also still active onits 800mhz frequency.am using a radio shack pro 2035 and my signals are from nelson peak just west of airport.have not found any active 900 mhz signals nor 700 mhz signals for the salt lake valleyalso have a home patrol 2 in active searching.do misss already all that activity that was on those 800 mhz frequencies.was listening to 45 very active channel/frquencies around salt lake city and eight counties.

 

[m00se]

other 800 frqs still active are being used by uta transit police /utah state prison and salt lake city international airport.freqs are860.2350/851.0350/857.9600/860.075/859.2625/852.3750/852.5375/856.9600/8527500/858.9750/852.5350 salt city parking enforcement is also still active onits 800mhz frequency.am using a radio shack pro 2035 and my signals are from nelson peak just west of airport.have not found any active 900 mhz signals nor 700 mhz signals for the salt lake valleyalso have a home patrol 2 in active searching.do misss already all that activity that was on those 800 mhz frequencies.was listening to 45 very active channel/frquencies around salt lake city and eight counties.

Your homepatrol 2 can pick up the new P25 system, sounds like you'll just need to set it up on your scanner.

 

[MANGUSWEST]

the p25 setup fpr home patrol 2 is something beyond my ability to understand and do.too much techni talk for me to understand

 

[fireparamed1]

You know, from an emergency management perspective, that's disappointing to hear. This was a major, planned event. An event that was in the works for years. I'd be curious to see where the communication failure took place because based on limited, outside information, UCA and L3Harris were rather communicative with end users about when and where things would take place.

And even if they weren't, there were plenty of resources online to direct them to point people to contact with questions. Heck, they could have checked here...we all knew!

Our Department Radio Manager "BEGGED" for 5 months to be given the code plug, so he could get a handful of radios programmed. He wanted to get them up on the system and start field testing in buildings in the Salt Lake Valley. He wanted to test how they would interface with the Bluetooth firemasks that we wear. He wanted to validate that volumes would be good on the new system and the patch from the old system to the new system would work and how it would sound.

He was finally given the code plug 5 days before UCA showed up to do our cutover. He was beyond dispondent at the whole ordeal. He is more Type A than anyone I've ever met and he was sick at the problems we encontered with the cutover. Volumes were all over the place. Units on the P25 system sounded quiet, so you would turn the volume up, then dispatch or units that hadn't been cutover would be so loud in our Fire Engine headsets that it would hurt your ears.

When we were about 70% done programming radios, we discovered that the TGID's were wrong with one or our mutual aid departments. They had accidently programmed a different departments TGID's under two deparments names. So we will have to reprogram every radio in the next few weeks.

We have numerous buildings that now our radios dont have coverage that were not a problem before. We have even been told by some neighboring departments that they aren't getting radio signals to penetrate in their Fire Stations. I have friends in public safety throughout the State, and I am hearing the same stories from all of them. I get that this was a HUGE undertaking, but it is mission critical, life safety equipment. I was on a call the other night where some units couldn't hear each other talking, yet others could hear it just fine, and dispatch went completely silent. Initially we were told that is was a Motorola radio on an L3 system issue, but now we are hearing that it is an issue on L3 radios as well.

I know that with time it will get better. I lived through the intial UCAN start up days as well. It's just disappointing that there wasn't better coordination with some of the players. Especially the ones that could have helped troubleshoot problems prior to going live.