VHF Conventional Helped Save Boulder,CO Brush Fire

[Thayne]

DTRS is not going anywhere, it will probably be incrementally improved from now on, but unfortunately can be brought to its' knees by many different scenarios. This can be mitigated somewhat by agressive system monitoring & management--(good luck with that) :roll:

Most field equipment seems to have the 800 ITACS channels in the radios. I wonder if there could be much use of the newer narrowband VHF & UHF analog channels? I suppose only agencies that have VHF radios have much that could use them anyway. Don't forget that more infrastructure such as the ITAC conventional repeaters would be needed to make any of those a robust option.
In the end, between all that is mentioned above--and maybe the 700 broadband nationwide system they keep talking about building, and of course cell phones--maybe it will all work out

 

[jeatock]

Um, only the new multi band radios even come close to that $5,000 price tag, and I hear that there are several radio models available for about $900.00 that will work on the system just fine.

Oh, and there are six different vendors that have radios approved on DTRS:

http://ccncinc.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=24&Itemid=63

No argument whatsoever. Colorado has a vastly different bureaucratic model than we have here in Illinois, where "Thou SHALT buy 7/800 MHz XTS/XTL 5000 radios only from our sole approved vendor, as no other equipment has adequate quality and features to operate on our highly proprietary system." To my knowledge, Mother has yet to approve any other vendor's equipment as being suitable.

Also, "the State shall not even consider any interoperable system not based on the Starcom 7/800 P25 Digital Trunking system." That's pretty much the summation of our multi-million dollar SCIP and is being snuck into pending legislation. On the street level, if an ISP VHF radio fails, state radio techs are being urged to remove it completely and not replace it. How about interoperability out here in God's Country? I just heard a State Trooper call his dispatcher (on Starcom), asking that his dispatcher make a telephone call to my county jail and ask them to open the incoming sally port door for him.

ILEAS purchased a large quantity of Stacom radios to hand out one to each requesting agency. Price? Installed between $5K and $7K each. Copies of the invoice were in the grant documentation.

And to make matters worse, The State of Illinois just handed out a $207 million sole source non-bid contract to Mother, plus allowed Mother to increase their monthly user fee from $53.00 to $76.00 per month per radios, use it or not.

Harris MA/Com is pissed. Harris Corp protests sole-source contract in Illinois | Daryl Jones' Weblog

Illinois doesn't even own the infrastructure. It all belongs to Mother and the State pays them lavishly for use of their system. Welcome to Illinois Politics at their finest.

 

[greenthumb]

DTRS is not going anywhere, it will probably be incrementally improved from now on, but unfortunately can be brought to its' knees by many different scenarios. This can be mitigated somewhat by agressive system monitoring & management--(good luck with that) :roll:

And the same is true for any radio system. There are only so many channels that can be used all at once.

And back to the 800 MHz and canyons/multipath comment earlier - multipath is actually helpful in most canyon situations. This is how most canyon areas (including much of I-70) are covered. Squaw Mtn seems to be the main site to hear along I-70 west of Denver, yet a majority of the time you can't see it. Areas are only "black holes" if they're not intended to be covered.

 

[greenthumb]

Illinois doesn't even own the infrastructure. It all belongs to Mother and the State pays them lavishly for use of their system. Welcome to Illinois Politics at their finest.

Yep, when you have a system owned by a radio vendor, this can happen. Same thing is going on in Florida with SLERS, which is owned by Harris. The worst part about SLERS is that no other radio vendor's portable/mobile radios can be used on that system. At least with STARCOM, the potential is there for vendor 'X' to have radios on it.

 

[jeatock]

At least with STARCOM, the potential is there for vendor 'X' to have radios on it.

Potential, yes; reality: not gonna happen. Insiders tell me that exactly two (2) non-M radios have been allowed on Starcom. Not brands, not models, exactly two individual serial number radios.

Under their contract, Mother is allowed to charge the end-user an "activation feed" to allow any non-M radio into the system. That fee is entirely at the discretion of Mother- it is after all their system. Potentially you could pay Mother $4K for a XTS, or buy an "acceptable" Brand-H for $1K but get slapped with a $4K "activation fee".

All this is said as an Icom Public Safety dealer- we won't have an 800 radio for another year or two.

Welcome to Illinois.

 

[Thayne]

And the same is true for any radio system. There are only so many channels that can be used all at once.

And back to the 800 MHz and canyons/multipath comment earlier - multipath is actually helpful in most canyon situations. This is how most canyon areas (including much of I-70) are covered. Squaw Mtn seems to be the main site to hear along I-70 west of Denver, yet a majority of the time you can't see it. Areas are only "black holes" if they're not intended to be covered.

Please explain why "multipath is actually helpful in most canyon situations"; and do you mean someone(s) planned the "black holes"?
I don't see why it would be any advantage to not cover everywhere you can if it doesn't cause problems or cost more.
And don't forget Squaw is over 11K in altitude (One reason channel 12 comes in so good in the metro area) Last time I was there a few weeks back I talked to my friend with my 5 watt kenwood portable who was at I-70 & Manila road on a 25 watt mobile on 2 meters simplex, so no wonder even 800 covers a good stretch of I-70.

Also please no demerits for bugging you

 

[greenthumb]

Because the scatter that results from multipath off canyon walls actually fills in areas where, if the multipath condition was not ongoing, there would be no coverage. Can multipath be destructive? Sure, but not all of the time. I-70 around Idaho Springs is a good example of useful multipath. It's not straight free space back to Squaw Mtn, and not knife-edge diffraction getting the signal into there either considering the tall, steep grade on the south side of I-70 through there. I can probably come up with at least a half dozen other examples, but if you're familiar with the area, you can probably see what I am getting at.

With the "black holes", I only mean that nobody has planned or funded the coverage for those areas. If this hasn't been done, there won't be coverage. At that point, it doesn't matter what frequency band or system it is.

And no demerits needed, this is a civilized discussion that hasn't tumbled off the deep end! But we are kind of starting to dwell into the nitty gritty......

 

[Thayne]

Ok, I guess my thought is that true multipath in my mind never plays well with FM or especially digital, and also my feeling is that what you say is true as far as the only coverage in a canyon would be a good thing, but rather than being true multipath it is mostly just reflected in real-time. That is OK but of course if the mobile can hear the repeater it may not be able to respond because of transmitting from one of those black holes.(The return path is different) I suppose there are some of those canyons that have some signal getting in from more than 1 site, which would really confuse the mobile trunked receiver.

For sure the horse we have beaten is dead now :lol: