Washington County considers options for new radio system

[triryche]

When it comes to determining site locations and number of sites, terrain and manmade obstacles have to be taken into consideration along with area size. Take Sheboygan Co. for instance... Coverage is spotty (borderline horrible) in some western and southwestern areas of the county in the Kettle Moraine. Then you can go back a couple of years when Waukesha had troubles in many areas (think New Berlin was one) and still might for all we know. In the UP of Michigan, they have quite a few sites in certain areas for the P25 system because it quite simply doesn't cover well in the woods. That system is designed for "mobile coverage" and not neccessarily portable too! So size of area alone isn't the number one factor. Especially with 800 MHz! I still dream about VHF trunking taking 800 down!

 

[RevGary]

Mike, as a former communications engineer for 25 years (1966-1991), I have to agree that communities, counties and states are being sold a bill of goods with the "fantastic" 800 technology. Anyone who has experienced cellphone dead spots - even within their own residences - knows exactly what Public Safety personnel have to deal with while using portables; and in some cases EVEN their mobiles. The major equipment providers keep selling their 800 equipment, telling the city and county managers that it is the very 'best' that money can buy. There is the key word - MONEY. With the coverage issues that 800 brings, the laws of RF physics can not be changed. So, when the new systems are installed at 4 times the cost of a VHF or UHF system, and dead spots are present, what takes place? MORE EQUIPMENT to deal with the dead spots...and more PROFIT for the providers.
The general public is in the dark regarding radio comm and leave all the decisions up to the community managers... those same managers who are sold the bill of goods by the manufacturers because THEY are as in the dark in some instances, as the citizens are.
The solution is for the public to be educated in ALL the pluses and minuses of ALL types of available systems and then vote on referendums which allows the PUBLIC to decide where the tax money goes - either into a system that works well on VHF or UHF, or a system that is normally filled with tech issues on 800 and costs many millions more than necessary.
There is growing evidence from Fire Service and Police department logs, that 800 is costing lives because of POOR communications. I am including just one of MANY articles on this subject - scroll down to "800 MHz Dangers to Public Safety Personnel". This is occurring nationwide and seems to be kept under wraps because of the liabilities that the communities face in not providing their personnel with adequate and reliable comm compared to a standard VHF or UHF system. We all hope that the situation will be remedied soon before one more Public Safety person is killed in the line of duty due to an inability to communicate on 800. I am being somewhat vocal on this issue because, as a Chaplain Responder, I work with families of Public Safety personnel killed while on duty in 4 states.

http://www.fauquiernews.com/081001issue.htm

 

[1268]

Right on!

Rev Gary, You are 100% right!! For those of you that have not seen my posts elsewhere I have been invovled in Public safety/ Public utilities for 18 + years, I have first hand been put in danger with this 800mhz junk, Alot of you need to think outside the box, it may sound great on the scanner but is not worth crap on a handheld on the fire ground or in a home where law enforcement is in danger! I have told this story before, I was helping a good friend in the south, his county decided to up grade to 800mhz( they are now kicking themselves for that) both moto and erickson came to a meeting to pitch there goods, after pitching a load of manure for about 2 hours I asked a question too both venders Do you test your sysytem handhelds inside large structures ,metel buildings and fringe areas and would that data be available, both of them said they where u nsure but would look into it, to this day that county has not got one piece of data, they went moto type 2, with 4 towers , have had to add 3 more and law enforcement and fire have gone back to VHF -high out in the field!! I have since been involved with 3 more of these switch overs asked the same question and NEVER get a straight answear. The bottom line is none of the reasons to switch including all the garbage coming from homeland security is worth burying your friends ,brothers and fellow public safety personal ! !.

 

[triryche]

I agree with ya Rev... It's all about the dollar, true. 800 MHz is garbage in my opinion but we are stuck with it now. I was browsing the Canada section here on RR and see a lot of VHF and UHF trunking but not much 800 MHz! http://www.radioreference.com/modules.php?name=TRSDB&sid=2560

 

[RevGary]

As mentioned earlier, Michigan's UP and most areas surrounding Lake Superior have great concentrations of hematite ore (iron) and mountainous terrain - just right for the absorption of 800 RF. You would think that will all the 800 issues cropping up worldwide that the manufacturers would take heed and stop selling this stuff to unsuspecting communities... especially in terrain as RF unfriendly as southern Ontario, northern US midwest, and hill country in the eastern US. It's about time that an ACLU type of agency get on their case for knowingly selling a product that is unsafe... I'm sure that we will see liability cases and wrongfull death cases being brought against the manufacturers as all of these 800 issues come to the public forefront. We can only hope that the administrators who buy this garbage will wise up and do THEIR job in researching these issuse BEFORE they purchase ANYTHING and subject their personnel to these communications nightmares.

(Just trying to make friends and influence people, here... LOL)

 

[izz]

RCC recommended a $13.3 million trunked narrowband VHF system.

 

[RevGary]

Kind of Pricey, but at least it is V H F ... a very wise move away from the dangers of 700, 800 or higher...

Interesting to see what takes place on this one.

 

[1268]

I agree VHF is the way to go, 800 mhz is bad news.

 

[izz]

Washington County Budget plan includes dispatch equipment

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=426883