Wasn’t P25 supposed to solve all interoperability problems?

[MTS2000des]

Reference the many threads on this site of people wanting to bring Baofeng radios to fire response efforts, purchase surplus gear on auction sites and listen to their local agencies digital and encrypted comms. Or, many that go cheap on life-safety related radios and their use. P25 is and remains a standard, or starting point for public safety grade radios.

Because everyone on this forum is an SME who armchair quarterbacks every incident. They know better, despite never having orchestrated anything but keyboard warrior wisdom. Most don't/never/can work in actual PSAP/ECCs or comms and therefore their hatorade and ignorance is on display because this one of the few places they'll get an audience.

In the real world, COM-Ts and COM-Ls work with professional tools like ACUs and ICRIs, attend planning meetings, author and distribute ICS-205s but all is for nothing if command staff or agencies do their own thing. The USSS is a closed organization- they do their thing and come ask if they need something.

 

[12dbsinad]

There needed to be a unified command post and there wasn't one. Period. I can tell you the USSS is not going to patch anything with local podunk police. This was a complete breakdown at several levels.

 

[wtp]

you don't need everybody on them but what about
155.475 has been known as: National, NLEEF, NLER, LERN, LEEN, LEN, etc. It is now known as VLAW31.
the 8tacs.
and of course you will not get to hear/see the inside of the SS command center, and that makes sense.
how hard would it be that the locals tell their story up their chain and he talks to SS.

 

[kayn1n32008]

In theory it would be worse without P25. We went from Privacy Plus and EDACS to P25.

Analog trunking was tied to vendor. each vendor had to re-invent the wheel to sell a trunking system.

Communications systems will always get blamed when it's always a failure to plan.

People under stress seem to claim their radios don't work too, but usually it's their stress prevents them from using the radio correctly.

EDACS Motorola Type 2 are Project 16 'standard' as you can see, they were not compatible. At least with P25, much more is defined, although not everything is, and tye 2 major I frastructure vendors still do non-compliant things. Patching is one example.

 

[kayn1n32008]

They all got to have their "FifeDom" Agencies encrypt their traffic and then complain about other agencies and interop ability. So the Right hand knows not what the Left is doing. AKA Secret Police

Encryption is not the barrier to interop that you think it is. Especially on a wide area trunking system. It does, however, require people to set ego aside and actually work together.

 

[MississippiPI]

According to the hearings on Capital Hill, USSS refused radios offered by PA authorities in order to better communicate for inoperability. The times the USSS has come to MS I have heard them on special events talkgroups, I know they had their command ctr and all but they were still communicating on MSWIN system with State and local LEO.


Be safe

 

[natedawg1604]

From everything I've read and watched it appears that someone from the Secret Service was *supposed* to be monitoring relevant local channels and receiving updates from local and state LE in-person at a CP, and relaying info to the Agents. Obviously there was a catastrophic failure somewhere in that process.

Some media reports have indicated local LE wasn't even allowed in the SS command center.

Currently, there has been almost zero reports about how the CP was setup, who was supposed to be there from which agencies, what radios the Secret Service was or wasn't monitoring etc. That would certainly be interesting to find out.

 

[ecps92]

There is a wonderful product by JPS called an ACU-1000 (may have a later model). Everybody connects their portables to patch cables, programs the ACU appropriately and all on-scene radio systems can intercommunicate. No matter modulation mode or band. Make sure you have the suite of nationwide interop channels programmed in your radios. Install in your mobile command post. Many of my clients got them through FEMA for 10 cents on the dollar.

and if in the hands of "the properly trained" aka ComL/ComT it works well, but ask the folks in all the CP's working the Pentagon where all the patching went beep, bonk, click, ker-chunk till someone walked to each CP and said "shut em off"

 

[RichardKramer]

From everything I've read and watched it appears that someone from the Secret Service was *supposed* to be monitoring relevant local channels and receiving updates from local and state LE in-person at a CP, and relaying info to the Agents. Obviously there was a catastrophic failure somewhere in that process.

Some media reports have indicated local LE wasn't even allowed in the SS command center.

Currently, there has been almost zero reports about how the CP was setup, who was supposed to be there from which agencies, what radios the Secret Service was or wasn't monitoring etc. That would certainly be interesting to find out.

Butler Co has a nice Comm trailer, but the USSS had their CP set up under a tent.

 

[tangier]

Because everyone on this forum is an SME who armchair quarterbacks every incident. They know better, despite never having orchestrated anything but keyboard warrior wisdom. Most don't/never/can work in actual PSAP/ECCs or comms and therefore their hatorade and ignorance is on display because this one of the few places they'll get an audience.

In the real world, COM-Ts and COM-Ls work with professional tools like ACUs and ICRIs, attend planning meetings, author and distribute ICS-205s but all is for nothing if command staff or agencies do their own thing. The USSS is a closed organization- they do their thing and come ask if they need something.

Spot on. I can tell you that "interoperability" applies only to the Feds for "25-Cities" radio checks every so often - if at all. I truly believe the Fed comm centers viewed the checks as a nuisance and any interop channels were in a radio "zone" that no end user knew how to get to or much less, cared to learn how to do so. No sour grapes here but - been there, done that..

 

[N4DES]

Encryption is not the barrier to interop that you think it is. Especially on a wide area trunking system. It does, however, require people to set ego aside and actually work together.

Correct, our local Federal partners have shared access and the CKR's were assigned so they wouldn't be overwritten when they would OTAR. It's been that way since 2017.

 

[Firebuff880]

Spot on. I can tell you that "interoperability" applies only to the Feds for "25-Cities" radio checks every so often - if at all. I truly believe the Fed comm centers viewed the checks as a nuisance and any interop channels were in a radio "zone" that no end user knew how to get to or much less, cared to learn how to do so. No sour grapes here but - been there, done that..

An at least some of the "25 cities" projects have been shut down and the hardware recycled.

Yor tax dollars at waste.

 

[ecps92]

An at least some of the "25 cities" projects have been shut down and the hardware recycled.

Yor tax dollars at waste.

Which ones have been shut down ?

 

[70cutlass442]

This sounds like a failure of unified command more so than a technical failure of communications. I worked a political rally right before the 2016 elections. Among attendees were the speaker of the house and the VP candidate. Local police were on analog VHF, county resources were on 800 analog (both simplex and trunked), capital police and SS were on who knows what.

Communication was effective for several reasons.

1. local LE was teamed up with SS on the perimeter monitoring each entrance.
2. local LE was on BOTH nearby rooftops WITH federal LE.
3. A unified command post had members of EACH LE agency so that everyone could hear comms on each other's channel.

There was a suspicious vehicle that ended up being part of a security detail to one of the attendees. The local sniper team identified it and we all knew about it within seconds. They were stopped and had it sorted out very quickly.

Point being, the Butler County failures had nothing to do with radio technology. In fact, if every single agent/cop/deputy, etc. were on the same channel, it would likely have been detrimental and distracting.

 

[Firebuff880]

Which ones have been shut down ?

The one I helped build back in the day. But I am not going to post it here -- -

 

[natedawg1604]

Interim Director Rowe just concluded his first press conference. The most hilarious thing he stated, is that State and Locals had a "Unified Command Post" and the Secret Service had its own Security Center. (He made a passing statement that this may have been unique to this event site, at least he seemed to imply that).

News flash: it was NOT a unified command post! It was the exact opposite of a Unified Command Post. Everything that happened at this event was the polar opposite of Unified Command.

Also, I am totally baffled by the fact that they apparently used drones which require a cellular connection to simply operate. I get having an option for cellular data connectivity, but the very fact that someone approved of a acquiring and deploying drone technology that is totally reliant on cellular to operate at all, is insane.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

Interim Director Rowe just concluded his first press conference. The most hilarious thing he stated, is that State and Locals had a "Unified Command Post" and the Secret Service had its own Security Center. (He made a passing statement that this may have been unique to this event site, at least he seemed to imply that).

News flash: it was NOT a unified command post! It was the exact opposite of a Unified Command Post. Everything that happened at this event was the polar opposite of Unified Command.

Also, I am totally baffled by the fact that they apparently used drones which require a cellular connection to simply operate. I get having an option for cellular data connectivity, but the very fact that someone approved of a acquiring and deploying drone technology that is totally reliant on cellular to operate at all, is insane.

 

[eaf1956]

Interop will never work as long as each agency wants to control the narrative.

 

[Citywide173]

The one I helped build back in the day. But I am not going to post it here -- -

I know the one I work in is still alive and functioning as intended. We are on second and third generation equipment with buildouts still happening. UHF conventional, still plugging along, just like it was designed to do back in the 70s. The way that trunked systems have developed with increasing complexity, it would be no wonder that systems built out when the project first started are obsolete, unsupported by the manufacturer and dismantled today.

 

[petnrdx]

Like many here, I have done MANY of these.
Technology is not the answer.
As said above, having EVERYONE on the same freq/system is a prescription for worse disaster.
SS "command post" wasn't...
UNIFIED Command wasn't...
Biggest error was setting the "perimeter" too small (probably inexperience and understaffed SS).
Overestimated their ability and underestimated their face to face briefing.
Those briefings are a pain and time consuming. but CRITICAL.
What a shame.
Really "dodged a bullet".