What setup for a small municipality?

[kk4zyb]

I am on the city council and public safety commission in my small town (<500 people). Aside from our police officers' radio (when we have an officer), our city and other departments have no comms. I would like to setup a system using radios for the various departments and need some direction. I have checked with the two counties that split our city and they do not have any available frequencies or Talkgroups to allocate to our town.

What I'm thinking is freqs or TG's for:

-City Clerk's Office (Main / General Freq)
-Public Works
-A city channel added to the police scan list so he can be contacted for non-emergent situations.
-Tac 1
-Tac 2
*Tac channels for event coordination or situations where cellular may be unavailable but not life threatening and for councilmembers or volunteers to communicate.

I'm thinking we will need a business or itinerant license since most user will not be licensed operators.

 

[KevinC]

I am on the city council and public safety commission in my small town (<500 people). Aside from our police officers' radio (when we have an officer), our city and other departments have no comms. I would like to setup a system using radios for the various departments and need some direction. I have checked with the two counties that split our city and they do not have any available frequencies or Talkgroups to allocate to our town.

What I'm thinking is freqs or TG's for:

-City Clerk's Office (Main / General Freq)
-Public Works
-A city channel added to the police scan list so he can be contacted for non-emergent situations.
-Tac 1
-Tac 2
*Tac channels for event coordination or situations where cellular may be unavailable but not life threatening and for councilmembers or volunteers to communicate.

I'm thinking we will need a business or itinerant license since most user will not be licensed operators.

Just my opinion...1) You need professional help to accomplish this. A hobbyist website isn't the proper place for this and 2) I can't imagine a town of less than 400 people has the budget for the type of system your proposing. It was easy to figure out the town and with it being .75 square miles several MURS radios would probably suffice.

 

[AM909]

I'm surprised that the relevant county does not have talkgroups for you.*** Or are they on a conventional analog system?

If nothing else, and if your cellular LTE coverage is OK, there are PTT LTE radios in the few-hundred dollar range and $xx/radio/month service. Icom, for example, has IP501H handhelds and IP501M mobiles in the $800 range and $28 month-to-month for service, with equipment discounts available for longer term contracts. They sound fantastic.

There may be a local commercial trunked system that can provide radios, coverage, and maintenance for you, all for $xx per unit per month, which is usually a good solution for a relatively small number of radios.

*** [add] I meant that they aren't able to add talkgroups for you to their digital system and either provide or specify what radios you need.

 

[mmckenna]

Yeah, while many of us do this sort of stuff for a living, asking for guidance on a hobby oriented website isn't going to get you the best results. It really is worth either having a consultant or a radio shop you trust to set this up.

I've had a few cases where someone tried to set something up on their own, and it didn't go well. While the goal always seems to be to reduce costs by doing it in house, it always ends up costing more when a cobbled together system made up of hobby grade/Chinese/Amazon parts has to be replaced (and it will).

I'm thinking we will need a business or itinerant license since most user will not be licensed operators.

This sort of use would qualify under the Part 90 public safety pool. To get licensed under that, the FCC will -require- the use of a frequency coordinator. This is absolutely not itinerant use and the FCC will reject the application. You will need to work with an FCC authorized frequency coordinator, and it is well worth the minimal cost. They'll do the licensing paperwork for you and save you a lot of headaches. FCC licensing for these frequencies is nothing at all like filing for a ham radio license. Pay the frequency coordinator.

A couple of important things to address first:
1. Do not pick the manufacturer first. #1 rookie mistake is to assume you -have- to use a certain brand radio. Keep your mind open.
2. Hiring a consultant will save you a lot of headaches. Again, this is a different world that hobby/amateur radio and the mindset needs to be different. You can't design a system like this off a hobby website. It doesn't work. If you can't afford a consultant, at least find a local competent shop. And by competent, I mean talk to others in your area and find out who they use or who they avoid. Be wary of any small one man shop 'you-tubes radio expert'. You need an experience professional, not some random guy that's set up a GMRS or ham repeater in the past.
3. Gather information. Find out what other cities/counties/agencies in your area are using, and consider following their lead. No reason to make yourself an island of different band/digital mode. Interoperability is key in a disaster/emergency.
4. No part of this system should be purchased off Amazon, E-Bay, or involve any Chinese radios. If this is the plan, stop now and go with cellular.

There's a few ways to accomplish what you want, and we could toss out brand names, digital emission types/trunking types, but that would be foolish. The correct system is one that will still allow interoperability with those around you. Since we don't know what others are using, any recommendation would be a total shot in the dark.

Keep it simple. Hire a professional. Do it right the first time.

 

[TampaTyron]

Radio systems are made of three things:
-Coverage, What areas do you need coverage in? Mobile or portable? In building?
-Capacity, How many channels do you need?
-Features, What features do you need? Do you need ALL CALL? Do you need simplex or radio to radio operation? Do you need a way to manage the radios remotely? Program over the air? Redundancy? Etc

Find a local shop that you trust (you may have to interview a couple of them). Do what they recommend. Most of the better shops can provide coverage maps, rack diagrams, and IP connectivity diagrams.

My guess based on the little info above is a 2 site or 3 site two repeater LCP system.

TT

 

[RichardKramer]

Where did the Police Officer get the radio from? Maybe contact that person who was in charge to make recommendations.

 

[popnokick]

Radio systems are made of three things:
-Coverage, What areas do you need coverage in? Mobile or portable? In building?
-Capacity, How many channels do you need?
-Features, What features do you need? Do you need ALL CALL? Do you need simplex or radio to radio operation? Do you need a way to manage the radios remotely? Program over the air? Redundancy? Etc

The answers to each of the above may seem obvious, but they are NOT and as has been suggested, an experienced radio communications consultant is going to be able to put some more detail and information into the questions... and answers... that will be the foundation for an affordable system that will address the needs you describe.

 

[Motoballa]

As Kevin said, looking at your town MURS seems like the best option, not to mention the channel layout you suggested is excessive for just a handful of folks.. Keep it simple.

If you go the LTE PTT route, FirstNet is charging $17.99/per device/per month, you can do a 2 year service commitment and only pay .99 cents to purchase and own each device or no commitment and pay the full purchase price, about 200-250~ for the Sonim devices, both in addition to the recurring cost of the PTT service. Looking at their internal LTE band 14 map you have ample coverage in your town and the surrounding area, with a tower located within the city limits.

Long term for a town of that size it's probably not viable for a commitment like that, so cheap MURS or FRS/GMRS radios would more than likely suffice. Though if you do want to explore the FirstNet route PM me and I can get you in touch with the guy for your region, he can send you some demo units to try.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Our town has about 5,000 residents, our public works and town hall staff do not have radios. Most police departments would not want a non officer using their channel. Cops are trained to stay on their dispatch or ops channel to maintain command and control and for officer safety so I doubt they would be switching over to the public works channel to call those folks.

Is there a need for real time comms? We have 6 employees between the water and waste water departments, I can't imagine you guys having that many for only 500.

 

[nokones]

The Part 95, Subpart J MURS channels are not the appropriate channels for a government entity and the Town does qualify for use of freqs in the Part 90.20 freq pool.

As few above have suggested, maybe the Town should consider the PT-T LTE systems such as the wave system. You can have all the specific talk groups you want and still have interoperability amongst the whole Town government.

 

[buddrousa]

There are towns of 600 that have found the money for a Professional 2way Shop to install a Conventional DMR Repeater.
Fire Grants, Donations you have several options but asking and trying to use Hobby Radios is not an option. You have new NFPA recommendations to follow and if they are not followed and anything happens the results will not be pretty.
Using Hobby Radios is like trying to fight a house fire with a Pickup Truck and Garden Hose.

 

[nokones]

And, any government official/employee spending the people's money on cheap Pandaland POS in place of doing business with a professional business entity, has no business in being a purchasing/procurement agent and should be immediately and permanently relieved of duty.

 

[buddrousa]

People do not understand the new radio standards requirements speaker mics shall live in LDH environments water and extreme temperatures as do the radios.

 

[trentbob]

Although it's true that consulting a hobbyist forum, instead of a professional communications consultant might not be a good idea, however, you have received advice and information from professional communications experts in the thread.

I'm a little confused and have many questions but others have asked them, 500 people? A police officer when you have one? I assume it's a part-time officer that you have hired on your payroll or is it a sheriff's department or State Police that Patrol your area once in awhile? Who comes if you call 911 anytime in a 24-hour period...

I assume you have a bank in town, what if it is robbed and you have a hostage situation? Where does the calvary come from to handle the situation.

I can understand not getting a talk group on your county system? What do you really need this for. You said sometimes your cell coverage doesn't work? How often is the clerk going to need a radio to talk to who? About what?.

What's your tax base like, what's your budget going to be for this radio system? How many actual users will there be? Do you have a fire department? Do you have fire police for when wires are down or you have flooding or something like that, what do they use?

Just remember that consultants, professional reliable radios cost money. Did your Council actually approve this radio system after discussing that it's really needed?

Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me but you have received very professional and sage advice here.

 

[AK9R]

Folks, the OP hasn't been back here for over a week. No more need to flog the deceased equine.