Why does......

[scmadhatter]

You ask how often does interaction happen between agencies. Did you know there are 10 cities within Oklahoma City. Listen to Hefner division air some night and ask yourself that question again. Top that off with the fact that Hefner actually goes into the city limits of Yukon/Mustang..

I must not have put that well. When I referred to inter-agency what I had in mind was say, the ability of the sewer department being able to talk to the street light department, or something along those lines, rather than inter-city communication between police departments.
Glad you brought up the area coverage for the Hefner division though. I was on the OCPD web site just the other night in order to see what division would be covering our residence. I thought it would be Hefner, but according to their map their coverage ends up at Reno and we live just off Sara and SW 15th. I figured it was just map problem, but wasn't sure. Thanks

It is not like that all. First, you mention "general public" several times. The general public does not know a single thing about the use of radio systems or even have the desire to listen in. I would be willing to bet that less than 5 percent of the "general public" actually listen to police frequencies actively. You can argue that if they wanted to then they should be able to...and they can. They, like you, just need to purchase a Pro Voice capable radio and have it programmed. When scanners were first becoming available to the "general public", the cost was not minimal at all. Not for something that was any good. Now there is a new system being put into place and guess what? The cost to listen is not minimal still. Factor in the cost of technology and inflation and you would probably be on par with the cost of a scanner 15 or 20 years ago to listen to what is currently being used.

Sorry, I was just trying to inject a little humor there. Evidently it was just that, very little humor. Sorry if I offended.

 

[Heterodyne]

3. Yes, there are hams that ARE professional RF engineers - I'm not one of them, but I know one. He built a linked UHF system that covers nearly half the state, for less than 6 figures. Why does the state (or a city) need millions to do it? Because they're doing it wrong, for the most part.

8. How much of the stuff their putting in is going to have to be reworked, and how soon, because of Nextell Hell? How many $$$ of MY (taxpayer) money is going to be "re-spent" fixing a problem that the commercial dealers created? How much of that is NOT because they "fixed" an existing problem, but rather because they snowed some politician that their multi-million dollar "solution" would fix a problem the original user didn't know they had?

Yeah... Hams to the rescue, eh...? What is your point?

Just because a handful of hams know what they are doing and can make a state-wide linked system for less than a public safety system does not make Ham Radio any sort of an alternative to 'the real thing'.

I've seen a lot more terrible ham installations than commercial/public safety setups. A lot of ham repeaters I've seen consist of nothing more than two Yaesu mobiles patched together with a RICK interface. The standards between a useable ham radio repeater and a public safety trunked radio system are apples and dumptrucks, man.

 

[KD5WLX]

Some of you are missing a lot of sarcasm. Here's a hint - I live in TULSA, where the GOB network rules.

We have one trunked system that has holes that cover nearly 1/4th of one jurisdiction. Why? Low bid contract to a "friend of the mayor". We have another with huge cost overruns. Why? Salesman selling a "bill of goods" to the city fathers that the "new" system would solve all their ills.

The first has holes in coverage because it was NOT designed by a competent RF engineer, despite being from a "reputable" company. To this day the cops complain that they can't raise dispatch on their handhelds from the QT ACROSS THE STREET from the station. The second works, but was nearly 3 times more expensive than it needed to be because of good old boy politics - NOT the necessity for redundancies, etc. And it will need substantial rework to accomodate rebanding.

I'm aware that there's a world of difference between public safety and ham comms - I have done both! I was not comparing the linked system to a metro (or even state wide) trunked system. I was TRYING to point out that much of what the politicians are buying has NOTHING to do with what the public safety people need, or even want.

And I have a solution for hams that try to "help" when they don't know what they're doing. When you call for volunteers, "forget" to put them on the schedule. When they call in bogus "spotter" reports to the skywarn net, don't acknowledge them, or tell them to clear the freq for priority traffic.

I run Skywarn nets - they're only as good as their net controller. I had a ham report pea-size hail 40 miles one direction when we were working a tornado 20 miles in the opposite one. I read the "report only 1" hail, >50MPH winds, or rotation". Then, the first chance I got, I called him on the phone and told him not to ever do that again, and to get to a training session and learn what we wanted him to do. BTW, same event had a LEO report through an EOC a tornado on the ground - and the storm wasn't even to his county yet.

 

[freqscout]

I will try to address the questions as I saw them and by who.
SCMAD-
-We need encryption. It is an indisputable fact. We need to be able to do stuff that is not even close to being in the clear. We cannot just opt for half of a system though. We have to be able to encrypt every officer because we all work with these "encrypted groups". We do surveillance projects, drug interdictions stops, and terry stops with the undercover guys at times and we need to be able to do them on more secure frequencies even if the encryption is not absolutely secure. If something is absolutely secure we have nextel and cell phones. Anyone who has worked with group communications on a larger scale knows that calling all fifteen units' cell phones in any scenario to update people is impractical. Then lets face it, not everyone has a dept issued cell phone. Some don't have one at all.
Radio system encryption is very safe still though. EDACS encryption is 64-bit. It makes it hard to decrypt. The encryption is also protected by the FCC. There is not any legitimate commercial vendors who are going to produce and distribute a protected format decryption product. It would cost them too much in penalties, losing licenses, losing legitimacy in the corporate world, and really losing their business monitarily because of patents and copyrights. It just isn't practical. Now some 16 year old kid with a computer and a scanner may be able to figure it out with a lot of trial and error. When you consider that we can change the encryption key or turn on the ESK encryption can be made even more potent than one could realize. That is why they call it encryption though and not something like enhanced digital. The manufacturer had to sell a product that was what it claimed to be because depts talk to other depts when things don't work and that would again also wreck the company's legitimacy.

I am not sure of how often city services do mutual aid stuff. I really don't have any clue for the most part since I have little contact with those areas. In those events I would have to assume that they use good old fashioned dispatcher phone-to-phone. There is generally little exigency beyond the initial occurrance. If they need to MA a water line break because it is a pipe connected to another city's pipe then after they both respond then there is little MA radio contact that is needed between the two since they are right there talking to each other. Services do not have the "exigency" that police and fire have. PD and FD deal with things that are a threat of death/serious bodily harm. Services are dealing with just that, city services. Not public safety. Now if there is an occasion that we need to talk to the service groups that is where the OKC Aid TG's come in. OKC AID 1-11 is analog and is programmed into all city radios. A great example is that PD and Ford Center units use OKC Aid 11 when there are events at the Ford Center. PD operates on there so the service guys can talk to us and vice versa since they are working so close together in a spread out environment.
-We have radios in our MA patch system that interface the DPS TRS. We have access to various TG's in the DPS system through these links. When DPS upgrades in OKC the plan is for them to add MA-Com radios with our dispatch TG's so they can talk to us with their system too.
-As far as media. It is not that dispatch is completely sensitive. Otherwise we would have encrypted it a long time ago. We have a very important cooperation with the local media. We actually need them. They are very key in releasing vital imformation to the public. I guarantee you that media is not going out on my call with me and compromising my safety. They are usually after the fact responders and use the radio in a very professional manner. Media is also useful in disaster scenarios. How do you think you find out which streets are blocked? How do you think that you would hear if that black cloud stretching over a city after an incident was toxic? It would be the media. They are our biggest ally in mass communication. I am sure that Channel 5 is not showing up on my burglary one in progress and broadcasting my tactical position while waiting on back-up. If they were then I would have to address that and have it stopped. Most media guys understand the importance of officer safety and would not want to compromise that.
-As far as the good that would come from you having a scanner, that is in reality of more personal gain to you than it is to the whole. Lets face just a few facts. First of all you cannot exactly help me by listening to me on the scanner from your armchair or drivers' seat. You are not there protecting me on the call. You are not my backup. You are not going to hear something that my dispatcher or someone else didn't hear. I'm not just trying to be a jerk, these are realities. My biggest help is coming from the other uniforms out there. As far as other PD's, that is a different story. I know that other agencies are looking at purchasing radios for scanning our TG's. Let's address another issue. You don't need to be out chasing our suspects around either. This just is not safe. You are going far beyond your responsibilites as a citizen. You can definately call if you see something of interest, but chasing is far too dangerous. Just last week a certain security guard was following a vehicle for driving recklessly, something definately worth a call. What he did not know was that the driver was intoxicated, had just shot at his wife, and was carrying a loaded Sig 45 and trying to lure the guard in by talking to the guard so that he could fire shots at him. The guy even tried to ram him a few times. Fortunately THIS certain security guard is smarter than many I have met. It all turned out okay but the guard even said that it would make him think before he followed another vehicle. This guard placed himself in too much danger. While danger may seem fun and exciting it really can make our job as public protectors harder. What situation do you think we would have had if he shot the guard or took him hostage? Any input on this OKCCSI?

-2112
I withdraw my comment on the band issue. I overlooked too many agencies with my 95% UHF comment. You are right. There are several county agencies and other cites, like Yukon, that use VHF also.

-PJH
"Mr Big is going to be moving 10 kilos.." While I about fell out of my chair laughing at this possibility it is true. Radio traffic is only about 1/10th of 1% of police work like you stated. I am sure that you would agree that it is a very important fraction of a percent. It would also be the worst tool for a cover up. There are far too many supervisors, peers, and administrators listening.

-WLX
-In reality any radio system can fail. Even a Motorola p25 system can fail. Failure is not any more possible for either brand over the other. The truth about the Louisiana system failure is that all power was removed from the system. No power grid and damaged generators. Not even the best Moto system or LTR system could function in that situation. Where we have an advantage though is that we have built the system from the ground up. The M/A-Com engineer said it was the most ideal setup he could have imagined. We built the new EOC around the radio and computer system. We designed it and then built. Where many systems have trouble is trying to use a basement already cluttered with junk and leaking or a storage floor with similar issues where there is limited space to do what is needed not to mention add the extras. In these situations it is difficult to run the necessary cables and coaxes and give the antennas their best positions. We have eliminated that problem by building to suit the install. Why not do it COMPLETELY right the first time so you don't have to go back and do it again. Another problem that NO had. Did you know that the new above ground EOC is designed to be tornado proof?
-Not being able to scan the EDACS digital was mentioned. I agree with the others, so what? I'm sure that Moto also said that they could sell us an unscannable system.

Nextel is paying for rebanding, not the various agencies. Sweet Mary and Joseph that was nice of them! They caused the problem so they are fixing it. We just have to reprogram and do some minor modifications to our system to comply. Ours is kinda Nextel2k8 compliant (Okay that was a bad joke I know). We can reprogram all mobile and handhelds over the air so we have a lot less work to do than if we rebanded a bunch of non-OTAR Motorola radios.

-Our system engineer is the one who designed the system and built the system from the ground up, start to finish. That means there was no change of the guard when it comes to designer or executer. The eng designed a pretty good system, too. Our multi-layer simulcast is a very complex and very effective way of doing TRS radio. We have, like I said before, 95% coverage at the minimum and that includes in large buildings. Excluded parts of the contract included underground areas but there have been solutions already looked at if we have problems in those areas.

 

[freqscout]

-And to All
The MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REALIZE! We bought what fit our needs.
We put a board of penny pinchers, radio gurus, and administrators from different areas of the city together and had them choose the MOST EFFECTIVE solution to our problem. This array of people allowed the city to make the maximum use of the taxpayers' dollars for the best all around package. Tell me how many cities have actually gone out and pulled in experienced radio authorities from it's street level that are going to use the radio system day in and day out. It wasn't just heavy collar administrators that saw the best application on paper.

And if you don't like M/ACom because you are Motorola fan or other system fan then that is just your personal preference. That is not what the staff saw as most important for the ones who are going to use it, themselves. Why would they sabotage themselves when they are the ones that are using it? You may say cause they made money off of the deal, but the board made no extra money for making the choice either way. So without making any money off of the deal I ask the question again, why would they sabotage themselves?

If you hung in for all of that I appreciate it, that was a long two posts.

 

[2112]

-And to All
The MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REALIZE! We bought what fit our needs.
We put a board of penny pinchers, radio gurus, and administrators from different areas of the city together and had them choose the MOST EFFECTIVE solution to our problem. This array of people allowed the city to make the maximum use of the taxpayers' dollars for the best all around package. Tell me how many cities have actually gone out and pulled in experienced radio authorities from it's street level that are going to use the radio system day in and day out. It wasn't just heavy collar administrators that saw the best application on paper.

And if you don't like M/ACom because you are Motorola fan or other system fan then that is just your personal preference. That is not what the staff saw as most important for the ones who are going to use it, themselves. Why would they sabotage themselves when they are the ones that are using it? You may say cause they made money off of the deal, but the board made no extra money for making the choice either way. So without making any money off of the deal I ask the question again, why would they sabotage themselves?

If you hung in for all of that I appreciate it, that was a long two posts.

Was good, worthwhile reading. Well said!

 

[EDACS-Master]

Very well said Freqscout......

 

[mam1081]

I wasn't going to get in on it, but I just wanted to make a few friendly comments....

... We can reprogram all mobile and handhelds over the air so we have a lot less work to do than if we rebanded a bunch of non-OTAR Motorola radios. ....

You sure about that??


I don't think OTA "Reprogramming" applies to reprogramming the whole system into a radio. I think that only applies to "Re-keying" (your encryption key). I think that's the same with Moto also.

... That is why they call it encryption though and not something like enhanced digital. ....

Kind of ironic - you know what EDACS stands for?

... we can change the encryption key or turn on the ESK encryption can be made even more potent than one could realize.....

ESK would only make the system harder to trunk track - not to listen to. It only applies to the control (data) channel. The encryption used on the voice traffic would be the same with ESK on or off (and could still be re-keyed, as you say).

 

[freqscout]

-That what I was told on the radio reprogramming. I would have to check closer. I know you are right about re-keying though.

-I know exactly what it stands for. That's not an altogther empty statement.

-If it is harder to trunktrack then it is harder to listen to. This would make encryption more potent as I said. You don't have the key then you can't follow. If you can't follow then you can't decrypt any easier. It all works together.

-I was wondering when you were going to say something.

 

[KK5FM]

If something is absolutely secure we have nextel and cell phones.

Hopefully, you're not using this for really sensitive communications, because cell phone technicians have the ability to monitor voice traffic on their systems. And not all cell phone technicians are trustworthy.

 

[freqscout]

Oh definately! I'm not talking about national security here, I am meaning more along the lines of too secure for radio traffic. Which is ironic because the phone is another form of radio traffic. But I am sure you get the point.

 

[scmadhatter]

Thanks man, you answered a whole lot of questions. Are you ready for another one? What were the detemining factors in choosing EDACS over the other systems? Ease of use, programming features, etc.. Let's not go into the money side or any politics that may have been involved; I guess I am more interested in the technical or user friendly aspects. I'm not trying to start a battle over MOTO vs EDACS or anything like that, but not knowing anything about any of the trunking systems, I am curious what advantages or even shortcomings from a tech or user standpoint where involved in the decisions. Thanks again for your previous info.

 

[PJH]

A couple of points of clarlification...

Encyption using DES, AES, etc isn't going to be cracked anytime soon by the most casual or determined listener. It took something like 3 days with supercomputers to crack a single DES key, and that was under certain conditions. Either way, the time it takes to get a proper sample, and the power to actually try to get the key, seqencing, blah blah blah, its not worth worring about.

ESK, ProVoice and Encyption are all fairly mutally exclusive.

Reprogramming of the radios will need to take a trip to the programming computer, and would be a 5 min reprogramming process. OTAR (Over The Air Rekeying) and OTACS (Over the Air Channel Sterring) is not the same as a radio reprogram. The EDACS brochuce shows as "over the air reprogramming" but I think its in terms of OTAR. Just the nature of programming, I think I would be correct unless its something ultra new.

Back to the phone guys, generally speaking you don't need to worry about the phone company and cell phones. Although it is possible, generally you cannot just tap into the cell network - even at the cell and start tapping calls. Even thing, what is the chance that you have a guy - at the cell - tapped into your specific call, and reporting back to Mr Big.

Either way, its good to see some of the system users jump on and throw some reailty back into the world of scannerland and show them how things actually work in the real world.

 

[mule_tail]

Actually, EDACS Over-The-Air-Reprogramming enables the complete replacement of the radio personality through the control channel. (scmadhatter - This was one of the capabilities of the EDACS system not available in the other proposals) How, or if, it can be used for the re-banding effort has yet to be determined.

 

[freqscout]

SCMADHATTER- I can honestly tell you that I do not know that what the selling points were. I was not present at the meeting.

I do know that one thing they did that really made an impression on the board was that they brought in a miniature radio system and interfaced it to our current system and even allowed board members to make radio contact with units in the field with the radios. This showed the board members that they could interface our previous system to facilitate a changeover and also interface other cities' systems. This is something only M/A-COM did.
While this doesn't prove a whole bunch for a large system this does allow the board members to hear the EDACS audio, see with their own eyes (not just a by a tech's sales statement) that the system can be interfaced with others for interoperability, and also see that the system could be adapted to the existing system for a changeover. These would be important things to consider in any system selection.

 

[PJH]

Actually, Motorola has a similar trailer. Now that was cool. It could do anything and everything and with seemless Nextel crosspatching....then again, iDEN is a Motorola product... Nothing like being on an Apco25 talkgroup talking to my buddies Nextel phone on direct connect. I'll see if there are pics laying around still.

 

[OUAlumni]

I don't think OTA "Reprogramming" applies to reprogramming the whole system into a radio. I think that only applies to "Re-keying" (your encryption key). I think that's the same with Moto also.

Incorrect. ProFile allows complete reprogramming of the portable or mobile radio's personality over the air. EDACS also has OTAR (Over The Air Re-keying) for changing encryption keys over the air, but I believe that is only available in their P25ip solution.

As of right now, Motorola only has OTAR, but I hear that they are working on a ProFile-type feature for future ASTRO-25 system releases.

 

[OUAlumni]

Oklahoma City did purchase the radio system that best fit their needs - freqscout is right! Just look at the design of what has been installed by M/A-COM. While it would have been great had they purchased a Motorola system to interface with the rest of the Statewide system here, I was able to get some insight into the purchasing process and Motorola's proposal was not very good.

Let's look at the EDACS system that is in place:

*Two simulcast layers that have some overlap in the more densely populated areas. This is GREAT for redundancy.
*Controllers in two physically separate locations. Again, GREAT for redundancy should one site be comprimised somehow.
*Loop microwave system with few, if any, spurs and allows traffic to be routed either direction from a site. Again, AWESOME redundancy.
*Sites are used to ensure in-building coverage, not BDAs.
*Large channel capacity available at all locations in the city.

From what I heard, the Motorola system that was proposed did not use a simulcast system, but rather used intellirepeater sites positioned throughout the city. The IR sites had larger channel capacity in the more populated areas of the city, and very small channel capacity in the outlying areas. Well, what happens if there is a large incident in one of the outlying areas? Busies galore. The design of the system Motorola presented was inferior, and I would have chosen the EDACS system, too. Had Motorola presented the same system design, I would imagine that the verdict would not have been such a landslide.

I think that Oklahoma City made a good decision. If you look at this from an interoperability standpoint, only Oklahoma City is losing out on it. They are putting dedicated patches in place between the EDACS system and the State's Motorola system for each of the Oklahoma City police districts as well as the fire department primary dispatch channel. These will be on all of the time and the State Motorola users will be able to listen and talk to Oklahoma City police and fire on their Motorola 800 MHz radios. The State Motorola users should be able to take those channels to wherever they are in the coverage of the State Motorola system. Oklahoma City will only be able to communicate with State Motorola users when ther are within the coverage of their system. Had Oklahoma City chosen Motorola, the method of interoperability would have been the exact same - except Oklahoma City would have been able to roam through the coverage of the State Motorola system. Only Oklahoma City is losing on this one, but they did make the best choice I think.

 

[scmadhatter]

I may be biting off more than I can chew, but I am going to ask. How is interoperability achieved between different systems? Does say, an EDACS system translate a MOTO system in order to broadcast to that system? Remember now, baby steps for this boy, I come from a technology deprived childhood!

 

[freqscout]

Well the short of it is that the patch has an audio in, audio out and a push-to-talk activation line for each radio. Since it is a simple interface they can put in any kind of radio in the interop cabinet.
All of the conventional stuff is done with M/A-Com M7100ip's. They can put Moto's or anything else in there too (That's what is used for OK DPS links). Since there is little involved other than the three main interface lines they could literally interface just about anything, very simple. Now in that audio line they can add filters, delays, and other DSP types of processors before it is interfaced with the system.