Why is analog used more west of the rockies?...

[merlin]

Here in the northwest, ALL of the public safety and some of the rail is digital.
Ham is still a lot of FM, but there is plenty of digital modes there too.
Thing is,, getting infested with StarLink. SMFT.

 

[GlobalNorth]

Bureaucratic inertia.
Let's face it - most Fire and & Police administrators couldn't pass a university level introductory physics class and fail to truly understand communications, IT, and related technologies. Their grad degrees are in organizational leadership or very soft social sciences.

 

[StoliRaz]

I'm about 2000 miles east of the rockies and there's still tons of analog to listen to. I consider myself lucky as I hate digital with a passion 🤷‍♂️

 

[David628]

Someone wasn't in Seattle during 2020...Half of Twitter live-tweeting literally, word-for-word, everything on SPD and SFD talkgroups....Interfering with SFD EMS/attacking firefighters...Using quikcrete to try and cement shut an SPD precinct while setting fire to it. I got a bottle broken over my head while doing CPR on an Antifa member who had just been shot by another Antifa member, because F the Police!

Heck, there's a county-owner 800 phase-2 system in Washington State that encrypted all of the LE comms and even flirted with encrypting their control channel after Cartel members tracked LE personnel by their RIDs and set up a (failed) ambush.

"Social & community related issues: such as a city never having any issues which would fuel a necessitated change to digital such as intentional interference, wackers showing up to scenes, instances of protesters using scanners and apps to track riot police movements to avoid arrest during protests etc."

My comment I pasted above on the "Social & community" reasoning speaks for all areas in the US where people may be or have been using any city radio traffic nefariously which might necessitate a change to digital systems with E capabilities to mitigate those risks. Sorry you got cracked in the head by a bottle.

 

[GlobalNorth]

One huge factor is geography. Setting up a statewide digital public safety system is very expensive and the job is much easier in a state such as Rhode Island than it is in Nevada where tower siting and install costs in places such as Winnemucca, Tahoe, Colorado River valley, etc. can cost far more than the portables, mobiles, and base stations combined.

 

[Wilrobnson]

One huge factor is geography. Setting up a statewide digital public safety system is very expensive and the job is much easier in a state such as Rhode Island than it is in Nevada where tower siting and install costs in places such as Winnemucca, Tahoe, Colorado River valley, etc. can cost far more than the portables, mobiles, and base stations combined.

Like Colorado and their statewide 7/800 system? Utah? No terrain issues in those states.

 

[Wilrobnson]

"Social & community related issues: such as a city never having any issues which would fuel a necessitated change to digital such as intentional interference, wackers showing up to scenes, instances of protesters using scanners and apps to track riot police movements to avoid arrest during protests etc."

My comment I pasted above on the "Social & community" reasoning speaks for all areas in the US where people may be or have been using any city radio traffic nefariously which might necessitate a change to digital systems with E capabilities to mitigate those risks. Sorry you got cracked in the head by a bottle.

And that's what I was replying to. See also: the reason Seattle is going to full encryption.

 

[Wilrobnson]

Bureaucratic inertia.
Let's face it - most Fire and & Police administrators couldn't pass a university level introductory physics class and fail to truly understand communications, IT, and related technologies. Their grad degrees are in organizational leadership or very soft social sciences.

Straw person. Why would a PD administrator need to understand the inner working of a complex RF system in order to use it?

Should the Sgt Major of the Army understand how to wire glow plugs in a Humvee engine?

 

[KevinC]

I may have missed it and apologize if I did, but who determined analog is used more west of the Rocky Mountains?

 

[mmckenna]

Bureaucratic inertia.
Let's face it - most Fire and & Police administrators couldn't pass a university level introductory physics class and fail to truly understand communications, IT, and related technologies. Their grad degrees are in organizational leadership or very soft social sciences.

Yeah, well, to be fair, I know nothing about being a police officer, and wouldn't even pretend to know. I make the radios go. They use the radios to do their job. Two different professions.

 

[mmckenna]

I may have missed it and apologize if I did, but who determined analog is used more west of the Rocky Mountains?

I agree, was going to ask that earlier, but decided to just go with it.

 

[N0ZQR]

I think for a lot of agencies, if it ain't broke , don't fix it.

 

[PDXh0b0]

Because the city/county can't even build a public swimming pool

 

[12dbsinad]

I think for a lot of agencies, if it ain't broke , don't fix it.

While this is true, expectations keep getting higher and higher. Today, they (municipalities) want their handheld radio to work in every dark crevice, in every steel structure, in every tunnel, in every Wal-Mart because of the shear number of shoplifters, in every school and everywhere in between all while their radio is shoved under a jacket or turnout coat. If you expected this kind of coverage from your cellphone we'd all be paying 3K per month for service.

 

[GlobalNorth]

Straw person. Why would a PD administrator need to understand the inner working of a complex RF system in order to use it?

Should the Sgt Major of the Army understand how to wire glow plugs in a Humvee engine?

Try leadership and capability. A police or fire executive should have an understanding of what a repeater does, how a voter helps officers on portables, and how digital vs analog works to improve capacities in deployed use. If an administrator doesn't understand it or can't be bothered to, they are going to get played by Motorola and others selling promises to someone in charge of budgetary decisions.

The SMA is neither an executive, nor a budget official, nor a 'stakeholder'. Frankly, it's a ridiculous comparison in your use of it. However, they darn well should know how to drive and conduct their own PM on issued equipment.

If Colorado has a 700 MHz system, someone promoted and pushed it through as a critical item of infrastructure. The State legislature was willing to fund it.

The exact opposite is Arizona that built a UHF system in the 1960s and early 1970s, yet there are entire State highways that get patrolled once a week, because the State won't pay for Highway Patrol officers and those it has are given jobs at district HQ, state HQ, or specialty squads that have every weekend and holiday off. Arizona is slow crawling the system through because the Leftist governor hates cops and the reactionaries in the legislature don't want to spend money on anything other than AHCCS and their personal interests.

It's called priorities and I've seen and worked them first hand.

 

[Eng74]

Like everything else, money and where to spend it. Also got a lot of mountains which mean a lot of sites. San.Bernardino’s old analog trunking system was something like 6 separate systems linked together and it still did not cover the entire county. Digital is slowly happening more around California. Back when the Pro-96 was released the only digital was LAPD. Look how long it has taken the LARICS system to be built out and not even all the county agencies are going to move to it.

 

[mmckenna]

Try leadership and capability. A police or fire executive should have an understanding of what a repeater does, how a voter helps officers on portables, and how digital vs analog works to improve capacities in deployed use. If an administrator doesn't understand it or can't be bothered to, they are going to get played by Motorola and others selling promises to someone in charge of budgetary decisions.

Most large agencies have someone on staff that can act as the SME and advise others. Technology changes too fast for many of us to keep up with, expecting a police chief to understand it is stretching it. Sure, they should understand a bit about radio, but expecting them to know technical details is stretching it.
And I doubt anyone would really want it that way. A chief that knows a tiny bit about radio making major decisions without consultation, would be making a mistake that would cost taxpayers a lot of money.
Instead, they bring guys like us in to advise them and lay out the options without bringing brand names into it.

If a Chief is making decisions in a vacuum like that, it's probably time for a new chief.

 

[ladn]

There just isn't enough money to make the system cover 100%, and not enough taxpayers to fund it.

I'm (mostly) resisting the temptation to make a snide remark about how California has:
===> CHOOSE ONE (or more):

• Squandered
• Wasted
• Misappropriated
• Redirected
• "Lost"

Funds collected through specific programs, such as the gas tax, and originally intended for purposes related to that program.

 

[mmckenna]

I'm (mostly) resisting the temptation

Good. It won't help answer the OPs question.

 

[Eng74]

I'm (mostly) resisting the temptation to make a snide remark about how California has:
===> CHOOSE ONE (or more):

• Squandered
• Wasted
• Misappropriated
• Redirected
• "Lost"

Funds collected through specific programs, such as the gas tax, and originally intended for purposes related to that program.

That is part of it but in the mid 1970’s property taxes were skyrocketing throughout the state. Proposition 13 was passed. This was needed at the time but then it also made new ways for the state to tax people to make up for lost tax revenue ever since.