Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 800 MHz still not on line

From: Rick Parrish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 03:34:47 -0600

800 MHz still not on line

[ Carlisle, PA 
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2003/01/26/news/news02.txt ]

By Linda Franz, January 26, 2003

When a countywide 800 MHz radio system was proposed in 1997 for police 
and emergency services, it was expected to be in service by January 1999.

After years of delay the county's portion of the system is mostly in 
place - testing of the digital 800 MHz radio system began last summer in 
county buses - but it is a long way from being fully implemented.

Officials from municipalities, police departments and fire companies 
across the county still have their doubts about how soon the system will 
be in use and some have concerns about its cost.

But most agree the new system will be an improvement.

"What the 800 system does is put everybody on the same carrier band," 
says Patrick Slattery, project manager for the radio system. "If we have 
to, we can patch the firemen into the police, the police into the 
ambulance."

That isn't possible with the system in place now.

Another reason why the county decided to replace its radio system is 
that its technology "is basically 1940s, 1950s vintage in low band 
frequency range. It's getting more and more difficult to find 
replacements in low band," county Communications Coordinator Doug Glass 
says.

"It's also very inherent to atmospheric skip at certain times of the 
season - signals from other parts of the world will bounce off the 
atmosphere and actually come into our system," Glass adds.

The old system was designed for radios in vehicles and is "not real 
good" for the portable radios carried by police and emergency workers 
today, he says.

And the new technology will allow for data applications. Police will be 
able to run their own criminal checks and license checks from the patrol 
car, for example.

The state also is going to an 800 MHz radio system using the same radios 
by the same manufacturer as the county. The statewide system will tie 
state enforcement and emergency services, says Maria Smith, spokeswoman 
for Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency.

PEMA already is using the 800 MHz radio system.

"During inauguration, it worked great," Smith says.

Tom Hickey, from the governor's press office, says the state's 800 MHz 
system will be fully functional by the end of the year. He says it will 
be used by PEMA, state police and Capitol police.

Slattery says the county is still trying to install two cell tower sites 
in addition to the five already in place. Negotiations are nearing 
completion for a tower planned on Audubon Society land at Waggoners Gap, 
he says.

But the seventh tower, at Pine Grove Furnace State Park, could take longer.

"They want us to do a rattlesnake study," Slattery says, and that could 
take a year to complete.

Temporarily stalled

Camp Hill and Middlesex Township police departments have installed the 
800 MHz system but the project is temporarily stalled for additional users.

"The issue is that we have not completed system acceptance," Slattery 
says. "We can't put too many users on the system until we do that. What 
we plan to do is fairly shortly bring on one of the fire companies and 
make sure it works well with the fire services."

Slattery says the basic equipment is installed. "We have the 800 base 
stations in at six cell sites. It's been networked together," he says.

Testing is continuing to make sure the equipment is operating 
successfully and meeting the contract.

"If we put users on the system and something goes wrong, then there's 
liability issues," Slattery says. "We can't put people on until we 
accept it."

The system was built on two criteria - mobile radio coverage in vehicles 
and portable radio coverage, or radios carried by police and emergency 
workers.

"We've got just about all the mobile coverage we expected," he says.

Once a cell tower is in place on Waggoners Gap, Slattery expects that 
new users will be brought on fairly quickly.

"I'm told the agreement is being bounced around state headquarters," he 
says. "Once we have an agreement with PPL, we expect the cell site will 
be up within 30 days."

Slattery estimates that 10 to 12 police and fire departments have 
purchased 800 MHz radio systems.

Camp Hill Police Chief Gregory "Jan" Ammons says while his department 
has 800 MHz equipment installed, it is not really in use for his officers.

"The county is still utilizing the old system. We can talk to our own 
cars but it is not our primary dispatch channel," Ammons says. "We have 
tested it. It seems to be working fine with the limited we can do with it."

Officials in many municipalities point to problems they see with the 800 
MHz system. Some say the equipment is too expensive and will be obsolete 
before it is in service.

Volunteer firefighters complain they won't know when fire calls are 
coming in to their stations because citizen's band radios won't pick up 
800 MHz dispatches.

Slattery says the technology behind the system is software driven.

"The innards are basically circuit boards. As the system matures, we can 
make software upgrades so the radio hardware does not become obsolete," 
he says.

Cell phones are great for talking person-to-person, he says, but with 
the 800 MHz system, "the police, the fire and the EMS people are going 
to be able to talk to one another."

Pagers still will be used to alert firefighters to emergencies, he says.

Once 800 MHz equipment is more common, Slattery expects that equipment 
similar to citizen's band monitors used today will be developed that can 
monitor 800 MHz transmissions.

Local concerns

"I think everybody has some concern or some issue with this 800 MHz 
system," Newville Borough Manager Fred Potzer says. "It's just not going 
as smoothly as we anticipated."

He is disappointed in how long it has taken to the get the system on line.

"I'm even more disappointed that some of the earlier expectations that 
we were told about have not come to fruition," Potzer says.

A leasing program for equipment through the county or M/A-COM was 
promised but hasn't materialized, he says. And low-end radios were 
supposed to cost about $800. Instead, they will cost about $1,600.

"M/A-COM is a subsidiary of Tyco," Potzer says. He points to recent 
problems at the company.

"If Tyco or M/A-COM should dissolve, what do we do with the radio 
equipment that we have purchased?"

Potzer says the two-thirds share the county pays for local 800 MHz 
equipment is for a baseline amount of equipment.

"That doesn't really cover every piece of equipment out in the field," 
he says.

"It's not really indicative of what you need to provide good quality 
service. In many municipalities, that's going to leave police 
departments, fire departments and ambulance services far short of what 
they're operating with now."

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From: "Paul J Zawada <[email-masked]>" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 2003 17:24:45 -0000

My favorite quotes are the following:

> "The innards are basically circuit boards. As the system matures, 
> we can make software upgrades so the radio hardware does not become
> obsolete,"  he says.

You mean my old low band radios don't have circuit boards???  What do 
circuit boards have to do with software?  I'd think the _lack_ of 
circuit boards would be the selling point for software-driven radios!
 
> Cell phones are great for talking person-to-person, he says, but
> with the 800 MHz system, "the police, the fire and the EMS people 
> are going to be able to talk to one another."

So talking person-to-person is not like talking to one another?  (I 
think most folks on the Board know what the guy is trying to say, but 
the average Joe would easily get confused...)

Boy it gets ugly when non-techies talk about technology!  Let's hope 
these guys aren't going to be the ones who train the users...

--zawada