800mhz radio system

[D. Ridley]

I was reading through some of the older post and discovered a thread on radio systems. I wanted say that my county went to a digital 800mhz trunked system (Motorola). This system is encrypted so that it cannot be scanned (so they say). Well, there were many promises made about how great this system is supposed to be. Well....it SUCKS!! When everything is going right the radios are perfect but if you're in a dead spot or there's something else wrong than they are useless! I miss our old UHF system. I think it'll take an officer getting killed because he can't communicate before anyone addresses this problem.

[JKT]

The 800mhz system is great ...when it works. Unless it is truly encrypted, it can be scanned by most of the "trunk-tracker" scanners available. A radio system is only as effective as the planners' foresight. Most of the time, budget comes into play, and the number of receiving towers is cut, due to cost. I won't go into details here, but the higher the frequency, the more line-of sight comes into play. This is the biggest obstacle to overcome (other than administrators' eyes on the budget). Whatever happened to officer safety? http://www.officer.com/ubb/smile.gif


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Good luck and be safe

Jack

[This message has been edited by JKT (edited 04-22-2000).]

[Sgt-E]

Gee, from what people in high places around here make of the 800mhz system there aren't any problems. Of course they are talking of changing us over to it, but no one knows what questions to ask. I'd be interested in hearing of what other problems there are with it. Stay safe.

[Niteshift]

There are different kinds of encryption. A handful of our portable have encrytion in them and they really are next to impossible to monitor. This is being done on a UHF system. The encrytion is terribly good, requiring govt. level type stuff to break it.

Except for during tactical ops or other secret squirrel stuff, about the only time we use it is to talk about other guys who don't have it http://www.officer.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif since we can't use it for day to day stuff.

[D. Ridley]

Our 800mhz radios are so unreliable that my department has kept our old system to use as a standby. During this past winter ice had built up on the repeater towers causing the 800mhz to be useless. Seems the system is too sensitive to outside interferences. I'm sure that budget constraints are partly to blaim for the problems.

[TC]

We've had to hire a consulting firm to help solve our 800mhz problems. It's so severe that all of our officers have told their spouses that if in the event that they should be killed or incapacitated on duty and the radio played a part, they need to sue the city because they know our system is garbage.

[D. Ridley]

I've literally cursed at the top my voice at my radio! Our portables cost around $4500.00 each. I hate it when I can't transmit or receive the way it supposed to. Our old system had its problems but it never let me down.

[R.White]

Unfortunately, many of the horror stories you hear regarding 800 MHz systems are true. We went to a GE-Ericson system about 3 yrs ago. When its working properly its OK but our old VHF repeated radio system was better and more reliable. If the repeater ever failed, you just switched to the car-to-car freq. Everybody; sheriff, police, fire, EMS, public works, etc. is on this new system, including 4 cities and the county. We've had 3 or 4 times when the entire system failed, dispite all the supposed redundancy they claim exists. For our PD, fortunately most of our officers carry personal cell phones and when we have lost everything, we've dispatch via these phones. All traffic stops and non-essential call responses are halted during those times. Its a bit of a hassel and not the best of circumstances but this does keep us going. During such times, our patrol units stand by at the fire/ems stations in town between calls, so we can also alert them via cell phone if they are needed. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do when the chips are down and eventually all these systems seem to let you down. For what its worth! RW