Town Wide Interoperability

[NickSBFD6]

Hello, We're a town of 7500 residents looking to do a complete P25 upgrade including repeaters, portables and Mobiles. We currently use simplex operation. This would improve interoperability as we are a border town to New Hampshire who has recently completed a statewide P25 upgrade. My question is, Would it blow the cost/benefit out of the water to include PD and EMS in the application? I know this doesn't fall under a regional app, do you think it's too much for ops & safety? total price tag would be $230,000 or so. To go it alone and do FD only would cost $175,000 or so, though in don't believe the benefit to the town would be so great since we all work together ALOT.

Thanks in advance,

-Nick

[ktb9780]

Hello, We're a town of 7500 residents looking to do a complete P25 upgrade including repeaters, portables and Mobiles. We currently use simplex operation. This would improve interoperability as we are a border town to New Hampshire who has recently completed a statewide P25 upgrade. My question is, Would it blow the cost/benefit out of the water to include PD and EMS in the application? I know this doesn't fall under a regional app, do you think it's too much for ops & safety? total price tag would be $230,000 or so. To go it alone and do FD only would cost $175,000 or so, though in don't believe the benefit to the town would be so great since we all work together ALOT.

Thanks in advance,

-Nick

You could do EMS but not Law Enforcement. Just be sure your are casting a big enough net to make sure nobody in frie or EMS inthe region is left out.

[NickSBFD6]

You could do EMS but not Law Enforcement. Just be sure your are casting a big enough net to make sure nobody in frie or EMS inthe region is left out.

Unfortunatly, up here in New England there is no such thing as regionalization. It's every town for themselves. Basically, all the FD's on one side of us are on UHF, and the other side is all in New Hampshire , and they're ASTRO P25. So, us and a few others are left out.

-Nick

[islandfire03]

Nick : We are in a similar situation as you. A couple hours noreast from you. We are working on a regional comm. app. and are including the three depts. here in town and the town EMA plus tied into the county & state interoperability conops plan , & our dispatch center which is county based. send me a PM with your e-mail and i will forward some info & contacts that I have developed while researching our grant.

[nmfire]

The first thing you need to do is ditch any thoughts of a digital infrastructure for your town. If you want to get portables and mobiles capable of digital for when you go mutual aid to a town using it, fine. But there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to make your own infrastructure and operations digital conventional. Analog conventional is already interoperable out of the box and requires nothing new and improved. Anyone can use it. Making a typical analog conventional repeater into digital conventional is totally useless and inhibits interoperability.

[NickSBFD6]

The first thing you need to do is ditch any thoughts of a digital infrastructure for your town. If you want to get portables and mobiles capable of digital for when you go mutual aid to a town using it, fine. But there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to make your own infrastructure and operations digital conventional. Analog conventional is already interoperable out of the box and requires nothing new and improved. Anyone can use it. Making a typical analog conventional repeater into digital conventional is totally useless and inhibits interoperability.

Yes, but in order to get Uncle Sam's $$$, you need to play by his rules... P25.
I have no desire to go digital, but I don't think a non-compliant system will fly. I work in the 2-way industry, I know what your saying about interoperability.

[nmfire]

You'd be surprised. We have received grant money from state and federal for our upgrades. None of our components are digital. Portables and mobiles are all 90 series Kenwoods. The repeaters and receivers will be M/A Comms and the voters will be all JPS SNV12's. Nothing in there is digital.

I admit I am no expert on grant funding but we did it.

[islandfire03]

Yes, but in order to get Uncle Sam's $$$, you need to play by his rules... P25.
I have no desire to go digital, but I don't think a non-compliant system will fly. I work in the 2-way industry, I know what your saying about interoperability.

Nick : the approval of analog systems will fly if it will meets the state EMA offices recommended standards. I have spoken to them in depth on this matter , and they will not force us to go digital P-25 only to have narrow band capable radios. The cost to make a digital system operate properly over the entire state would be greater than the states budget. We can't get Baldacci to fix the roads and bridges never mind actually getting cellular service thats reliable or radios that actually allow us to talk to dispatch everywhere in town. Contact the your county EMA or Bruce Fitzgerald at Maine EMA in Augusta

[nmfire]

That basicly how it worked with us. The state's main concern was that what we build is in the best interest of everyone, not just how we can make ourselves happy. By going UHF analog conventional, it puts us on the same page as the entire region.

[SYFIRE]

nmfire

Very well said. In the 2005 AFG our Regional grant was awarded $973K for communications...pagers, mobiles, handhelds,repeaters, etc.

Discussion at that time was if it meets the state's recommendation then the P25 stuff wasn't required. It was suggested that all equipment purchased be able to be upgraded to digital...all do, however it would cost a fortune to accomplish. Besides, the analog equipment we purchased meets the interoperability issues now with our largest agencies, USFS and CALFIRE.

If you build a system to comply with P25 digital, then issues of interoperability, the very reason for the grant in the first place, becomes moot.

Regards

Tom