Lancaster County in Pennsylvania said, “Thanks but NO THANKS” to Macom a few months ago after initially buying into Macom’s Opensky system. I believe they were the first to get hoooked on the regional portion of a ststewide network. They are now looking elsewhere.

No one who reads this blog needs to be told about The City of Philadelphia aand their ongoing problems.

Very interesting Daryl!

On a related matter, I was in a meeting at Sierra College Thursday. Apparently they are hosting the 2008 MCI (Multi Causality Incident) Drill. Sierra College Administration was concerned that Campus Police had an inadequate radio infrastructure and zero interoperability with Rocklin Police and Placer County Sheriff in the event of a large scale campus incident. The system is a stand alone analog 800 MHz repeater system that covers 4 campus sites. The largest is the main campus in Rocklin; the second is off site in Roseville, third Nevada City and fourth is in Truckee, CA.

The Roseville Campus is within range of the main repeater in Rocklin. Two other repeaters are located at the Truckee and Nevada City sites on the same frequency pairs. Heterodyne is not an issue due to the distance and low power of the repeaters. All repeaters are tied together via phone lines, so communications between the off site campuses is possible on each campus, but not while in transit in-between campuses. The board started brainstorming on how to fund all new equipment before the drill.

I finally had to speak up. I told the board that we have had interoperability for the past 10 years. “How is that possible with our outdated equipment?” asked one board member. I explained that when the Campus Police was formed, I had installed an 800 MHz base station for Sierra College Police at the Rocklin Police Dispatch facility and the Dispatcher has access to it via the Motorola Gold Elite console. I further explained that the console is capable of patching frequencies together and let me tell you, it all works great!

Mr. Timmons hits the nail on the head. “Dysfunctional intergovernmental relations, inadequate procedures and training, and general lethargy over the need to institute special operating policies differing from routine habits and practices” is so true. Walk into any Communications center in Placer County and ask the dispatcher to patch channel A to channel C. I’ll bet you a milkshake they will look at you like you have lobsters crawling out of your ears followed by. “I don’t know how to do that!” despite very detailed instructions on how to do it are in the procedures.

Here is another example. Roseville and Rocklin share a few miles of border with each other. Both agencies have been complaining for years that they are unable to communicate with each other on a day to day basis due to Roseville’s stand alone 800 MHz trunked system as the rest of the County is on a VHF system. Both agencies Dispatchers have access to each others radio frequencies via the consoles, yet they choose to have dispatch use the telephone to relay messages between Rocklin & Roseville officers that are standing 20 feet from each other at a scene. If you entertain the idea to patch the two channels together, the dispatcher gives you that look again as if you are crazy

Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for the article and sharing Mr. Timmons views.

Matt