[GCARC] Camden County's new 700 MHZ Digital Radio System...

[Tom Gorman]

Just as a matter of interest, in approximately two weeks all Fire and EMS
first responders will switch to the County's new 700MHz digital radio
system. This includes all municipalities throughout the county. All Police
agencies will migrate to the new system by year end with Winslow PD
trailing.

By the end of next week, Jim Jankowski, County Communications Chief and
Freeholder Scott Scott McCray will have trained all Fire and EMS agencies.

In a training session I attended last Thursday evening at Waterford Twp FD,
Jim explained that the new system is very robust and has excellent RF
propagation characteristics, for example 700 MHz radio waves penetrating
high rise buildings. He said that with the use of a new digital portable,
he was able to hit one of the towers from anywhere within the county with
excellent voice quality including those dead spots with the current 500 MHz
system.

Motorola is the equipment vendor and you'll see from the below article why
Tom Butts, Gloucester County EMA director choked when he saw budgetary
prices on the system. Camden's old unit price for analog radios was $750.
New digital portable is $3,800 and $4,500 for a mobile unit.

http://www.nj.com/gloucester-county/index.ssf/2013/03/can_you_hear_me_now_camden_cou.html

Brief description of tropospheric ducting
http://www.angelfire.com/sc/scannerpost/tropo.html

*A downside to the new 700 Mhz system is that all radio transmissions are
encrypted and all law abiding citizens will no longer be able to use our
analog scanners to monitor public safety channels*.

73,
Tom, KE2ES