[Scan-DC] Despite kinks, digital radio supported investigation

Sun, 19 Jan 2003 14:50:00 -0500

They can't. That's the Big Lie.

Motorola salesmen will tell you that everybody can talk
to everybody. 

In practice, politics and turf battles win out and nothing
is different from the conventional systems, except that
some units can use PrivaCall to talk individually, and
supervisory units have radios that are actually programmed
with more talkgroups and systems than peon radios.

It is never this "one big happy family" that gets painted
in these press releases. At least, not in my experience.

As we know, Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax each have
separate trunked radio systems. MWAA has a networked digital
trunked radio system. DC fire has its own separate system.
Montgomery has its own separate system. And on and on...

Who can talk to whom? We usually only find out on the scene
of a large incident when this question is asked in the heat of the moment 
and many buttons are pushed to discover who has what programmed in.

That's when a lot of "oh shit!" looks are shot around.

Bote
F.E.C. milepost 339.3 
Look -> http://pages.prodigy.net/bote/rail
Listen -> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scanaudio_FLL
Live -> http://www.fecrs.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of [email protected]
> Sent: Tuesday, 19 November, 2002 20:59
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Scan-DC] Despite kinks, digital radio supported
> investigation
> 
> On Tue, 19 Nov 2002 00:34:21 -0500 "Alan Henney" <[email protected]>
> writes:
> > 
> > http://gcn.com/21_32/news/20411-1.html
> > 
> > 
> > Police agencies start on long road toward shared radio systems
> > 11/04/02
> > By William Jackson,
> > GCN Staff
> 
> ....
> > Most cooperative communications systems grow out of some sort of
> > catastrophe. Before the Washington-area sniper shootings last month, 
> > the
> > area's defining catastrophe was the 1982 crash of Air Florida Flight 
> > 90 into
> > the Potomac River, in which 74 people died.
> > 
> > Afterward, the Virginia counties of Fairfax and Arlington and the 
> > city of
> > Alexandria linked up on an 800-MHz Motorola trunked digital system 
> > along
> > with the District of Columbia fire department and the Metropolitan
> > Washington Airports Authority. Authorized users can roam and 
> > communicate
> > with each other much as they can on a cellular telephone system.
> ....
> <<
> 
> They can? Tell me more about this digital TRS.