[ScanIndiana] Re: SAFE-T in Terre Haute,Clay County

[David L Norris]

On Mon, 2003-06-09 at 21:59, DeLong wrote:
> Chief Terry Harrison of the Brazil Police Department,''Unless there's a
> big infusion of federal money, it's not going to happen" 

To put that in context, he was speaking of small town agencies being
able to buy into the system.  That simply means towns like Brazil won't
switch to SAFE-T tomorrow, or next week, or in a few months.  It might
be a few years.  Small towns will be able to join SAFE-T as funding
permits.  The system will be sitting there ready for them whenever they
can afford the radios to use it.


The SAFE-T system and infrastructure itself seems to be on track
according to the latest progress report (PDFs on the SAFE-T website). 
In addition to state funding ISP has been given a Homeland Security
grant to integrate each of their existing 800 sites into SAFE-T.  I
believe the Terre Haute SAFE-T site went on the air within the past few
weeks.  The new ISP sites are scheduled to start coming online next
month or so.


What I expect might happen is that large, well-funded agencies with
existing 800 equipment might choose to upgrade to newer digital radios
and offer their old analog equipment to agencies with tight budgets.  It
doesn't take a brand new radio to get on SAFE-T.  10 year old, beat up
HTs or mobiles would be perfect for many agencies who just want to get
into the system.  MECA just went through and replaced all/most of their
HTs with brand new digital-capable models.  If ISP follows suit, as I
expect they will, then there will be a ton of surplus analog radios
available.

-- 
 David Norris
  http://www.webaugur.com/dave/
  ICQ - 412039