[TrunkCom] Need for 800 interference info

[Marcelrf-A-GPS-i100]

800 Interference to Public Safety Communications Systems

April 5, 2002

Ron Haraseth, APCO P39 Staff Liaison

The Need for More Information

APCO has been actively dogging the interference issues that are growing
in the 800 MHz band. The information APCO has uncovered paints a gloomy
picture. So far, APCO has participated in an FCC call for a task force
to address the problem, was a primary co-writer of the Best Practices
Guide that outlined the problem, causes, and avoidance (hence the name).
Moving along, APCO formed a project to put its full force and resource
behind the problem, Project 39 � Interference to 800 MHz Public Safety
Communications Systems. Project 39 brought the commercial interests in
the form of commercial wireless carriers and manufacturers, APCO
members, general public safety systems operators, and appropriate public
safety representative associations such as IACP, IAFC, and others
together to wrestle with the issue. Later a follow-up report Interim
Report to the FCC was created to provide real world data to the project.

One of the tasks that even predated the creation of Project 39 was
collecting interference incident reports. APCO created a Web based
questionnaire to collect data. There was a quick spurt of input early
on, but neither APCO nor Project 39 promoted and advertised the
existence of the on-line questionnaire due to plans to create a more
sophisticated tool to replace the old questionnaire. Due to a lack of
resources and funds, this advanced questionnaire never came to fruition.

Now that the FCC has issued its NPRM to address the interference to
public safety; Project 39, and in particular the Technical subcommittee,
has determined there is a dire need to promote the reporting and logging
of both new problems and follow-up reports of problems that have been
previously reported. The majority of the information required is in the
old questionnaire. For the time being we will continue to use this tool.

There is a perception to some parties the problem may not be as
widespread as we know it to be. To contradict this, and to get specific
incident information to the carriers and manufacturers, we need to get
the word out on the questionnaire. In that respect, I would like to ask
all of you to please promote the use of this questionnaire to any and
all in your area of influence that may have an interference problem. The
direct Web address for the questionnaire is:
http://www.apco911.org/afc/800interfere.htm#interfere.

The questionnaire is part of the Project 39 Web site located directly
from: http://www.apco911.org/afc/project_39/p39.htm or it can be tracked
down from connecting URL links from either the APCO front page
(www.apco911.org) or the AFC direct link (www.apcoafc.org).

Although there is a big push to review a major long term solution in the
form of the recent FCC NPRM, it will take a long time to see any
results. In the mean time, we will still be dealing with individual
interference incidents. This means we will have to maintain and promote
our current effort to find and track all possible incidents. If you, or
others you know, have not filled out a questionnaire, please do so. If
you have filled one out in the past, please submit a follow-up and
indicate that it is a follow-up report in the narrative section
including the progress (or lack there of) since the original reporting.

Your assistance in spreading the word on the questionnaire would be
greatly appreciated.

Contact information:

Ron Haraseth

386-322-2500

rharaseth@apco911.org


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