Lets take a look at public safety comms in the USA from 2003 ish to 2013 - maybe a 10 or 12 year period - maybe 2001 to 2013.
What has changed? What has improved? What has gotten worse? Big picture - some states have expanded their statewide TRS - but in various bands - many states still do not have statewide TRS (CA TX OR WA KY NH VT NY etc) - many statewide TRS serve very few agencies Big picture - a few more cities have built 800 and 700 Mhz TRS Big picture - the TRS usually are not fully inclusive - they might have police, fire, and ambulance units - but they might not have DPW or school or bus radios - they seldom have federal users - they never have air traffic control nor boats nor railroads nor the military Big picture - many of the new radio systems prevent doubling via ruthless preemption and ruthless (aka - "mindless") blocking - I know that parents have to be ruthless so that their kids dont get run over by cars, but applying the concept of "ruthless" to public safety radio systems just seems totally wrong to me Big picture - portable radios that used to cost $300 now cost $5000 apparently Big picture - more and more systems are using encryption for "officer safety" (aint gonna work) - someone needs to go to the UK and find out why they have so few police officer deaths - is it because of their encryption? - is it because of the lack of guns? Big picture - forest fires are still on VHF highband - low band radios are going away slowly but surely - cellphones and MDTs now carry huge amounts of non tactical radio comms Big picture - more interops radio channels are in use - but coverage is very limited and patchy - (Vtacs Utacs Itacs) Big picture - very few radios will function below ground or in large structures or while prone - not much has changed here Big picture - lots of $$$ has been spent on "patching" systems - (my computer gets software patches every once in a while - kinda like duct tape in the digital world I think) - my point being - the very use of the word "patch" is not a good sign (even if it is possibly a different meaning of the word) Bottom line - not a heck of a lot has changed in the last 10 or 12 years - except that some low band systems have been replaced by higher band systems OK I am done -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massfire. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
