These new digital trunked radios cost thousands of dollars apiece and we taxpayers are paying for new ones for every squad and officer in the city. And while their new and shiny, they don't have the range of the units we're dumping, are way more complex to repair, and can't be readily replaced if needed like our old radios. And the money that went to pay for those fancy new radios could have gone to fully staff a department that barely avoided layoffs instead.
Worse yet, we pretty much can't hear them. With the old units any citizen with an under hundred dollar scanner could keep up on local police activity. This allowed good citizens to keep an eye out for and alert police to where the miscreant the were looking for was hiding. It also allowed us to size up the situation when we saw the neighborhood was swarming with squads- it's helpful to know and respond accordingly if the police are looking for a missing child or an armed assailant.
But it appears that Minneapolis Police may not want us to know what there up to. Certainly, the only "advantage", and a questionable one at that, of the new system is that you need a new $500 scanner to hear our police. This assures that low budget operations like KFAI, the Spokesman-Recorder, peace activists, and the average citizen won't know what possible mixups or mischief MPD is up too.
Worse yet, with the new radios Minneapolis Police often won't be able to talk to other cops either. After years of having a common frequency, Minneapolis and St.Paul police can no longer directly communicate. Neither can Minneapolis police communicate with local departments when a chase ends up in Buffalo, etc.. In fact, the cost of converting the rest of Minnesota's Police and Fire departments to the new digital trunked radios is estimated at over $200,000,000... I don't think that's gonna happen real soon. And with the reduced range on the new frequencies, they probably won't be able to reach the repeater and talk to each other either.
Sorry to not bring any better news as National Night out draws to a close.
from Hawthorne, new home to Jordan's displaced criminals.
Dyna Sluyter
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
