The widely-televised chase of non-felony crime suspects during Monday's afternoon drive-time ("rush? hour") brought side-stories for 2 days afterwards.
One of the stories focused on how Kansas City's police couldn't talk to Overland Park and other Kansas law agencies on their radios.
Well folks- it ISN'T because of Kansas City's reportedly "outdated radio system" that city leaders are throwing $34-million taxpayer dollars at for replacement.
I've been listening to public service- "police" radios since the 1960's. I still do.
There HAS been a radio channel around since that time that is available to EVERY law agency in America.
That frequency- 155.475 is the National Police Mutual-Aid (NPMA) channel (Fire depts. have one too- 154.28).
Kansas City MO's 800mhz trunked radio system has been linked into both the police NPMA AND fire mutual aid channels since the 800-system was installed for around $40-million in 1995 dollars.
By the way- KC-MO's old VHF radio system worked fine for more than 30 years.
The TV news story we saw said the various police agencies who worked that car chase down I-35 at rush hour "couldn't talk to each other."
Had all agencies had the NPMA patched into THEIR radio systems like they're supposed to- the radio communications problem wouldn't have been an issue whatsoever.
And it costs nowhere NEAR $40-million to ANY AGENCY to do this!
Yet the "news" media completely overlooked that fact and reported false facts without giving the viewer the complete story.
Like the Tiger Woods incident- let's just find a different angle to beat the same story to death.
And let's not even be totally ACCURATE when we (they actually- not me) do so.
__________
14 comments:
I was an officer with KCPD during the transition from the old VHF radios to the 800MHz system. We actually had to use both systems in parallel for some time due to the limited range of the newer system. It totally sucked, both in use, and for taxpayers wallets. Last month, I bumped into a trainer for KCPD's latest radio system and was advised that there was not really any benefit to the new system, other than higher technology equipment. And the taxpayers will pay again...
Look at the Capt. breaking news while Tony sleeps in the basement!
Nice and good job!
Who's Tony?
I'm the guy responsible for all your traffic today (maybe 20 people). Nice to meet you!
Well hey-hey Tony!
Purely a senior moment- my scanner-deadened-ass realized shortly after I replied to Anon 3:16 who "Tony" was: TKC Man.
Heh.
I don't ever recall dissing your blog ya know- call me out where this may have been.
Forgive me as I even try to get along with ppl like Fred Phelps (help me Oh Great Spirit on that one).
Keep up the great work shaking up the "establishment" and thanks for the blog hits other than the local news media ones (and Arabs looking at my old "Mom's Hot Sex..." post)I usually get.
Hope we get to meet in 2010...
Cheers!
Capt. (Jim Meyer) Spaulding
In true Tony fashion, claiming victory for something he didn't create.
Ok, first off you don't what your talking about. The APCO P25 radio system that the city will be installing. This is the new compliance standard in public saftey radios. They city recieved around 12 million dollars from Sprint/Nextel to move the current radios up spectrum because of bleed over to the radio system from the IDEN Nextel network. What the city faced was taking that money and purchasing radio equipment for a system that is not compliant with any other system in the region. So they used the 12 million to thier advantage to fo out for an RFP for a new radio system that would work that is APCO P25 compliant and would create a regional radio system once all of the agencies get P25 systems. This allows all of the agenices to talk with each other eaiser. To answer you specific question about the mutual aid channel. The channel is in a lower band, most agenices won't switch to that channel during a chase because of the quality of the sound. Ther is a lot of things going on during a police chase. The APCO P25 radio system would allow dispatchers to patch togther several different cities with a click of a button without losing quality.
To answer some peoples question about keeping the current radio system.By the way the city was buying equipment from ebay to keep the radio sites up. The manufacture is no longer supporting this technology because APCO (Alliance of Public-saftey communications Officals)and the federal government pushing for APCO Project 25. Most of you may not know that the Kansas City radio system is a trunked system, not point to point. So it is like a cell phone in that if you have no coverage, you can't talk. This is a public saftey matter and it was critical that a new radio system be purchased. It was much cheaper beacause of the 12 million that the city recieved from Sprint/Nextel.
Anon 9:42am: Don't tell ME I "don't know what (i'm) talking about" because I know ALL ABOUT the UCSA's sale of bandwidth to private cmpanies forcing every damn radio system in America to narrow-band APCO.
Sprint's $12-million is less than 40% the cost of getting a new radio system- so taxpayers get stuck paying for this government "sale."
Bleedover from other frequencies has never been a serious issue here so that's a bogus argument.
I also made mention of these 800mhz trunked systems.
The issue was that THE LAW AGENCIES COULD NOT TALK TO EACH OTHER during that chase and I said they could have.
I noted the VHF frequency which is the police mutual-aid channel that KC-MO HAS patched into THEIR 800 trunked system.
Sound quality??? Give me a break- it sounds fine on the patches- just some radio techs probably too lazy or stupid to patch their OWN systems into the VHF channel.
All this came about because of 9-11 and the very best radios in the WORLD wouldn't have made a crap's bit of difference in what happened in NYC OR the Pentagon that day- or any other.
It's like an electric can opener versus a manually-operated one.
They both perform the same task- it's just that one is CHEAPER than the other.
I guess however that YOU are a government employee thinking (as usual) that the taxpayer's teats have an unlimited amount of milk.
Like I said- don't tell ME I "don't know what (i'm) talking about" when I do...
Groucho
Groucho keep believing that...
What I believe doesn't mean squat as long as the American government is by themselves and for themselves when it comes to actual concern for the welfare (costs) to and of the American people.
The new radio system is a done deal anyway- so Merry Christmas Anons...
-Groucho
Hey Groucho,
I don't think that your expertise of being a scanner freak makes you an expert on public saftey radios. Myself and others hvae suffered with poor and failing equipment, poor radio quality and the availablity of parts for the last few years with our radios in our vehicles. THAT IS THE MAIN ISSUE HERE!!! Let me just say this, I'm in public saftey and have dealt with police chases and they are fast and frantic at times. I know because I was involved in a chase at one point and we did have the mutual aid channel patched and the sound was horrible. I could have possibly sounded good on your scanner but in a moving car traveling at high speeds the mutual aid channel does not sound good. Have you ever been in a police car or fire truck with these radios? Mabye you were just in your trash can with your Ham radio and scanners on Sesame Street. Would you just like us to abandon the radio system and go back to call boxes???? We were forced to make the switch to 800Mhz and now we have to live with it now. Most of the old vets like the old system and it did work better but the FCC wanted us off the spectrum, what are we to do?
Bleedover was a problem because we had to shut down some spectrum that was allotted to us because of bleedover from IDEN (Nextel). That is fact.
We at the lowest level have no control of the govenment sale of spectrum, therefore we are stuck with the high band frequencies that we are alloted from the FCC.
With the APCO coming up the the P25 platform it has become cheaper to purchase the systems because there is a standard. Why would you not want a standard???? Initally when the radio system was purchased there was no standard and it is costing us now. These things have to be maintained. From this point forward these kinds of upgrades will be necessary because the equipment just gets outdated and needs replaced. We got duped on the last purchase of the radio system. Motorola is now going to be our vendor and they are a giant in the public saftey radio business.
Last I will say I do not like spending goverment money wastefully. But when cites incorprate they want a couple of things, public saftey, good streets and water and sewer service. This is an investment in the future and now. I hope to see you soon on sesame street!!
As a non-police public safety employee (you do the math on who that leaves) this radio system is horrible. It was a big upgrade in some ways from what we had, but there's so much lacking that its sickening. You hit it on the head, 1:24 pm.
OK, I've just noticed this over the months and years of listening to the scanner in KC. I do not pretend to be an expert or know everything. I do notice this: Fire uses the mutual aid freq a lot more then police. I have heard KC Fire talk to Raytown, Grandview, Independence and Johnson County KS on the mutual aid. (The way I have my scanner set up, I usually hear the chatter on the KC trunk) The channel was indispensable during the Kenny's Tile floor collapse. The police? There have been times I expected agency to agency chatter and I heard none. Now, I could have my set up wrong. However, I used to hear police mutual aid chat more often. Now, the only time I hear it even a little is when the KCMO police chopper is talking with someone (The last I remember was when they were helping out Grandview PD). Is it the radios, or is it such a pain to use that the cops don't use it, or does police mutual aid capability just barely exist? One more question radio fans: if the Kansas City trunk is so worn out, why was MAST chatter transferred in from the 400
megahertz freqs?
MAST was transferred from a VHF system to the current system for a variety of reasons, in my opinion (not an official opinion).
1. Obsolete and ultra crappy radios.
2. VERY poor in-building coverage.
3. Limited number of frequencies. Med 9,8, one tac channel. Vs about 6 channels now.
4. No upgrade path.
5. No interoperability with other public safety agencies.
It's not perfect by any measure. But the radios were falling apart both the portables and the in-truck radios. The current radios were purchased and the upgrade path set to be digital compliant and to permit inter-agency cooperation. Previously, there was zero opportunity to talk to other agencies. Now, they can but fire and mast don't do it because they can't get along it seems.
Since mast is being taken over by fire, maybe this will change. But I don't know how the dispatch centers will merge. Will mast disappear, or will fire disappear, or will they remain split. Nobody knows.
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