Massachusetts State Police are installing a 800 Mhz P25 TRS in the mountainous areas of Western Massachusetts that will be connected to the long standing 800 Mhz TRS in eastern Massachusetts.
1. Pennsylvania, New York, JTRS (DOD), and JWIN are recent radio project failures. Monetary losses have been extensive. 2. Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, and Indiana have extensive 800 Mhz TRS that seem to work fairly well statewide. However, I suspect that none of these systems offer good coverage inside buildings. In addition, there are still a huge number of public safety radio users in all of those states who do not use 800 mhz radios. 3. The only local public safety 800 mhz users in Massachusetts are Worcester, Cambridge, and Logan Airport. The only state agencies who make extensive use of the State TRS are State Police highway troopers, prisoner transports, some state highway mtnce units, Mass Turnpike, etc. National Guard and State Forestry still have their own extensive radio systems. The Boston area transit system uses a 800 Mhz EDACS TRS for buses - subways are being added now apparently. Cellphones seem to be the preferred communications tool for many users. 4. Of the 350 communities in Massachusetts, probably 150 of them use UHF as their primary communications band. Hampshire County and Berkshire County near New York and Vermont is still VHF highband. The Springfield area has police on UHF but fire on VHF. Worcester County, in the middle of the state, is a mishmash of UHF, VHF high, and VHF low users. 5. There are no real statewide channels for VHF or UHF users. This might be changing as VTac and Utac systems are added. 6. Connecticut has a statewide 800 TRS for State Police. Rhode Island is bringing their 800 TRS online slowly but surely. Maybe 50% of the public safety agencies in the state are on the system now. Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York do not have statewide 800 TRS. Maine is building a VHF TRS statewide. 7. With all of this, one has to ask, is there a good reason for the State Police to be building a statewide 800 mhz TRS? Millions and millions of dollars will be spent. Will it be worth it? -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "massfire" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/massfire?hl=en.
