Oceanside police union sues over radio system
[Source: SignOnSanDiego.com]

Officers complain about 'dead spots'

By Lola Sherman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

February 9, 2002

OCEANSIDE – The Oceanside Police Officers Association has filed a lawsuit against the City Council to get it to replace an antiquated radio communications system sooner rather than later.

The police union contends there are "dead spots" in which officers cannot hear radio dispatchers, and it says that communication in some areas of the city is hampered by competing radio signals, including some from Mexico.

Oceanside is the only city in the region that does not participate in the county's modern communications system, and City Council members want to join.

But they say they first must sell part of a 99-acre parcel known as the Collins property, and that is tied up in the El Corazon Dedicated Parkland Initiative that goes to voters in November.

A citizens' group, hoping to save 544 city-owned acres at Oceanside Boulevard and El Camino Real for a central park, obtained enough signatures on petitions to force a vote on the issue, and it includes the Collins property.

City officials sent out 350 letters to determine if any developers are interested in the Collins property. Only one was received by deadline yesterday, from adjacent property owner Stirling Enterprises. Jane McVey, city economic development director, said no price was mentioned in the letter.

The city bought the property for just over $800,000 and had hoped to get up to $6.5 million for it.

Proponents of the initiative say the City Council has other ways to obtain money, like using redevelopment bonds, to finance the $8.1 million cost of joining the county communications system.

No one representing the police officers association could be reached for comment yesterday.

"I'm analyzing it right now for terms of legal sufficiency," City Attorney Duane Bennett said of the suit, filed in San Diego Superior Court earlier this week.

posted by Tracy Justus at 2/9/2002  

FCC Construction and Operation Audit



Last summer the FCC sent out letters to Private Land Mobile Stations (radio services IG, YG, PW, YW) operating on coordinated frequencies below 800 MHz requesting them to reply to the letter with the status of their stations. There is just 31 more days before the audit will be complete and those stations that do not reply to the letter risk losing their station license.

The FCC has an online search engine that allows you to search for entities that did or did not reply to the letter. To date about half have not replied to the letter.

FCC Construction and Operation Audit Database

posted by Tracy Justus at 2/7/2002  

DEFENSE DEPARTMENT TO SHARE SPECTRUM WITH FIRST RESPONDERS
[Source: United State Department of Defense]



No. 056-02
February 5, 2002

The Department of Defense today submitted its report to Congress regarding the feasibility of sharing the 138-144 MHz band with public safety users. A DoD Joint Spectrum Center engineering study identified ways sharing would be possible without interfering with DoD operations.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Spectrum and C3 Policy Steven Price said, "We believe it is possible to share portions of the 138-144 MHz band with public safety users on a limited, coordinated basis. DoD is willing to work with National Telecommunications and Information Administration, state and local governments and first responders on a case-by-case basis to explore sharing the band for the common good."

While the 138-144 MHz band continues to be critical to DoD operations, the department has found it helpful in emergencies to share communication systems with other first responders. A small number of channels may be shared on a regional basis when it is to the mutual benefit of DoD and public safety officials.

DoD operations that would be affected if this band were interrupted through heavy use of too many channels would include air-surface-air, air traffic control and ground support functions at military airfields, tactical communications for close air support, land mobile radios for sustaining installation infrastructure support and land mobile radios and specialized equipment for training and test range support. Other systems that would be affected include fire and security alarms, and hydrology and utility controls.

The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2000 reclaimed for federal, primarily DoD, use of three megahertz in the 138-144 MHz band previously identified, pursuant to requirements of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, for reallocation for mixed federal government and non-federal government uses. As Congress understood, the recovery of 3 MHz was and is crucial to fulfilling DoD's spectrum requirements. However, in the conference report, DoD was asked to provide a technical report assessing the feasibility of sharing the 138-144 MHz band with public safety users. In the fiscal 2001 authorization, Congress directed DoD, in cooperation with the Justice Department and the NTIA, to provide for an engineering study with regard to spectrum sharing in the 138-144 MHz band. The assistant secretary of Defense for Command Control Communication and Intelligence (C3I) has submitted this report to the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee.

Under direction of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I) John Stenbit, the DoD Joint Spectrum Center conducted an engineering study regarding sharing in the 138-144 MHz band. The resultant classified study showed that the areas of operation associated with the DoD frequency usage in the 138-144 MHz band encompasses nearly the entire continental United States. Large distance separations would be required to prevent co-channel and adjacent-channel interference between DoD equipment and potential state and local public safety systems, particularly in the case of DoD air-ground-air radios.

posted by Tracy Justus at 2/6/2002  

APCO Project 25 accepts proposal for P25, 2-slot TDMA
[Source: APCO]

News Release
APCO Project 25 Steering Committee
January 29, 2002

Salt Lake City, Utah

The APCO Project 25 Steering Committee announced today that they have formally accepted a proposal from EADS - Defense & Security Networks (EDSN) and Nortel Networks to create a new Project 25, 2-slot TDMA standard. This 2-slot technology will fit into a critical place in the Project 25 family of wireless, digital technology standards for public safety. EDSN is a relatively new entrant in our Project 25 standards process, yet their presence has been known for years in the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) TETRA process. In fact, their work in that area led to the creation of the European Publicly Available Specification (PAS) TETRAPOL.

The new proposal accepted by the Project 25 Steering Committee represents a new and exciting compatible advance in our Project 25 standards effort. EDSN and Nortel Networks have taken great pains to ensure their proposal fits the needs of the large, geographically constrained US Public Safety agencies, while proposing an extremely high level of interoperability with a fairly graceful migration path. The core of the new standards proposal is backward compatibility with Project 25 Phase I conventional and trunked systems. This new proposal has expanded and enhances an earlier work of ComNet Ericsson that was subsequently withdrawn.

The EDSN and Nortel Networks proposal will use the Phase I control channel, data format, vocoder, and system identification plans. In its completed form, it will provide backward compatibility to both a Phase I conventional and trunked network. Full interoperability and backward compatibility will be provided through the use of the Phase I Common-Air-Interface (CAI) standardized technology. The Phase I CAI technology will also be used to provide subscriber unit to subscriber unit (direct mode) Communications services in the 2-slot TDMA standards. Based on the information available today, they are predicting this direct mode service and seamless link to Project 25, Phase I technologies will operate at power levels almost equivalent to our Phase I, thereby assuring comparable coverage. Of equal importance to our users and spectrum
coordinators is the fact that the technology developed from these proposed standards will be able to operate in a reasonably spectrally pure environment, which will aid the large users in integrating this technology alongside their existing technology with a minimum of adjacent channel interference.

Mr. Don Pfohl, Steering Committee Member and Director of Communications for the City of Mesa, Arizona, expressed his pleasure with EDSN and Nortel Networks effort to embody all the Project 25 Steering Committee's past and current needs within the confines of their proposal. "With the technology that is created from this proposal, I will be able to ensure my users there is a future migration path from Phase I FDMA to Phase II FDMA or TDMA without having to do a system-wide flash cut." In supporting this proposal, the Project 25 Steering Committee emphasized how important interoperability was to our decision and how important we view the extensive work EDSN and Nortel Networks have done to date. Mr. Art McDole, Co-chair, Project 25, said, "It is evident by the inclusion of the Phase I CAI, the Phase I control channel, channel data format,
vocoder, and the high level of backward compatibility EDSN and Nortel Networks is proposing, that they have collectively made every effort to comply with our
needs as articulated in the Project 25 Statement of Requirements and subsequent documents provided them."

The Project 25 Steering Committee remains confident that Nortel Networks, EDSN, and our partners in TIA will be able to bring a 2-slot TDMA member of the family of Project 25 standards to completion within a few short years. While the creation of the formal standards is highly dependent on consensus, EDSN and Nortel Networks have exhibited their willingness to find it. While we acknowledge these companies' other defacto standard products currently in the field will be competing in some ways with both ETSI - TETRA and the Project 25 Phase I standardized technology, we do not believe that competition will have a dilatory effect on either the sales of Project 25 Phase I technology or our success in creating a 2-slot TDMA standard with our partners in the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA).

posted by Tracy Justus at 2/5/2002  

Since September 11, the demands on state and local law enforcement have increased dramatically. As a result, already limited resources are being stretched further at a time when our country needs every available officer out on the beat. Some local police departments are turning to civilian volunteers to supplement their sworn force. These vital efforts will receive new support through the Volunteers in Police Service Program (VIPS). VIPS draws on the time and considerable talents of civilian volunteers and allows law enforcement professionals to better perform their frontline duties.

posted by Tracy Justus at 2/5/2002  

Digital switch silencing monitors
[Source: Pasadena Star-News]

Narrow-band police channel change daunting
By Emanuel Parker

PASADENA -- Slowly but steadily area police agencies are switching to narrow-band and digital radio communications to comply with a Federal Communications Commission mandate.

As they do so traditional police scanners, which cannot monitor digital signals, are falling silent. No manufacturer now makes digital scanners for public use and those that exist are expensive and intended only for public agencies.

Capt. Rick Sandona of the Arcadia Police Department said the switch is not a conspiracy by law enforcement to shield their communications.

"We have nothing to hide and we often talk in the clear," he said. "It's not our goal to be secret. Our goal is to create more frequencies on the (radio) spectrum."

Police like analog or wide-band radios that the public can listen to, Sandona said, noting that citizens who listen to scanners sometimes call with tips that help police catch suspects.

Police in Pasadena, Alhambra, Monterey Park and El Monte are all or partially digitized, and other law enforcement agencies are scrambling to find the money to convert.

Sandona said the conversion will cost $1 million and doesn't include the city's fire department.

Pasadena police Cmdr. Mary Schander said the multi-year project will cost the department $1.2 million.

Lt. Steve Webb with the Sheriff's Department Communications Center said the change will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars. "We have hired consultants to figure out how much," he said.

The move from analog/wide-band to narrow-band and digital radio communications was prompted by the popularity of the wide-band spectrum.

In the 1990s experts realized they were fast running out of VHF radio frequency spectrum space, especially in metropolitan areas.

Cell phones, beepers, tow trucks, ambulances, taxis, Dial-A-Ride, public agencies, buses and light rail systems all vie for channels on a limited radio frequency spectrum.

"The FCC controls frequency allocation," Sandona said. "They studied the problem and decided the fix lay in using radio signals that don't take up as much space on the frequency spectrum."

Narrow-band signals use half the space of wide-band signals. The FCC decreed police agencies must convert to narrow band by 2005.

Digital signals use half the space of narrow-band signals. The FCC said all police agencies must be on that band between 2007 and 2009.

Police agencies everywhere asked, "Where do we get the money to make the conversion?" Sandona said, and, as a result, conversion deadlines are uncertain.

Sgt. David Nater with the Alhambra Police Department said they got digital equipment when police headquarters were rebuilt in 1994.

"We can do both analog and digital communications," he said. "Digital is a more advanced radio spectrum. You can get more channels in the same spectrum. But digital portable radios are expensive and the base station is expensive."

Schander said Pasadena is "migrating" to a digital system.

"We're using technology grant funds to do this. The infrastructure is complete for the base station and we are buying digital radios for personnel. That purchase will take a year. We're still several phases away from completion," she said.

Webb said even if the Sheriff's Department had the money, it would still take at least five years to convert.

"The last time we did a regional change like this we found it can take up to 10 years. A staggering amount of work is involved, including engineering studies," he said.

The county's conversion will involve not only the Sheriff's Department, Webb said, but the county fire department, the Office of Public Safety and other departments.

"The state-of-the-art is digital. You can do more things with less spectrum. Our next system will be digital, but parts will still be analog so we can talk to non-digital agencies," he said.
© 1999-2002 MediaNews Group, Inc. and Los Angeles Newspaper Group, Inc.

posted by Tracy Justus at 2/4/2002