Disqus - Latest Comments for helming

Re: Dead Air, Garbled Transmissions Trouble Washington Troopers

helming — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 14:35:32 -0000

We are so conditioned to think that everything digital is so much superior to everything analog. Guess that's not the case.

Re: Paging maintains relevance when message matters most

helming — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:38:19 -0000

I like your comment. There are times when one cannot view a text or a answer a cellphone call safely. Just when we are preaching the horrors of texting and cellphones while driving, and establishing laws against such, we are pushing emergency alerting to those technologies! If its not safe for someone to use these technologies while driving a 5000 pound car, a 50,000 pound firetruck is off the map!

Re: APParently, the world has gone amok

helming — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:57:54 -0000

The utility industry has been lobbying for more dedicated spectrum for data applications too. Since Public Safety and Utilities have similiar requirements for reliability and coverage, and their ability to communicate with each other is also very valuable in emergencies, maybe they should combine efforts and lobby for this spectrum together. Otherwise, they will have to handle future emergency situations via facebook and twitter!

GBH

Re: On the fireground, analog still reigns

helming — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:09:33 -0000

It really blows my mind is that for as long as P25 and other digital radio technology has been out there, that its critical limitations it has are just being recogonized now. It has been out there for like 20 years +. It shows that there has been a whole lot more information comming from manufacturers and marketers and not from the users!

GBH

Re: ERIC proposal needs clarification — soon

helming — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 18:52:25 -0000

The FCC has to have the political fortitude to face down the manufacturers and, after adopting a standard, make it the law of the land. Other systems would not be type accepted for use on the band--period. Problem is, there will be a ton of political pressure and "stifling innovation" arguements, but they have to hold firm. Lest we have the interoperability problems at 700 that exist elsewhere!

Re: What to do about narrowbanding?

helming — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 09:59:59 -0000

What I don't understand is why radio user agenices aren't giving much more consideration to just going narrowband analog. The idea that the only way to narrowband is to go to to the P25 and other digital systems is innacurate, expensive, and troublesome.

Many vendor and users both are having trouble getting decent coverage out of digital technologies, then there are the issues with the vocoders and fireground noise and the digital systems are monstrously expensive. Every analog radio made after the mid 90s has the capability to go narrowband analog with just a software setting change. Some units made before that time can date can be converted by changing deviation and adding aftermarket filters.

Even if a public safety or other radio user agency has plans to go digital at some point, going narrowband analog is a way to get the FCC off of your back about narrowbanding, until you have time to better forulate a plan and secure funding etc. I have done this narrowbanding this myself and it works very well. It is simple, cheap, no new equipment required, and the coverage remains the same as with wideband analog. Another big plus is that a system still works fairly well with some radio narrowbanded and some still wideband, so it is not necessary to shut a system down to do the narrowbanding.

Check into it!

Re: Major cyber attacks underscore vulnerability of enterprise data

helming — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:39:54 -0000

Excellent Article.

What this points out is that despite all of the hoop-LA by the firewall folks, if a mission critical network can be accessed from the internet in any way, then it can and probably will be. For every technique the firewall folks have to stop an attack, the hackers have a way around it. Thus, mission critical systems; be they in public safety, utilities, ot whatever, have to be physically isolated from the internet in order to enjoy a degree of safety. Certainly Google has to be one of the very most sophisticated companies in the category of security, yet they were breached with no problem according to the article.

A modern Horace Greely would say: "Physical Isolation Young man!"

Re: FCC clarifies narrowbanding rules

helming — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 10:40:01 -0000

One has to wonder how many private radio users will simply call it quits and shutdown their private radio systems in favor of cellphones and similiar commercial technologies, when faced with narrowbanding and other mandates. Here in Montana, about all that is left on mobile radio are public safety/government, utilities (mostly telemetry-less and less voice) and the Railroads (also mostly telemetry-less and less voice). Maybe another narrowbanding session won't be necessary. Certainly not here!

Re: Close race

helming — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:24:54 -0000

One thing that I would like to see survey of public safety users on is how well digital radio technologies, like P25, are really working for the agencies that have goe to it. My experience with digital mobile radio has shown it to be quite fragile and unable to deal with much multipath or fresnel diffraction, which create amplitude versus frequency nonlinearity and phase versus frequency (ie group delay) nonlinearities. Friends who work for local public safety agency make comments about their digital radio system that sound very similiar to what I am experiencing.

Thanks!

Re: It’s time to rethink the FCC's purpose

helming — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:23:57 -0000

I think more needs to be done by coordinating and licensing the channel space that is actually used than by this approach of designating big blocks of spectrum to one particular use. By designating big blocks, one strongly motivates those who will be moved off the spectrum into political action against the move. They call their favorite congress people and the political animal FCC gets tied up in knots. Public Safety should be able to coordinate and license what they need, and not get the whole band automatically whether they need it or not. In many places, there would be plenty of spectrum for the incumbants and public safety without this conflict!

Re: IP: infinite possibilities

helming — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:50:48 -0000

I guess I am one of those seasoned Radio Techs who is not wholly sold on IP. Whereas Ip does have great capabilities--especially as it relates to being able to self heal and self configure, those same capabilities also can cause the network to spontaneously self distruct! Wheras TDM based voice quality is constant, regardless of what else is on the TDM circuit, Ip voice quality can be heavily influenced by what the other data traffic over the network is doing, and finally, the off the shelf IP equipment (routers, switches etc) is an issue. Whereas this equipment is cheap and widely available (a real +) it is also often made with the reliability needs of an Office PC user in mind, and not those of a communications system carrying life safety traffic. IP has some very strong points, but to ignore the big detractors is not painting a true picture!

Re: So close, yet so far

helming — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:16:33 -0000

Sorry to be such a nay-sayer, but with the economy being what it is, and with many government's facing such an uncertain future, it seems crazy to me for them to embark on any new systems at this time. NG-911 might be the greatest thing since sliced bread, but one cannot afford to add new bells and whistles when one is having problems paying for the firetruck!
GBH

Re: Is a technology Holy War brewing in the smart-grid space?

helming — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:00:35 -0000

As a 25 year veteran of the energy business, I worry a lot less about the smart grid technology, than the premise that America can substantially solve its energy problems by allowing customers to play video games with their meters. Many utilities that I have worked for have tried Demand Side Management programs before, to encourage customers to only use energy at the right times. Few have had much success. The key to a strong and successful economy is abundant, resonably priced energy, not playing games with what we have.

GBH

Re: GAO report casts dark shadow on GPS

helming — Thu, 21 May 2009 10:03:06 -0000

Of course we telecom types know that the loss of the GPS system would quickly knock out the telecommunications infrastructure in the USA. All of the telecommunications providers use GPS to synchronize their transport networks, so no more telephone or cellphone or internet service. Simulcast radio networks use it and would dissolve into chaos without it, Power utilities use it for relay coordination, so losing it could wreck havoc there too! This is one problem the government better fix. We worried about Y2K. This could be all of that bad!

GBH

Re: First-responder broadband network be a national imperative

helming — Wed, 13 May 2009 14:35:00 -0000

If this goes forward, I hope that the First Responder representatives, have learned a lesson, and adopt a technical standard for the equipment that goes on it, and that the FCC refuses to type accept any equipment that is not 100% compatible with that standard. There has been way too much of vendors making equipment that is partially compliant with standards and only partially works with other vendor's wares, just to get that marketing edge. The standard needs to be free and open to all vendors, so that there is none of this hassling over technology licenses either.

There are enough Towers of Babel in the world of First Responder Communications these days!

GBH

Re: Back in a big way

helming — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:19:28 -0000

Excellent article on satellite technology.

I have found recently that the advent of ISP service via satellite, has brought the cost of small VSAT stations down to the point that they are a very attractive alternative to Telephone company based facilities for utility telemetry systems. They offer strong reliability, can be located anywhere and installed quickly, and because they support ethernet and IP, it is easy to connect a wide variety of applications simultaneoulsy to them. They also deliver their data back to multiple collection locations, so one can serve diverse master teletry locations, to make the system disaster resistant. So far the biggest challenge has been keeping snow off the antennas!

Re: FCC designates 4.9 GHz fixed applications as primary

helming — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:46:34 -0000

One wonders if equipment to use this 4.9 GHz public safety spectrum, will be prohibitively expensive, as Project 25 mobile radio has been, , because it is exclusively for publicly funded uses.

Re: Proprietary legacy systems can limit P25 migration choices

helming — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:15:20 -0000

History Lesson:

Back in the good ole days, the FCC used to test RF modulation methods and used to adopt one, and it became the law of the land. That's why we don't have many different formats of TV and broadcast radio stations out there. It is also why the good ole FM moble radios that public safety knows and loves for decades, can interoperate with just the assignment of some common radio frequencies.

In recent years, the heavily-lobbied FCC has ceased doing that, for fear of "styfling vendor creativity". The result has simply been chaos. Your article demonstrates that bigtime!

I was a radio DJ back in the 1970s, when AM STEREO came out. This was one of the first times that the FCC tried out this "let's let the everybody make their own system and let the market pick the winner" approach to choosing a modulation scheme, rather than establishing a standard in advance. The result was 3 different and incompatible modulation schemes out there (Magnavox, Kahn and CQUAM-Motorola). Broadcasters were afraid of choosing the wrong one and having to replace expensive broadcast plant; receiver manufacturers were hesitant to make AM STEREO receivers for the same reason, and the whole thing died a twisted complicated bureaucratic death.

I am sure that every manufacturer can think of 50,000 reasons why such standardization does not appeal to their marketing department, but then we are suffering the consequences again and again and again!

Re: Why isn't P25 right for utilities?

helming — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:57:06 -0000

BOY:

You really hit a hot-button topic with this article. Great Job!

One can tell that there is a lot of "untapped" opinion out there on this subject. For so many, P25 is like the $5000 toilet seat made famous in various defense purchases. It seems to be only something that can be afforded as part of a big federally funded project. Makes one wonder what will happen to it when/if Federal dollars for such things dry up, and the County Sheriff or local VFD has to buy it with their regular budget?!?!?

Re: Contemplating the seemingly unthinkable

helming — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:27:10 -0000

One added feature of satellite technology is that one would quickly know if it is going to work or not. This magazine has articles from time to time of large advanced public safety systems that after millions of dollars of infrastructure investment, end up in a lawyer's brawl because they don't work the way they were supposed to work. With a satellite based system, the infrastructure already exists and is manged by the satellite vendor. One could immediately try it out and know if it is going to do the job or not. That sure minimizes the risk to the end user!

Re: Why isn't P25 right for utilities?

helming — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:31:23 -0000

As a person who works as a telecom consultant to utilities, I recently priced a P25 system for one of my clients as a narrowbanding option. It was megabucks above the cost of just going narrowband analog, and also much more expensive than other digital solutions.

I have to agree with the fellow who believes that it is so expensive because the P25 systems have been bought as part of these projects with large federal grants, rather than from the budget of the local Public Safety folks like existing radios have been purchased. That certainly reduced the downward pressure on prices.

Ideally, utilities would have been coaxed to go to P25 for interoperability with public safety folks, but that did not happen. Ideally, the large amount of P25 equipment purchased by public safety, and the fact that several manufacturers make it, would have reduced its price so much that utilities would have been attracted to it anyway. That didn't happen either.

Guess it is not an "Ideal" world!

Re: Utilities Telecom Council asks FCC for 30 MHz of spectrum

helming — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:28:22 -0000

This would be great for utilities. With the move to ethernet based devices , many utilities are forced to use spread spectrum based ethernet radios, operating on ISM or other itinerate bands, to provide the needed ethernet connectivity to remote locations. With the popularity of these bands for so many uses, and no regulation of those uses, the ability to use those bands reliably and continuously is threatened. A licenseable wideband service for ethernet would be just the ticket, and very timely

Re: Procrastinators win, public safety loses

helming — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:09:18 -0000

While I feel for Public Safety, once again, Congress relied on the testamony of various promoters to guage how hard the transition to digital TV would be, and not to technical professionals.

Just like they swallowed hook line and sinker that wind power is the easy solution to our electric generation needs (because they don't understand or don't want to understand the technical issues). They swallowed the idea that a simple converter box made DTV available everywhere that Analog TV is now. Now they are faced with the prospect of furious constituents who can no longer get local free TV, and broadcasters who are facing a very significant loss of audience; either group not one you want to anger if you expect to be reelected. .

So once again, silk suited lobbiests have topped engineers in advising Congress.

Nothing new under the Sun!