Two Way Radio Narrow Band

Rollie NE PA · Dec 23, 2012

Did everybody get their two way VHF and UHF radios updated to work on Narrow Band? I understand that after the first of the year anyone broadcasting and not having the Narrow Band faces a stiff fine if caught. We just did all of our fire dept. radios. We bought the computer software and cables to be able to update the radios.

GarrettFields · Dec 23, 2012

The RR I work for switched over a couple of years ago, but we still have the wide band channels on some of the radios. It just depends on who programed it. I had not heard about fines for still operating on wide band, I might ought to bring that up when I go back.

Dr. Walt · Dec 23, 2012

Actually, if you set the TRANSMIT on each channel to Narrow Band but keep the RECEIVE on Wide band you would be better served, because if someones radio is just slightly off-frequency you would still be able to hear them.

Rollie NE PA · Dec 23, 2012

There is no setting anything on our radios. They never go off frequency. With the old radios with crystals, they would go off freq. We had to replace our 15 year old Motorola mobile radios because they could not be updated.

IOWA NORTHEAST · Dec 23, 2012

Our County jumped over a year ago, and it is the most alarming thing I have seen in the fire and EMS since I started thirty five years ago. We are considering using smoke signals like the Indians used. The process was very expensive, and now they are needing another three hundred thousand to put up another repeater.....I am in favor of someone going to jail for this joke that will cost someones life. We are missing SEVERAL pages, and often we do not even try to talk to dispatch. We got our first pagers in the late seventy something. The comunications have went down hill every since...and no one is held accountable. Our County Emergency manager will not even show his face at the county firemens meetings anymore as hostile lanuage is non stop.

Anonymous-0 · Dec 23, 2012

we did all our radios in our fire dept and lost about 1/2 of our range if not more. to top it off Motorola said we had to do our pagers also but then after the fact we did not have to because it's for transmit only.

GarrettFields · Dec 23, 2012

I can only imagine how frustrating that is! You are correct though, I have a couple OLD motorola hand helds that weigh about 5 pounds and before we went to NB they got out as good, sometimes better than our new super duper kenwood truck mounts. Our new kenwood handhelds are useless! You can literally see the person or train you are trying to talk to, and you have a 50/50 chance of being able to communicate. The latest and greatest is not always the best.

Anonymous-0 · Dec 23, 2012

also i bet Motorola had a lot to do with this push for narrow band it sure made for a lot of sales and dealer are getting big buck to narrow band radios

donjr · Dec 23, 2012

They just re-did our system, too. The new pagers are bigger, won't stay on our belt, and look more like we are packing heat than before. And if my math hasn't failed me, cost nearly $1000 a copy.....

buickanddeere · Dec 23, 2012

Motorola is master marketing company that sells moderate quality equipment.
The standard trick is to convince a tax payer funded organization and convince them they are special. And the organization needs to update their equipment for safety, security and reliability with new Motorola equipment.
Later when the new equipment fails to provide complete coverage. The fine print of the contract will allow Motorola to bill time and material to upgrade the system . To compensate for unforeseeable circumstances.
The cost to add the missing 5 or 10% coverage will cost as much or more than the initial contract for 90-95% coverage.

IOWA NORTHEAST · Dec 24, 2012

I keep asking who is responsable if there is a death because of no page? There is not a single fireman, sheriff officer, staff, hospital, ...... Well I guess anyone conected to emergency responce that is not aware of the problem....so if that doesnt spell lawsuit / gross pay out, what does? And the comunication provider that cant make it work? If every emergency conected person would call radio repair ,and The big guys that made us accept the new demands every day, it would seem someone would fix the problem. Then the way they assume we are all sitting at a desk waiting for a page? We are paged on one chanel, then we are required to switch to our dispatchers chanel, then we are assigned a tac chanel, and a certian tower. I think that would work on any TV movie, but not for a split second in the real world. Seems we should all ask the head of the FCC to step down because of their mandates, and the threat of fines.

don t. - 9n180179 · Dec 24, 2012

"The cost to add the missing 5 or 10% coverage will cost as much or more than the initial contract for 90-95% coverage."....

That 5-10% is now custom code (per se).
And because its now considered custom work, demands a higher $.
The business has been doing this, in my experience, since 1985.
Just another way for the business to stay in business.
Is this right or wrong depends on what side of the coin your on.

...don t. ...

JRB · Dec 24, 2012

The basic jist of this all is narrow banding was conceived by the FCC in order to free up space in the radio spectrum. This newly acquired free space can then be sold to the private sector.

ericlb · Dec 24, 2012

i would imagine that like most other things improvement really isnt one, for example back in the early '80's i had a wrecker service in this county, the radios were pretty large and had a remote box that was even larger, we operated in steep mountain terrain, steep canyons followed by high mountain ridges between 5000 ft and 12000 at the highest thats right 12000 ft! we had 3 'dead spots' in the entire area, all in the bottom of steep narrow canyons, now the fire trucks have dead spots everytime they get a hill between them and the repeater which some learned person moved to a lower ridge than it was on back in my day

Two Way Radio Narrow Band

Rollie NE PA

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GarrettFields

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Dr. Walt

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Rollie NE PA

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IOWA NORTHEAST

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Anonymous-0

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GarrettFields

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Anonymous-0

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donjr

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buickanddeere

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IOWA NORTHEAST

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don t. - 9n180179

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JRB

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ericlb

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