Cook County 800mhz

[firehoser2722]

Have anyone heard anything about this? The county is going to try and force feed this to us.

[MIKEYLIKESIT]

I haven't heard anything, but how in the hell can the county order us to do anything? Someone's relative is probably lining up the contract already. They should stick to collecting taxes and getting their own house in order.

[firehoser2722]

I am going to a meeting with the Chief on Thursday where Cook County wants our radio inventory rumor has it they recieved grant money from Homeland Security, NET8 Police departments and those Fire Departments who`s Police are NET8 (basic all of MABAS 22) and are going to be a pilot program with 800mhz.

I dont think its going to work because we will still need our VHF radios To be able to talk to the departments we run with that are not MABAS 22.

Need info on 800mhz good bad and the ugly also any questions I should be asking.


Thanks

[Frmboybuck]

They can crosslink certian frequencies so you can still talk with your mutual aids VHF radios from your 800MHz....

[blake1334]

champaign county is also going to the 800 mhz system

[tfpd109]

champaign county is also going to the 800 mhz system

Hopefully with the help of some grant money!! Should be interesting to see how we make the change over.

[blake1334]

Hopefully with the help of some grant money!! Should be interesting to see how we make the change over.

I know what your saying...i know that we are going to have trouble paying for them by ourselves if we have to...

[k3twpfire]

We have an 800 mhz system in Kankakee County. It was mostly funded by a grant from "Uncle George". Each fire department in the county received 10 portable radios, a mobile radio for each department owned vehicle, and a radio for each station.

There are some positives. There are tons of talkgroups available, so in major incidents you can divide up staging, operations, etc. on different channels. The range is real good. You can here departments on their portables anywhere in the county.

The downside is new portable radios are around $4,100. We also have problems getting the radios to work inside alot of buildings. Unlike our old low band/high band radios that would work in buildings, these radios do not. Also, Motorola does not guarantee that the radios will work "below grade", meaning you out of luck in basement fires. We had a fire a few months back in a warehouse building and the radios would not work.