As another police airwave user I have to say it is an utterly ****e system.

Officer safety IS being compromised.

Airwave drops out completely on a regular basis in the control rooms, the
'hang time' to transmit is as long as EIGHT seconds sometimes - utterly
useless during a pursuit or something. The BUSY message is almost
permantently on and it is just NOT designed for busy areas on a Fri/Sat
night with lots of officers using it.

Do they expect us to f**ing run down the street texting on the damn thing to
get updates?

The sooner the Federation and Unison or whoever the lazy arse reps are, get
together and thrash it out with the Chief Constables - the sooner officers
can start seeing improvements and have confidence in the system.

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 19:07:56 +0000, chas wrote:

As another police airwave user I have to say it is an utterly ****e system.

Officer safety IS being compromised.

Airwave drops out completely on a regular basis in the control rooms, the
'hang time' to transmit is as long as EIGHT seconds sometimes - utterly
useless during a pursuit or something. The BUSY message is almost
permantently on and it is just NOT designed for busy areas on a Fri/Sat
night with lots of officers using it.

Do they expect us to f**ing run down the street texting on the damn thing to
get updates?

I'm not being rude, but I find difficult to believe that people are
seriously considering using texting as a communications system. It's all
right if you want to send HOW U DUDE but it's not really useful beyond
that.

IMO in the mobile world it's more of an expensive gimmick than anything
else.

Are you Cops just being given cheap modified mobile phones ?

Paul Robson wrote:

Are you Cops just being given cheap modified mobile phones ?

Sounds like the lower end Motorola Tetra handhelds, really more a
phone than a real, tough radio




regards - Ralph

--

Want to get in touch? http://www.radio-link.net/whereisralph.txt

Paul Robson wrote:
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 19:07:56 +0000, chas wrote:

snip
Are you Cops just being given cheap modified mobile phones ?

See for yourself: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,62313,00.html

Adam.

chas wrote:
As another police airwave user I have to say it is an utterly ****e
system.

Officer safety IS being compromised.

Airwave drops out completely on a regular basis in the control rooms,
the
'hang time' to transmit is as long as EIGHT seconds sometimes -
utterly
useless during a pursuit or something. The BUSY message is almost
permantently on and it is just NOT designed for busy areas on a
Fri/Sat
night with lots of officers using it.

Chas thanks for bringing that up, I knew I had forgotten something. The
hang time for us can, as you say, creep up towards the 10 second area
on busy nights. This is not simply waiting for someone else to get off
the air, but purely the time it takes for the system to stop faffing
around and give you permission to speak. Of course, whilst waiting for
this 'hang' to clear, if comms speak you start the whole damn process
all over again. I have actually given up trying to pass a relatively
urgent update before now and typed it out on the MDT instead.

Do they expect us to f**ing run down the street texting on the damn
thing to
get updates?

I can't get my head around the texting process sitting down let alone
running after someone and trying to do it! The process is just too
complicated... and I'm no luddite.. I easily get through 300 text
messages a month on my private mobile.

The sooner the Federation and Unison or whoever the lazy arse reps
are, get
together and thrash it out with the Chief Constables - the sooner
officers
can start seeing improvements and have confidence in the system.

Call me a cynic but I cannot see the Federation or Unison or whoever
actually making any difference. Forces have committed so much time and
money on the project that it will be an admission that they cocked up
to back down now. It's a similar story with SAP.. if your force uses
that poor excuse for a system for time management then you know what I
mean...

Adam.

SAP?

Don't get me started on f***** SAP.

Airwave is Son of SAP!

And just as ****e! And Airwave is integrated with our SAP. Meanwhile -
despite having SAP for nearly THREE years - we are still keeping paper
records and only people retiring or resigning have their quota pots made
correct.

But back to Airwave - or ****ewave as it is known (amongst other more
affectionate terms) our handsets do not have the GPS built into them. Just
as well really. From what I understand it makes the sets even bigger and
more cumbersome.

Just what you need when trying to press the red button in the midst of a
chavvy brawl.

chas

Whenever I have been in town and an officer has been using an airwave radio
he/she always appears to be struggling to hear what is being said. With the
old analogue motorolas they always were belting out the audio so everyone
could hear. Is this another fault of airwave? BTW Sepura radios are what
they are using round here.
Melv
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message
oups.com...

chas wrote:
As another police airwave user I have to say it is an utterly ****e
system.

Officer safety IS being compromised.

Airwave drops out completely on a regular basis in the control rooms,
the
'hang time' to transmit is as long as EIGHT seconds sometimes -
utterly
useless during a pursuit or something. The BUSY message is almost
permantently on and it is just NOT designed for busy areas on a
Fri/Sat
night with lots of officers using it.

Chas thanks for bringing that up, I knew I had forgotten something. The
hang time for us can, as you say, creep up towards the 10 second area
on busy nights. This is not simply waiting for someone else to get off
the air, but purely the time it takes for the system to stop faffing
around and give you permission to speak. Of course, whilst waiting for
this 'hang' to clear, if comms speak you start the whole damn process
all over again. I have actually given up trying to pass a relatively
urgent update before now and typed it out on the MDT instead.

Do they expect us to f**ing run down the street texting on the damn
thing to
get updates?

I can't get my head around the texting process sitting down let alone
running after someone and trying to do it! The process is just too
complicated... and I'm no luddite.. I easily get through 300 text
messages a month on my private mobile.

The sooner the Federation and Unison or whoever the lazy arse reps
are, get
together and thrash it out with the Chief Constables - the sooner
officers
can start seeing improvements and have confidence in the system.

Call me a cynic but I cannot see the Federation or Unison or whoever
actually making any difference. Forces have committed so much time and
money on the project that it will be an admission that they cocked up
to back down now. It's a similar story with SAP.. if your force uses
that poor excuse for a system for time management then you know what I
mean...

Adam.

Melv wrote:
Whenever I have been in town and an officer has been using an airwave
radio
he/she always appears to be struggling to hear what is being said.
With the
old analogue motorolas they always were belting out the audio so
everyone
could hear.

I have no experience with the Sepura you mention, but certainly the
Nokia's are awful when it comes to clarity. That's clarity from the
radio itself, rather than blaming poor signal/too much contention on
the talkgroup/aerial site. The Nokia's have volume which goes from 0
(speakers off) to 10 (blown speaker). However the trouble is if the
volume is set to 4, you can't hear it with even minor background noise,
and if set to 5 or above which is ideally where it needs to be, then it
is so distorted you can't make out what is being said anyway. The
speaker size when compared to the old Motorola bricks (and no doubt the
quality thereof), is **** poor. Nokia make good mobiles. That is what
they should stick to; Their radios are crap.

Headsets have been distributed to us, but they are *worse* than the
ones you get free with your average Nokia cellphone. One knock and the
microphone becomes disloged inside the casing and the end result when
transmitting is it sounds like you have your head up your arse. A far
better device would be an attachable parrot just like in the old days!
Better quality speaker, better quality microphone, nice big PTT button
and still the option of an in-ear piece.

A.