"Paul Robson" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:

Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the
government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave.
snip
Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project.
You didn't really think it would work did you ???

What like the Armys new BOWMAN system?
Acronym for (Better Off With a Nokia And a Map) ;-)

Steve Terry

"Concerned Officer" wrote in message
oups.com...
Paul Robson wrote:
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:

Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the
government's fault that police forces have had to switch to
Airwave.
snip
You didn't really think it would work did you ???

Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would
have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of
two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really.
Cheers,
PC A.N. Other.

and all because the Gov didn't want to share a network.

For at least the last 5 years, Scandinavian countries use GSM Pro,
which has secure Push To Talk closed network groups on the existing
900MHz GSM phone networks, using cheap rugged GSM Pro PTT
phones like the Ericsson R250, which now sell for under 100 quid.

Used with Sims that have high network priority allocated to them,
so if a cell is full, it kicks off lower priority users to force a connection.

and as we all know UK 900MHz GSM coverage is extensive and reliable.

The cost of the whole upgrade to GSM Pro instead of Tetra airwave
could have been measured in thousands rather than billions of pounds.
So of course the Blairites had to reinvent the wheel and make it of gold,
why not, they aren't paying for it

Steve Terry

"Paul Robson" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:08:30 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:
snip
Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would
have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of
two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really.

Well, why *doesn't* it work ? Why can't the police hang on to the mobile
networks ? I don't know, no-one does.

It was a political decision after Tony was deeply embarrassed by his
police security talking about their location when he was out with Dubbya,
completely compromising Dubbyas accompanying security.
(the US secret service have used encoded radios since the 1960s)

When Tony found out all and sundry were listening in to his security,
he ordered a new secure system be implemented ASAP, cost no object.

O2 rubbed their hands with glee, and muttered the infamous word "Tetra"

Steve Terry

In article , Steve Terry
writes

"Paul Robson" wrote in message
news
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:08:30 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:
snip
Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would
have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of
two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really.

Well, why *doesn't* it work ? Why can't the police hang on to the mobile
networks ? I don't know, no-one does.

It was a political decision after Tony was deeply embarrassed by his
police security talking about their location when he was out with Dubbya,
completely compromising Dubbyas accompanying security.
(the US secret service have used encoded radios since the 1960s)

When Tony found out all and sundry were listening in to his security,
he ordered a new secure system be implemented ASAP, cost no object.

O2 rubbed their hands with glee, and muttered the infamous word "Tetra"

Steve Terry



Where an analogue trunked system would do about all thats needed and is
proven and costs less, but hey!, its got to be digital like that pox
known as DAB which sounds worse than FM;((....
--
Tony Sayer

tony sayer wrote:

proven and costs less, but hey!, its got to be digital like that pox
known as DAB which sounds worse than FM;((....

Then you or the broadcaster does something wrong - DAB ist just great
here in germany.



regards - Ralph

--

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

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.

"Ralph A. Schmid, DK5RAS" wrote in message
...
tony sayer wrote:

proven and costs less, but hey!, its got to be digital like that
pox
known as DAB which sounds worse than FM;((....

Then you or the broadcaster does something wrong - DAB ist just
great
here in germany.



regards - Ralph

--

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

There is a simple reason for it. I believe in Germany the data rate
used is 256Kb/s? In the UK the regulatory body, Ofcom (or it may have
been its predecessor the Radiocommunications Agency) issued an advice
to broadcasters that the lowest acceptable data rate should be
128Kb/s, so what happened? Correct, they all moved to 128Kb/s (or less
in mono.) Before this many were at 160Kb and several were at 192Kb.
Now there is only one, BBC R3 (the classical station) that transmits
at 192Kb (or 160Kb during busy periods) and Classic FM (the commercial
classical station) that uses 160Kb at all times.

There are rumours around that Ofcom are to change their guidance to
'not lower than 112Kb/s' sometime soon. Heaven helps us if they do! In
the UK it's all about quantity - quality doesn't even get a look in.


--
Woody

harrogate2 at ntlworld dot com

"harrogate2" wrote:

There is a simple reason for it. I believe in Germany the data rate
used is 256Kb/s? In the UK the regulatory body, Ofcom (or it may have
been its predecessor the Radiocommunications Agency) issued an advice
to broadcasters that the lowest acceptable data rate should be
128Kb/s, so what happened? Correct, they all moved to 128Kb/s (or less

We have here 160 or more, just the traffic announcement program uses
64 kbit/sec, sounding like AM.

There are rumours around that Ofcom are to change their guidance to
'not lower than 112Kb/s' sometime soon. Heaven helps us if they do! In
the UK it's all about quantity - quality doesn't even get a look in.

This is bad, really bad




regards - Ralph

--

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

In article , Ralph A.
Schmid, DK5RAS writes
"harrogate2" wrote:

There is a simple reason for it. I believe in Germany the data rate
used is 256Kb/s? In the UK the regulatory body, Ofcom (or it may have
been its predecessor the Radiocommunications Agency) issued an advice
to broadcasters that the lowest acceptable data rate should be
128Kb/s, so what happened? Correct, they all moved to 128Kb/s (or less

We have here 160 or more, just the traffic announcement program uses
64 kbit/sec, sounding like AM.

There are rumours around that Ofcom are to change their guidance to
'not lower than 112Kb/s' sometime soon. Heaven helps us if they do! In
the UK it's all about quantity - quality doesn't even get a look in.

This is bad, really bad



It'll happen over there. Just give it time:!.

Plus the joys of tandem coding etc..

BTW is Bayern Klassik 4 still transmitting at 256 K on DAB it sounds
super on satellite)....

--
Tony Sayer

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.