WRAL brings me the story that a new Interagency Radio System Helped Police in Cooper Capture.
The radios allowed law officers to do something this time that they had been unable to do in the past.
It also was something that police, firefighters and emergency medical personnel in New York City could not do on 9/11 – talk to one another by radio.
Hey, gang? Instead of spending 200 million (!) of our taxpayer dollars on a Buck Rogers radio system so you can communicate on the scene, go down to your local Best Buy and put down $30 for a pair of kiddie walkie-talkies.
It’s called simplex. Its as old as radio itself and its rock-solid reliable. Sure, a kiddle walkie talkie won’t get you laid, nor will it raid the treasury like a $200 million radio system will, but it will let you talk to everyone at the scene of an incident: quickly, easily, and reliably. Up to twelve miles even.
What kind of idiots make these spending decisions?
Actually I think this system does make a lot of sense. In the past, getting police and firemen on the same frequencies has been troublesome, and add disaster agencies to that mix and you literally need a giant bus filled with radios and radio operators to pass messages between agencies.
Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t want police and fireman and EMS on the same radios.
Did you notice this bit from TFA? “If needed, a state trooper on the Outer Banks could talk to one in Charlotte by selecting the appropriate channel.”
The amount of radio bandwidth that was previously allocated to all of these agencies is staggering. The newer radio systems are much more bandwidth-efficient and as the older systems are completely phased out, the recovered bandwidth can be reallocated for other uses (amateur radio, wireless networking, some other yet-to-be-invented consumer electronics, etc)
It wouldn’t be legally appropriate for these guys to use FRS radios. Those are intended for civilian use. Further, imagine a local teenager pretending to be a cop on the scene and sending falsified transmissions just for shits & giggles. The diversion of resources that could cause could end up costing lives.
I think this system makes a lot of sense at the state & local level. My real opposition is all the money that is being spent at the federal level on law enforcement, way outside the boundaries of the US Constitution.