Once again, law enforcement agencies are asking the state to purchase a multi-million dollar emergency radio system. Once again, they’re trotting out the scary prospect that agencies won’t be able to talk to each other:
“They’ll be coming in with different radio systems,” said Crime Control Secretary Bryan Beatty. “They won’t be able to coordinate their efforts.”
The state is in a budget crisis where every dollar counts. The gold-plated radio system being floated costs close to $200 million dollars to complete.
As I pointed out in an earlier post, the solution to this is so simple that simple is its middle name. It’s called simplex, and it describes how radios on the scene talk to each other directly on the same frequency! Imagine having agencies be able to coordinate efforts while apprehending a suspect! Not only that, it can be done anywhere in the state without losing coverage, because no $200-million-dollar network of towers is needed!
Quit buying radios that only talk to base stations and get ones that can talk simplex!!
Sheesh. Maybe back when our current system was installed, radio was a novel thing, unknown to the masses. Now a mere fifty bucks will buy you a pair of radios with a five mile range (yes, that’s $25 each). Many departments issue Nextel phones to their officers – those work well, too. But there’s just no reason to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on radios when Commercial, Off The Shelf (COTS) equipment can do the job at a fraction of the cost.
