DFES digital

[nachoman]

WA firies pick Motorola for $7m CAD deal

[Buddy4562]

Does that mean we won't be able to listen to them on scanners anymore or not?

[yorky]

A bit misleading putting that link in this thread. CAD is the despatch system, nothing to do with radios.

[Buddy4562]

That's what I thought but just wanted to clarify

[roland985]

I have seen, felt, and even played with the radios in question. They are not going to replace the current radios we have, they are for specialist and complex firefighting operations in specific circumstances. That is all I am willing to talk about on a public forum.

[JhG123]

I'm going to take a guess and say you're talking about the APX7000E's that the CFRS crews have been given to replace the XTS5000 fireground radios.

[roland985]

No, they have something else - The APX-8000s are a good bit of kit. But extremely expensive.

[roland985]

If you want to hear what it's like in SA, here is an audio feed to them:

https://m.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/21928

They have a P25 system. It sounds awful compared to our analog system. Have a listen. In marginal areas they break up in a very inaudible way, whereas with analogue, we've been able to get comms across even with a weak signal.

I've also found a page here:

https://www.roamingtech.com.au/case-stu ... y-vehicles

This overviews the solution that DFES have for IRIS. It would be prohibitively expensive at this stage to replace everything with IRIS.

[JhG123]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the voice quality on digital modes. Even listening to SurfCom from my house, to the nearest station in Mandurah just sounds terrible, the voices are very washed out, but you get the occasional good quality. Analouge is still much better for voice quality, unless you have enough repeaters for the network.

[roland985]

Things may be changing soon - the push for digital is approaching. I'd suggest purchasing a digital scanner if you want to listen to DFES in 2030 onwards.

[JhG123]

Reading the rollout schedule on VH, it doesn't look like there's going be any change for DFES for at least 5 years at this stage.

[roland985]

it doesn't look like there's going be any change for DFES for at least 5 years at this stage.

I'd double that estimate. When the digital system DOES get rolled out, there will be a long period of overlap with both systems active to account for all the handheld and vehicle radios that need to be updated or replaced.

So: 3-5 years -> Establish a digital network. 6-8 years -> Wean fleet off analog. -> 10-15 years go digital.

Will the new system be encrypted? Over east it's not for fire and SES

[vk6hgr]

I'd wait to see the outcome of the PTA digitisation project, also. Still in progress.

[roland985]

I would imagine there are extra costs with encryption.

[AVBFS]

I would imagine there are extra costs with encryption.

Licence feature keys for radios and key management facilities.... $$$...