Excerpts from an article regarding a current law suit against Motorola & Scott:

Families of Houston LODDs Sue Motorola and Scott

3/16/16 -February 12, 2016

Posted by: Curt Varone 

Among the allegations:

• The system is believed to have been implemented in April 2013. However, at the time of its implementation, despite representations by Motorola Solutions as to its suitability for use, it was unsuitable for the anticipated, foreseeable and actual fire use. Its failures included the following:
• Excessive “bonks” when a firefighter was shut out of the system and unable to access the system – 339 times in the first thirty minutes of the fire in question;
• Firefighters were shut out of the system 256 times after the collapse of the roof and when rescue efforts commenced;
• Digital Delays between the time a firefighter would speak and the time that the message was actually sent and received by another user;
• Excessive “quick keys” when a radio microphone was accidentally struck causing the Talk Group on the frequency to be “frozen” for 3-4 seconds;
• Digital Cliffs occurring suddenly, and without warning, when the radios would go out of range although the person would be only a few feet away;
• The Defendants were aware of the problems with the system and despite this knowledge marketed and sold the products representing that they were fit and suitable for use in fire conditions such as those at issue in this case.

Phoenix, AZ

An 8 Week 800 MHz Trial (vs. 2 weeks in Isabella County)

Excerpts from a news article provided by an Isabella County law enforcement official: 

“For more than three decades, police and firefighters in Philadelphia had relied on an analog radio system maintained by the city. By the mid-1990s, city officials felt that the system was outdated, so they solicited proposals on a more modern radio system from Motorola, Ericsson-GE Corp. and E.F. Johnson. The city signed a contract with Motorola in 1999.

Three years later, cops and firefighters officially started using Motorola's 800-megahertz digital system, which came with a $54.8 million price tag that later rose to $62 million. 

Motorola's system promised to be better in almost every way imaginable, offering, among other things:
_ Citywide coverage for portable radios carried by cops and firefighters.
_ Encryption technology that allowed cops and firefighters to talk on channels that criminals couldn't eavesdrop on.
_ Better radio coverage inside buildings.
_ Interoperability, a mechanism that would allow cops and firefighters to communicate directly with one another in event of a disaster. 

“But complaints arose immediately from cops and firefighters on the street.

The digital system, which used a computerized controller to assign talk space to users as it became available, had a major downside: If a bunch of cops or firefighters all tried to use their radios at the same time during an emergency, they heard busy signals, called "bonks." 

“On the bitterly cold night of Nov. 13, 2007, a veteran Highway Patrol officer was the first to reach one of the shot cops, who had a bullet lodged in his hip. For 30 nerve-wracking minutes, he used his Motorola police radio to try to talk to other officers while he transported the wounded cop. Silence. 

For 15 minutes, another cop racing from North Philadelphia to the shooting scene used her radio to find out what was going on. Silence. Finally, she used her cell phone.”

"Every cop in the street has a question in his or her mind about whether the radios will work or not when they really need it to," said the FOP's McGrody. The two undercover narcotics cops were wounded on Orthodox Street near Josephine in East Frankford on Nov. 13, less than two weeks after Officer Chuck Cassidy was fatally shot interrupting a robbery in West Oak Lane. 

“Then those two officers were shot, and we had a female officer who was trying to get out there from North Philadelphia, McGrody said. "For 10 to 15 minutes, she couldn't broadcast on her radio. She had to use her cell phone twice to call other officers to find out what was going on out there." 

At the shooting scene, the veteran Highway Patrol officer had already reached one of the wounded cops and planned to rush him to nearby Frankford Hospital-Torresdale. "For 30 minutes, during an extremely critical time, he was unable to get through.”,  McGrody said, the frustration growing in his voice. "At that time, most of us were at Temple University Hospital, where the other officer had been taken. We knew we had another shot cop, but we had no idea where he was because that radio malfunctioned." 

FOP's McGrody  - "I am sick and tired of this pattern of trying to blame officers for radio malfunctions/'McGrody said. "It's actually insulting to continually blame the problems on firefighters and cops."  Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Gaittens insisted that the system functions well overall. Read that last quote again.  Sound familiar?

Deadly “Dead Spots”!

Excerpts from Louisiana’s The Times-Picayune, an article regarding a “shoot out” situation:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2013/05/st_john_deputy_shootings_testi.html

The St. John Parish Sheriff's Office uses an 800 MHz Motorola radio communication system [my emphasis] that functions on high and low band frequencies. The Sheriff's Office is able to communicate with the St. John Fire Department, but only on certain channels; deputies are unable to communicate directly with the parish, or with first responders from surrounding areas.

 Deputy Michael Scott Boyington lay flat in his patrol car, dazed and bleeding from the four bullets that had torn into his body just seconds before. He had seen the muzzle flash from the truck window, felt the searing pain that followed.

Now, ahead of him, the truck's brake lights were a fiery red. Were they coming back for him? To finish him off?

Boyington's hand was on his radio, moving the dial, hoping to hear the familiar chirping sound of a connection.

Nothing.

For the third time that morning, Deputy Boyington's police radio had failed him.

"I heard loud pops,'' he recalled. "My back windshield broke out. I heard - I saw a muzzle flash coming from the passenger side of the vehicle. I felt a very intense burning sensation in my shoulder. I knew I had been struck. They kept shooting."

As he lay as flat as he could in his police car, shocked and bleeding, Boyington tried to be still, peering over the dashboard as the truck's taillights down the road came to a stop in front of him. Again, he tried to dial the radio - and for the third time that morning, it failed him.

"The vehicle is sitting there with its brake lights on and I'm trying not to move," Boyington said. "I don't know whether they're going to come back and try and finish me off or what. I tried grabbing my radio and tried to get something over to headquarters again. I don't get anything. The pickup truck then proceeds southbound on Bayou Steel Road. And at that point, I didn't know whether help was going to come or not, since I wasn't able to get in contact with headquarters."

The truck, meanwhile, sped to a nearby trailer park, where authorities have said Brian Smith and Joekel later shot and killed Deputies [my addition] Nielsen and Jeremy Triche, and injured Jason Triche.

As the legal proceedings continue for the group accused of shooting Boyington and three other St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff's deputies last August, killing two of them, testimony in a preliminary hearing has spotlighted something deputies in the parish have known for a long time: Throughout St. John, there are areas where emergency radios cannot snag a signal from the sky.