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How many years or months are we away from rebanding and when will my Uniden BC245XLT stop working.
Anyone have any idea when Uniden will post a upgrade to the BC246T for the firmware to recieve the new reband.

The present schedule calls for all rebanding to be completed by end of June 2008. So far, the FCC has not shown any interest in moving that date.

Best I can do on the life of your scanner is to say it will work until the systems you wish to monitor are rebanded. At this time, that will be on or before end of June 2008.

Sorry, too many unknowns to be any more specific at this early date.

Wiz

So I guess my "Things To Do List" will look like this: Number 1 -- Look for a NEW HDTV set, Number 2 --- Buy a NEW Digital / Narrow Band -- 300 - 400 Mhz, 700 Mhz, rebanded 800 mhz Compatible Scanner, and Number 3 --- Clean out and re-stock the old Bomb Shelter. :D :D :D MTM

Keep your list flexible- you may want to reverse 2 and 3.

Wiz

Roger - Wilco. LOL

Ok, you guys are just too funny! :)

Wiz, question - when rebanding happens, will all the radios operating in the King County TRS have to be replaced? Just wondering, as this seems like a tremendous task, given that there are like 6000+ radios in the system? I hope King County won't have to pay for that!

Also, I hear that frequencys in the 851-861 range won't be changing - but the ones that are in the 866-869 range are the ones being rebanded. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the KC TRS use frequencies that stray into both those frequency groups? If that's the case - then will you guys just have to change SOME of your frequencies - but not all? I.E. you'll get to keep the lower range ones but have to switch the higher range ones? Just curious...

By the way, thanks for your participation on the board. It's really great having someone of your stature here!

The rebanding process will require us to swap out all of our C & E series spectras, MTX-820'S, LCS, AND LTS. They are considered legacy equipment by Motorola. Since there is no product support left to rewrite the firmware for the radios( if the radios could take it ), they must be replaced.

The MCS, MTS, W Spectra, XTS 1500, 2500, 5000, MT1500, HT-1000, XTL 1500, 2500, and 5000 will need to be flashed and reprogrammed at least once.

The system is now upwards of 14000 radio, so it will be a little daunting. I don't mind. I get paid by the hour.

We're also going to have to coordinate with SERS, Tacoma/Puyallup/Lakewood, Boeing and the Port of Seattle, so that the ability for mutual aid is not lost.

The channel mix will be very intersting. The "simple" solution is that the NPSPAC (866 - 869) portion of the band will be moved. You subtract 15 MHz from your current freq, and there you go. The bandwidth for the new NPSPAC channels will be 20 KHz instead of the 25 KHz. THat is part of the reason that the scannners will ned upgrading. The other issue for scanners will be in the way Motorola will assign channel numbers on the control channel.

Some really good sources of info for the whole project can be found at http://www.800ta.org . Motorola's rebanding page is good also. Can't find the URL right now.

The best part for the taxpayers, is that Sprint Nextel is on the hook for all replacements, installs, programming, and tunings.

The final curveball will be the treaty with Canada. Until some sort of agreement is worked out with our friends to the north, we really cannot move ahead.


I got 5 bucks says that Wiz goes gray.......

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I generate Board Warnings

Sean made some good points. Sprint-Nextel is on the hook to pay ALL costs associated with rebanding, including government payroll and benifits. So, this will be done at no cost to the taxpayers.

Of the 14000+ on the king County-wide system, I would guess 2/3 or more will need to be replaced. The rest will need to be re-flashed and/or reprogramed. The other systems have mostly newer radios and will probably only need to be re-flashed/reprogramed. Still, a huge effort.

I would say all of the frequencies will be changed.

All this must be done while keeping the system operational!!

It will be interesting and challenging. But, we have some excellent technical people working on the 4 systems and I have no doubt we can pull it off.

Wiz

Wow - incredible. Well good luck! And thanks for keeping us informed. Very interesting stuff. It will be fascinating to see how it all plays out over time. And thanks again for your participation on the board!

P.S. - "4 systems"? Arn't there 3? (Seattle, EPSCA, KC/VC)

(Maybe you're growing!) :wink:

Seattle, King County, EPSCA and VCC are treated as one system since they have the same Zone Controller and system ID. Each of them is treated as one subsystem of the Zone.

When we talk about the 4 system interop, we mean the Port of Seattle, Tacoma, Sno County as well as Boeing sometimes. (They have really big cool looking fire trucks that play with the local fire depts. Gas Tanker fires ring a bell ?)


We have set up the public safety users so that they may access other systems talkgroups for mutual aid. A Sno County Mountie could talk on Tacoma's system to Lakewood if he needed to. Therefore, all of our systems must be at the identical software revs during rebanding. (That would be Wiz's problem) That is why we must coordinate between the 4 systems as it were.

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I generate Board Warnings

Very good info, Sean/Wiz -- much appreciate the insights. I'm not faced with scanner obsolescence problems, so much as I am with the prospect of hacking the Trunker code that I ported to my receiver controller several years ago. I didn't really understand the code back then, so adapting it for the new band plan is not going to be fun!

I'm still holding out hope that it'll be a simple matter of remapping the existing channels to new frequencies. I can do that on the client side. If not, I'll probably just have to wait and see what the Trunker maintainers do, and follow suit.

John, if I could understand half of what you say, I'm sure I'd be making more money then I am now!

I gave the City of Seattle kudos and a pat on the back for -- selling radios to the media, tow truck operators, private security and the general public. From what's been posted -- there could be alot of un-happy customers -- unless Nextel picks up the tab to re-place all of those radios as well. Has anyone counted the number of "private -- non-public safety" radios that might have to be replaced ???

If you want the gritty details, read this PDF file about the transition.

http://www.800ta.org/content/PDF/reconf ... viewFS.pdf

SPRINT/Nextel will cover ALL expenses for any licensee that is affected by the transition.


-Nick