the BLAH-G

Good Morning !

May this morning bring you a better outlook on life, crispier cereal and an 800 Mhz Radio that’s filled with the ghost of the Energizer eBunny.

I’m writing this mini-edition of the Blah-g a little after Midnight on Thursday and the people that know me will actually believe when I say that I’ve been up for about 120 hours.

Straight.

What I am going to work on for this afternoon’s issue is money. Please allow me the opportunity to give you a little clue.

CLUE:

Not the money uncle Ralph, please not the Money !
Oh Yes Little Waldo, we must use all the money.
All the Money Uncle Ralph, please not all of it !
But Little Waldo, it’s only Twelve Million Dollars.

We can do without eating,
the older folks in this county don’t need electricity or heat,
The low income families don’t need help with their rent,
Blah blah blah-g !

//////\\\\\
Ok, here is where we are:

I started writing this issue a bit after midnight. I got hung up on “presentation” as I have to be careful as to what I can write about at the moment, I don’t want people to lose their jobs.

In fact I had to sleep on this whole issue.

What has me burning up is the amount of money that has been spent on this radio system already and the system isn’t even close to being finished !

How often to you hear that a system needs fixed when it is brand spankin’ new ?

STALEY COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED $12,000,000.00 FROM YOU AND THE OTHER RESIDENTS IN WESTMORELAND COUNTY !
(twelve million dollars and no sense)

PLUS A GRANT FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FOR ANOTHER $1,300,000.00 !
(one million three hundred thousand dollars and no sense)

PLUS ANOTHER GRANT FOR $ 300,000.00 for the mobile Command Center !
(three hundred thousand dollars and no sense)

WOW !

When I was in business years ago and I bid on a large job (lol - no where near this size) I would get paid half at signing, another quarter down the road when the project was near completion, then the Balance when the job was finished and all parties were satisfied with the contracted completed project.

STALEY COMMUNICATION WAS PAID IN FULL ALREADY, THE FINAL PAYMENT HAS BEEN MADE !

The job isn’t completed yet, why was the final payment made ?

I want to break this system down as far as equipment and prices. You have to realize that this will take time.

In Staley’s defense, they didn’t receive $13,600.000.00 in cash to go out and bet on the horses or to invest in Motorola Stock… they received $13,600,000.00 to purchase equipment and install it. Of course there were millions left in profit, how else do you think they stay in business (wow though, what a profit !).

I SPOKE TO CARMEN PEDICONE, the Westmoreland County Controller yesterday for about a half an hour, very nice gentleman. He was nice enough to open his books and share figures with me.

I was also able to unscramble this BLACKBERRY Cell Phone Thing with his help and this was another thing that just plain pissed me off.

We have purchased $3,500 - $5,000 radios for the Management of our Department of Public Safety so they can talk back and forth to 911 and each other.

These radios are hardly ever used.

Management did not get the model XTS-1500 that most of our firemen and policemen got, they got the MORE EXPENSIVE XTS-2500 series radios with more talkgroups and an LCD display. Reason unknown.

Then we buy them cell phones ! Why, reason unknown as they already have Expensive RADIOS.

NOW they trade in their cell phones for BLACKBERRYS (a very sophisticated cell phone named after a fruit) !

These BLACKBERRYS cost US another $149.95 each.

Five members of Management received these BLACKBERRYS.

MARK BRAMMELL – Deputy Director
RICH MATASON – Director
BOB CERONI – Deputy Emergency Management Coordinator
BILL FLEMING – Chief Training Officer, CLEAN/NCIC Administrator
DAN STEVENS – Addressing and Mapping

We also pay their NEXTEL cellular bills.

My monthly cell bill is around $100.00 so using that figure as a guideline WE in Westmoreland County are paying for the cell phone usage of these five (maybe more, I’m not done yet) county employees !

$500.00 a month for CELL PHONE USAGE when THEY ALREADY HAVE MOTOROLA XTS-2500 series RADIOS ? ( that’s $6,000 a year in case you need a calculator or a hammer to hit yourself in the head with ) PLUS the $749.75 we just paid so they could have PRETTIER LOOKIN’ PHONES !

That was about a $25,000 WASTE for their two way XTS-2500's that they don’t need sense they have now have BLACKBERRYS.

GEEEEESH !

Talk about COUTNY WASTE at the HIGHEST LEVEL !

In one of my earlier Blah-gs I pointed out how the Department of Emergency Management Wasted close to $500,000.00 by equipping each police and fire department with base radios and yagi style antennas.

Each portable radio has the ability to act just like a base station and that is a duplication of equipment.

I will continue to write about these subjects as more crap surfaces ! I have my BOOTS on !!

WHY OH WHY ?

Something has me Flumixed.

Some police and firemen believe that I, your humble Booger Blah-ger is attempting to get this new system taken away from you.

That is so far from the truth it makes me worry.

Is that what you think I spend all of my time on, screwing up your shiny new system ?

I am trying to get you a system that will work !

A Fire Chief called me yesterday and he told me that his system is GREAT ! He said he was on Route 30 about 10 miles away from where his company was at and he could hear them plain as day in this truck. He said he couldn’t do that with the old 33.52 Mhz system before.

I AGREE. The system is great when it is working. I have said that all along, but the system isn’t working all the time.

I ALSO AGREE THAT THIS SYSTEM CAN DO THINGS THE OTHER SYSTEM COULDN’T DO. But again, that’s when the towers are operating, the T1 phone lines are functioning, the system isn't overloaded and well, when it is working.

I have been attempting to politely POUND this into your head for well over 8 months, these are the Wrong Frequencies for use with our terrain.

Our 800 Mhz system is TOTALLY DEPENDANT on TELEPHONE LINE CIRCUITS (T1). If the T1’s go down, so does the system.

Since 800 Mhz is basically line-of-sight communications, and since Westmoreland County is not flat land (lack of direct line-of-sight), another system must be designed OR many additional towers and antennas must be erected and put into use.

This must be done quickly.

I am not the one to ask to see if there are any VHF frequencies available that could be used for our system, the area FCC frequency coordinator would be the one to ask however I am thinking there are.

The entire VHF Mobile Phone section is still open the last I looked. Remember those old mobile phones you use to see in doctors and business executives cars. Those ran on VHF frequencies but have now been replaced by those little Verizon and Sprint phones. Or if the doctor is REALLY RICH, they get a BLACKBERRY !

This Fire Chief that I was talking to said that his system is “different” and that his radios WOULD WORK if the telephone lines were cut.

So you see, HE IS MISINFORMED and COMPLETELY IN THE DARK on how this system works. I just hope and pray he doesn’t have to find out the hard way.

OK, enough for now but DO YOU REALIZE WITH I COULD BUY WITH ALL THOSE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ? THIRTEEN MILLION SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS !!

Let me throw in a MANAGEMENT DINNER for you today, since I stopped doing that for a few days:

911 MANAGEMENT DINNER

CAKE !

(who says you can’t eat it too ?)

DECODED
K3SAM
http://800.k3sam.com - EZ Guide to WC Radio, check out the audio clips!