"aemeijers" wrote in message
...

snip

Did the article say if the base was working with the locals, to maybe
fine-tune reality a tad, and move their transmitter to a freq that would
cause less problems, or reorient the transmitting antenna? They aren't
obligated to, but base commanders hate having the locals all ****y
with them. They have done that at some bases, to include providing the
local media with how-to guides about moving the antenna wire in the
garage and such.

aem sends...


the base is under no obligation to do anything. some base commanders
have chosen to create more trouble for themselves by attempting to
accomodate the "locals". they then discover the cost associated with
any "mitigation" strategy to be cost prohibitive.

there is no one single "transmitter". there are several - these are
Motorola digital APCO P25 trunking systems. a "control channel" is
continously transmitting 24/7. the other transmitters will key up
to carry voice traffic as needed (as assigned by the central controller,
the "brains" of the system).

it is NOT a simple process to modify the frequency bandplan due to
the domino effect on the rest of the system. trunking central controllers
would need to be reprogrammed, databases changed, subscribers (ie. the
hundreds of portable walkie talkies and mobiles in the field) would need
to be bought in and reprogrammed, and RF transmit combiners would need
to be retuned. These are NOT simple tasks !

"reorienting" an antenna is not going to work either. the coverage
on these systems is OMNI directional (ie. we strive to provide a perfect
circle, if possible). the typical goal is 95% coverage for a portable.
in practice, we can usually achieve numbers greater than that.

now, if a spineless base commander wants to pay the several hundred
thousand dollars to do a new engineering study and then the actual
man hours involved in implementing a frequency change (that they are
under ZERO obligation to do), then i'm sure the vendor (Motorola) would
be more than happy to accomodate them - just show them the money !

however, it's unlikely any new frequency within the assigned govt.
spectrum will solve the problem. you're always going to have some
part 15 device affected.

the answer is better engineering on the consumer side (ie. move the
devices to another frequency band, and tighten up the front end
selectivity on the receiver).