As the deadline for narrow banding comes closer, the horror stories related to this required change intensify. Worse yet, as government at all levels is forced to cut back on services, reducing work force, and delaying needed projects, the old traditions of squander and waste continue.
Case in point. We recently received notice that one of our ambulance customers was required to convert their radios to narrow band in order to continue communications with county dispatch. How much notice did we have? THREE DAYS and that was on a Thursday meaning that the work had to carry on into the weekend. This could have been done much less expensively with good planning and communications. As it turned out, the customer was financially penalized for lack of advance notice from the county dispatch center
A more graphic example is the case of the county communications dispatch center that relies on good old "xx", the local radio man who always takes care of them. He takes care of them by CHARGING the 911 board for helping them plan a migration to narrow band. The 911 director REFUSED to hear proposals from anyone other than good old "xx" even though we perform such services at no charge.
Here's another gem! In another county, the local 2-way shop charges $35 per radio for narrow banding, which is highway robbery compared to the rates of other service providers. The customers have no choice since this service shop, the champion of reducing cost to the consumer, takes care of their customers by password protecting their radios. This assures that unauthorized personnel cannot make unauthorized programming changes. The tragedy is that they don't throw him out and get competitive bids for service.
