Nextel Radio's

[ValleyOne]

I know a couple of you folks have remarked on the use of Nextell's with a shoulder mic. How the heck does this work? Please explain, my concern is having the dang little pHone light up everytime I hit the PTT and then I am glowing in the dark letting everyone know where I am.

Also, is it possible to set up the Nextell so that you can use the Group Cal or whatever it's called only by hittitng the PTT, ot prior to your shift start do you hve set the phone up each and every time? Please ellucidate on this contraption...

WHAT THE DUECE?!?

[CorpSec]

We didn't have much luck with Nextel's for the officer staff. I am issued a Nextel as a member of management, but it stays on my desk and I carry a radio since that is waht the officers carry.

I know Davis002 on here carries one and one of my old jobs still has them. We used them at my current job and there were a lot of pluses, but at the end of the day, there were just too many places where we could not get reception to make them worthwhile.

I am sure someone we chime in with how they work. I am assuming the PTT button on the should mic just goes to the last place you called. I don't know if the phone lights up or not but I suppose that may be a consideration in certain situations. I am sure there are holders that would eliminate this concern however.

[Lawson]

We had Nextels until today. As far as "Glowing" if you go into settings, you should be able to turn off the backlighting.

[OccamsRazor]

We had Nextels until today. As far as "Glowing" if you go into settings, you should be able to turn off the backlighting.

Until today?

[Lawson]

We have since dumped them for these Verizon LGs.

Nextel's service sucked in our Facility so theres lots of times we'd be sitting in the office missing calls. Our Nextels would beep whenever we went into service, but never beeped when they go out of service. So you could walk into a dead spot, and sit there for 3 hours waiting for a call, and never get one, then get up to go use the bathroom and "Beep!" then you get an onslaught of "Where have you been?!" calls.

[Arff312]

We use the nextels on group. It is the same as usinga regular radio. Workeds great. They are set up to go to group when the PTT is used. I do have one of those speaker microphones and it works great if there is anything else u want to know let me know.

[midnitepatrol]

My boss has us on the nextell, but he refuses to use the group mode on them because it costs more money, so whenever you are in a fight you have to fight the suspect, find the number of the officer you are trying to reach, then hit the ptt and get a hold of some one, all while still trying to fight the suspect, then if some one else is in trouble and they are trying to get ahold of one of us and we are talking they cant even get through to tell us, the phone just beeps back at them.I think we have pretty much convinced him to go back to the radios.

[ValleyOne]

How much does it cost to run a few of these? It is starting to look like the only these things have is the privacy. But that seems like a trade off for safety if you have to scroll the call list.

I thought that the group call thingy was free??

ARFF; does the phone/radio have a port for a ear piece?

[junkyarddog]

My boss has us on the nextell, but he refuses to use the group mode on them because it costs more money, so whenever you are in a fight you have to fight the suspect, find the number of the officer you are trying to reach, then hit the ptt and get a hold of some one, all while still trying to fight the suspect, then if some one else is in trouble and they are trying to get ahold of one of us and we are talking they cant even get through to tell us, the phone just beeps back at them.I think we have pretty much convinced him to go back to the radios.

We have nextells also. I would rather have radios (for a million good reasons) but we make due. What we do is make DISPATCH the phone that the PTT goes to with only a single click of the PTT button.

Dispatch knowing where every S/O is at all times, if we PTT and simply yell "911!", he dispatches another mobile patrol unit to the location and then calls the actual police to request assistance/report crime in progress at that location. We also use and enforce the "5 second" rule. Dispatch can't have their cell tied up for more than 5 seconds at a time. Conversations longer than 5 seconds have to be held over the dispatch land line.

[davis002]

I know a couple of you folks have remarked on the use of Nextell's with a shoulder mic. How the heck does this work? Please explain, my concern is having the dang little pHone light up everytime I hit the PTT and then I am glowing in the dark letting everyone know where I am.

Also, is it possible to set up the Nextell so that you can use the Group Cal or whatever it's called only by hittitng the PTT, ot prior to your shift start do you hve set the phone up each and every time? Please ellucidate on this contraption...

WHAT THE DUECE?!?

This is exactly what we use. We use the Nextel i355 with speaker mics (light-duty rsm will run around $50, heavy-duty rsm will run around $125). The concern with the phone lighting up is, in my opinion, a non-issue. It's not that bright and you can disable it, but I don't recommend disabling it completely. You can set it up so the backlight will only stay on for a couple seconds after use.

Unfortunately, you cannot setup one-touch PTT for groups. All you have to do is make sure that you are still on that group when you start your shift. If someone private calls your radio, just go back to the group by selecting the group and hitting the PTT. The battery life is pretty decent. You can easily get a couple days between charges with moderate use.

A nice feature with the i355. Let's say you get a natural disaster that wipes out the Nextel service. The i355 has a feature called "Direct Talk". It's an off-network two-way radio system. The ranges are said to be up to 3.5 miles of clear coverage over water, 1.04 miles through trees, and 0.78 miles through buildings. Not very helpful is your radios are spread over a city, but if you are close (same site) it will help.

The i355 also has built-in GPS. Not a cheap service, but useful for patrol operations. All in all, it's not bad. It's digital and far more reliable than any 400 Mhz radio service.

[Taktiq]

I left a company about a couple months ago because of the nextels (ironically a company owned by a former police officer). To put it mildly, I say f*** them! Why?

-The time it takes to contact someone during an incident.
-Constantly losing signals.
-Problems contacting someone if they're having a "chat" with someone else.

I'd worked various different jobs, including security, where we utilized standard 2-way radios (mostly Motorola) and the only problem I ever encountered was a low/dead battery which could be easily changed out. One company I worked for used #1 as an open channel which everyone could hear and supervisors(on patrol)/dispatch monitored. #2 would be a secure channel in case supervisors or dispatch wanted to talk to you, etc.

I say all SO's should boycott being issued nextels. I can't tell ya how many times I tried to call out a simple 10-8 when I started a shift and found I couldn't raise a single person....what if I had needed help? Nextels are potentially dangerous IMO.

[davis002]

I left a company about a couple months ago because of the nextels (ironically a company owned by a former police officer). To put it mildly, I say f*** them! Why?

-The time it takes to contact someone during an incident.
-Constantly losing signals.
-Problems contacting someone if they're having a "chat" with someone else.

I'd worked various different jobs, including security, where we utilized standard 2-way radios (mostly Motorola) and the only problem I ever encountered was a low/dead battery which could be easily changed out. One company I worked for used #1 as an open channel which everyone could hear and supervisors(on patrol)/dispatch monitored. #2 would be a secure channel in case supervisors or dispatch wanted to talk to you, etc.

I say all SO's should boycott being issued nextels. I can't tell ya how many times I tried to call out a simple 10-8 when I started a shift and found I couldn't raise a single person....what if I had needed help? Nextels are potentially dangerous IMO.

The problems you noted are problems with policy and service coverage. We get far better reception and service coverage than any traditional radio service available on the market. It sounds like you were not utilizing the group talk feature, which can be used as a "dispatch". Your company should of reminded everyone that the radios are not to be used for idle chatter.

[Taktiq]

The problems you noted are problems with policy and service coverage. We get far better reception and service coverage than any traditional radio service available on the market. It sounds like you were not utilizing the group talk feature, which can be used as a "dispatch". Your company should of reminded everyone that the radios are not to be used for idle chatter.

The problem was that SUPERVISORS would be chit-chatting with dispatch or even the owner (where's my 10-90 check?!). As far as utilizing various features, I never could find group talk...found a Tetris demo though, yay!...and I had to learn how to use the dang thing while in the field.

[davis002]

The problem was that SUPERVISORS would be chit-chatting with dispatch or even the owner (where's my 10-90 check?!). As far as utilizing various features, I never could find group talk...found a Tetris demo though, yay!...and I had to learn how to use the dang thing while in the field.

That's the problem... without "Group Talk" the Nextels are nothing more than a cell phone.

[badge212]

Policy and service issues aside it is unfortunate for us you can't walk over each others transmissions. Normally this is a good thing but when someone is transmitting on the group channel and you need to break in during an emergency it can be a big problem especially in a hospital.

It's also proved a problem that each hospital in our region is on a different type of radio system, not just frequencies. Most use regular motorolas but some (like us) use nextels. Now that the regional advisory committee is trying to make an intra agency communications link rather than having a unified frequency (Which would work if we all used radios) some have to buy into a radio system in addition to their nextels.

to quote davis002 "The i355 has a feature called "Direct Talk". It's an off-network two-way radio system. The ranges are said to be up to 3.5 miles of clear coverage over water, 1.04 miles through trees, and 0.78 miles through buildings. Not very helpful if your radios are spread over a city, but if you are close (same site) it will help