
Homeland Security spent $430M on radios its employees don’t know how to use - Cbasedlifeform
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/homeland-security-spent-430m-on-radios-its-employees-dont-know-how-to-use/
======
Hoff
Radio programming is almost always local to and customized for the department
or agency or location, and the channel names and tags seemingly always vary.

Even in a system that's been architected with specific channel layouts,
there's almost always some weirdness somewhere, and some differences, and some
number of radios always seems to arrive mis-programmed and needs a trip back
to the radio shop, and this if the folks receiving the batch of radios are
paying attention and can afford the reprogramming. Not all do, or can, either.

Not all radio shops pay attention to what they're doing here, and even the
good shops can be using radio service software most charitably described as
atrocious.

And yes, anyone that thinks you can have _everybody_ on one of the mutual aid
frequencies is headed for trouble. The pile-ups are always massive. Add in
encryption and tone squelch (CTCSS, PL) and you might be stomping on the other
agencies without knowing it.

In a typical organization, you'd want your dispatcher(s) or communications
officer(s) or (if not delegated) one of the senior officers on the shared
channels.

Modern radios can be surprisingly complex tools, and the FCC migration to
trunked radios and digital trunked radios, and adding inter-operations
features (gazillions of channels, etc) and digital communications and
deadspots, and the over-the-air rekeying and reprogramming, emergency
button(s), and the seemingly obligatory remote kill can all combine to makes
your average high-end radios hairy.

Certainly various radio users don't regularly train with and aren't familiar
with the "odd-ball" channels; the "national" and mutual aide frequencies can
have different names, or weird local oddities, and many of the end-user folks
are often trained to stay off the other channels.

Training is certainly part of this, and of using the radios correctly.
Conversely, you're probably not expecting the folks to be picking random
channels. In the newer radio systems, you can be told (by dispatch or by your
supervisor) which channel to use, or dispatch can reprogram your radio and
your talk group(s) on the fly.

And as for training, every emergency services department I'm familiar with has
been chafing under the political and technical and documentation requirements
arriving from outside entities; blanket mandates requiring time and thought
and budget for stuff that's probably never going to happen to a given
individual or agency, but the obligatory training and documentation
requirements pull the folks away from the stuff that they can and will be
dealing with. Like dealing with their radios. And delivering whatever service
the folks hired on to provide.

Yes, modern radios can be far more complex than it should be. So is the rest
of the mess.

Startup ideas here? Sure. The two-way radio version of a ruggedized iPhone; a
radio with a "modern" UI.

~~~
DTrejo
The iPhone version is called <http://Voxer.com> :)

~~~
Hoff
"Ruggedized" gear is a requirement here. Emergency services radios need to be
very solid, and very easy to use — you're always working on something else and
quite possibly life-threatening, and the radio is a tool.

If you can drop it, slam it, whack it, rain on it or even dunk it, cover it
with blood or vomit (and clean it), balance your weight on it on a stairway,
use it as a wheel chock (unintentionally) and (depending on the particular
users) operate it with your gloves on, then we'll talk.

For some users, you further need to allow for heavy gloves.

Or provide emergency buttons, or other features.

As great as it is, iPhone isn't close to providing this.

------
majorlazer
And this is one of the reasons I laugh when people try to tell me how the
"government" organizes all of those intricate conspiracies.

~~~
guimarin
It's a bit disingenuous to lump everyone in the 'government' together. It is
perfectly reasonable for the NSA to be conducting a massive illegal wiretap of
all digital communications for all persons on the planet creating 'profiles'
for each digital communication and linking them together with a myriad of
other systems AND for the DHS to not know how to communicate on their radios,
let alone encrypted. You must consider the underlying competency of the group
which could perpetrate a 'conspiracy' when considering the validity of that
conspiracy. And the 'government' is little more than a feudal system that
loosely works together sometimes.

~~~
majorlazer
I actually do agree with you, especially your last sentence. Certain groups in
the government are very organized and they are definitely capable of some of
the conspiracies that go around. The problem, in my experience, is most
conspiracy theories/theorists accuse this non-existant, single entity called
the "government," which is so organized and has control over everything that
goes on. If you take 9/11 for example, how many different groups of the
government would have to be involved to pull something like that off? I just
don't see how it would be possible to have so many people keep their mouths
shut, have different departments work together, while pulling off one of the
most horrific attacks on the USA.

Wire-tapping and creating digital profiles on the other hand is something that
I can totally see happening since nobody is really getting "hurt" and you can
split up the work between different groups of people that really have no idea
what they are working on. But I do not see something like that happening to
satisfy some end-goal like gaining control of the public. I don't think we
humans can organize that well. There are too many groups with their own
interests in mind to be able to unite an entity as big as our government (or
parts of it) to pull off most of the conspiracies that go around.

~~~
RollAHardSix
"how many different groups of the government would have to be involved to pull
something like that off?"

Why does everyone say this? You create 'terrorists'; have them hi-jack a
plane, and crash it. It really takes what, 50 people MAX, including the
terrorists. One Mission Planner, however many terrorists...a few benefactors,
some intelligence guru's; and that's pretty much it. Maybe a guy or two
planted to interfere with birds going up to shoot down the planes but even
that is a bit questionable as to 'needing'.

Everyone wants to say that oh the NYPD would have had to have been involved
and the fire department would have known...noooo...they reacted as they
normally would.

Not saying I really believe it was an act by my own government...or fine,
_part_ of my own government; but I just wanted to point out that not everyone
and there mother would have been involved...really just a few guys and gals in
the grand scheme of things.

~~~
aeturnum
>Why does everyone say this?

Because the most popular theories about 9/11 conspiracies are never as simple
as you outlined. I think a small group did plan and carry out the attack, and
a part of the US government is just as capable of doing that as Al-Qaeda.

But once you start adding extra details (the buildings had explosives, the
pentagon got hit by a missile, etc), the number of people you need "in on it"
starts to climb. That is why so many people point out the huge headcount of
the supposed conspirators.

------
thechut
I wonder what lucky contractor supplied those radios... Surprised there is no
mention of that in the article.

~~~
fotbr
Most likely it's Motorola Solutions providing the hardware, although there's
probably some 8A business playing middleman to collect their guaranteed
contracting dollars.

Everyone likes to bag on the big contractors, and not without reason, but if
you really want to raise your blood pressure, look at the rules, laws, and
entitlements regarding 8A contracting. We've had to deal with middlemen that
took 10% simply to get a fax from the gov't, and pass it on to the hardware
vendor (also on the GSA schedule), who then shipped directly to the gov't. 10%
of a quarter million dollar order for receiving a fax, and faxing it onward,
because as a small business who meets all the contracting requirements,
they're guaranteed a certain amount of federal payola, simply for existing.

There was a lot of joking about forming our own businesses, BOFH style
(translation: our fax machine and office is co-located at the local pub), to
cash in on that gravy train.

~~~
hollerith
Definition of 8A:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Business_Administration#8...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Business_Administration#8.28a.29_Business_Development_Program)

------
polarcuke
Yeah, this seems like pretty typical misuse of government money. Even if these
radios are an effective investment why wouldn't they spend a couple million
more and train the employees responsible for using them? It's pretty
ridiculous in my opinion.

~~~
usea
Because the official who gets credit for the bullet-point on some report
doesn't gain anything from the training. The incentive is only to be able to
brag about having led the initiative on communication in their department.

(100% cynical conjecture; I'm sure the reality is much more nuanced)

------
nthitz
Can you imagine 123,000 people all trying to converse on one common channel?
Maybe this is for the better!

~~~
derleth
> Can you imagine 123,000 people all trying to converse on one common channel?

Yeah, I can imagine AlohaNet and WiFi. ;)

------
Zenst
Who buys that level of new equipment/technology without user training, just
silly. Whoever sold it also probably should of sold training or bundled
something in beyond the manual.

Now we don't know all the facts and probably what happened was they did put a
tender for the radios and training to use those radios. One way or another be
it budgets or somebody doing a cheaper training bid though starting later
after the radios are delivered or whatever permutation of events. They ended
up with radios there users are unable to use. Why they are unable to use them
again is not detailed and I can imagine many on here who would love that
challenge to work out how to use a new peace of technology.

There is also the prospect that they got training and it was either not very
good or clearly not targeted at the level of customer understanding.

With all that if these chaps landed planes then it would get rather dangerous
too fly. Worrying thought perhaps.

~~~
johnrgrace
I've seen two fortune 500 companies do exactly the same thing with ERP
systems. The projects were over budget so they cut the user training, no one
used the system beecause they didn't know how.

~~~
dm8
Really? That lacks every bit of common sense. Also, how folks (in fortune 500
companies) justify these decisions to their bosses?

~~~
johnrgrace
Yes, it does lack common sense but they were companies (publishing,pharma,
resources) where current profits are driven by investments made decades ago by
investments into assets that only one firm can own. Plus one had 34 employee
grades plus another 12 for execs, that the system was a major failure was
invisible to the exective class.

------
hnriot
It's not exactly rocket science picking the right channel, I am more
disappointed that the people we hire for DHS jobs can't figure out how to work
a radio. I would bet that the radios are commodity hardware and the manuals
are online.

I'm also more than a little worried that each radio costs $3500 when even
milspec radios don't cost that much. I'm sure a simple FRS/GMRS radio with
scrambler chip would have sufficed, and those retail at around $30 each.

~~~
blhack
How much do milspec radios cost?

I was pretty surprised to find out what "high end" walkie-talkies go for. This
year at burning man, a couple of DPW girls were hanging out in our dome and
one my my camp-mates started oggling their radios.

"Oh! Wow, I sell radios and those things are like $2000!" or something like
that.

This is what a bunch of dirty hippies are using to talk to each other in the
desert. I'd imagine what the Department of Homeland Security uses is probably
even more expensive.

------
ck2
Think of all the millions of people looking for jobs in this country, there
might actually be some slightly more intelligent folks to replace that 120k or
so.

But I guess the only good side of this is THEY WILL NEVER HAVE TO USE THEM,
it's theater.

$430000000/123000 = $3,500 per radio, which is also insane.

~~~
fotbr
"The $430 million paid for radio infrastructure and maintenance as well as the
actual radios."

It's not $3500 per radio.

~~~
ck2
I wonder if you could buy your own encrypted mini-cellphone network for $430M

\- given government markup, I have to assume the answer is "yes".

------
Cbasedlifeform
Your tax dollars at work. Not.

~~~
aioprisan
Can't wait to see the federal government run healthcare as well

~~~
danudey
Except that the government already has a health care plan. And it's pretty
amazing.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/why-cant-we-
ha...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/why-cant-we-have-health-
b_b_231644.html)

Fortunately the government isn't expanding that; it's just mandating that
insurance companies give health insurance to more people, and that employers
do the same. They're not providing a public option.

~~~
ars
> And it's pretty amazing.

No it's not. It's the most horrible thing I've ever experienced.

You have Part A, B, D, with an option for C. Then for D you need to go to a
3rd part to actually get the coverage, and for A and B you can pay for Gap
coverage, from yet another 3rd party.

Or switch to C and cancel all the rest. Except of course for when you don't
cancel them and instead combine it with some of them.

Then there is PACE which replaces part D, except when it doesn't and you need
both of them. And depending on your income you might actually need PACENET
with a different set of rules.

Medicare is an incomprehensible MESS. There are people who's entire job is
simply to understand Medicare and help people with it.

And I'm sure I've missed a whole slew of other programs.

In contrast private insurance: Pay your premium to one company. Done.

