Digital Radio Problems

[njslim]

Prince William County's fire department, through further tests, concluded that digital portable radios are "extremely vulnerable to poor environmental conditions and interference of digital noise from ambient sources, which negatively impact the ability of emergency personnel to effectively communicate."

http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?id=58930&sectionId=46

Previous is from FIREHOUSE.COM article outlining one departments problems
with digital radio leading to fatal incident. Many "twofers" and some others
blame former mayor Rudolph Guiliani for the communications problems
suffered by the FDNY on Sept 11. In April 2001, the FDNY issued new
Motorola digital radios only to recall them month later and reissue older
analog radios. Digital radios suffered spate of problems including interference
blocking out emergency transmissions.

In fact my department is having our radios reprogrammed with PL tones
on Chief officer radios to prevent interference from multiple transmissions
from stepping on their transmissions.