Issue 3, 2009
Tait Radio Communications selects RFI for New Zealand Police Project
Tait Radio Communications recently selected RFI as its partner for a range of base station equipment for use by the New Zealand Police Force (NZP).
The NZP needed to move from a dated nationwide conventional analogue network to a trunked digital P25 solution. Starting with the main urban centres, the goal is for the network to extend across the entire country. Policing across a massive variety of terrain, the NZP uses an array of vehicle types and co-operates with a wide range of government agencies and other emergency services.
Ian McKee, Tait Communications Solutions General Manager, says the introduction of the secure P25 trunked radio network is a major change to Police’s radio infrastructure and requires a considerable amount of work to implement. The network consisted of 250-300 different VHF sites in the 70MHz band (490MHz UHF in the cities) transitioning to a similar number of 140MHz trunked sites, and 490MHz trunked sites for cities.
“It involves not only replacing the radios which officers use, but also updating the backbone equipment which runs the Police radio network nationwide. Tait worked closely with long time technology partner RF Industries to ensure the success of this first phase.”
RFI have been designing class leading antenna systems for 30 years and have, in more recent times, developed a range of products with digital systems in mind. RFI is now positioned as a world leader in design of low PIM (passive intermodulation) antenna systems as required by TETRA and P25 protocols.
Christine Lewis, Operations Manager at Tait Radio Communications says “RFI have a long history with Tait and has once again shown they have the ability and understanding of our requirements when rolling out digital networks – with particular emphasis on reducing Passive Inter-Modulation. RFI supplied a range of high performance VHF and UHF base station antennas, combining equipment and multi-couplers exclusively for this project. With their long standing history in the wireless industry and proven ability to supply mission critical digital compatible systems, clearly RFI was the obvious choice.”
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