The New York Police Department is spending $500 million on a new radio system it calls more reliable and secure. But the public will no longer be able to monitor what officers are doing minute to minute.
"At his office last month, Chief Beltran picked a Motorola MX-350 up off his desk. The clunky hand-held radio, roughly the size of a Chihuahua, was the same model he used in the 1980s when he joined the force.
The chief, a 38-year department veteran and longtime technology buff, knows every facet of the vast communications network and how it functions: A call from one of the 42,000 hand-held radios, or one of the 3,400 in boats, helicopters, patrol cars and other vehicles, is picked up by antennas throughout New York, then transmitted to a dispatcher, all in nanoseconds.
But the network was overdue for an upgrade, Chief Beltran said. The decades-old analog system used outdated copper wire circuitry that is susceptible to harsh weather and takes longer to repair."
If you go by the article, the answer is yes.
"At his office last month, Chief Beltran picked a Motorola MX-350 up off his desk. The clunky hand-held radio, roughly the size of a Chihuahua, was the same model he used in the 1980s when he joined the force.
The chief, a 38-year department veteran and longtime technology buff, knows every facet of the vast communications network and how it functions: A call from one of the 42,000 hand-held radios, or one of the 3,400 in boats, helicopters, patrol cars and other vehicles, is picked up by antennas throughout New York, then transmitted to a dispatcher, all in nanoseconds.
But the network was overdue for an upgrade, Chief Beltran said. The decades-old analog system used outdated copper wire circuitry that is susceptible to harsh weather and takes longer to repair."