This was going
to be an article about some rework that we did on one of our City Centre
MPT1327 Trunk Radio Systems, but in fact it becomes testament to the longevity
of Motorola equipment and why purchasing Motorola equipment is good for you.
The year was
2002, just after we had finished the Commonwealth Games in Manchester. We were
left with 3500 Motorola GP680 radios and 10 sites with 90 channels of Fylde MPT
trunking and 90 (90!) Motorola MTR2000 base stations.
Amongst other
projects this was reconfigured to provide several City Centre trunk systems, 4
of which are still running today – an incredible 15 years later, still on the
original Motorola equipment!
The Birmingham
system was centred on the Pavilions shopping centre, which housed 3 channels,
with Motorola MTR2000, aerial facilities combining, and the Fylde Multisite
Controller, one site controller, one PCM switch and two E1 cards.
This was linked
via 2 E1 lasers, one pointing at Alpha Tower, the other at the Bullring, where
the other two 3 channel sites were located.
After 15 years,
the Pavilions shopping centre is being substantially remodelled to make room for
a massive Primark Store. As a part of the redevelopment, the plant room which
had the laser links on its roof and the system antenna is being demolished, although
the plant room which houses the Motorola base stations and Fylde controllers
remains. When we looked at relocating the laser links, we found that from any
viable new location we could not "see” Alpha Tower.
So, the plan
was to move the main Fylde Control kit to the Bullring, together with the 2 laser
links as Alpha Tower was visible from the Bullring. Essentially this meant
swapping the equipment at the Bullring for that at the Pavilions.
This is the
plant room that is going showing the laser links and antenna.
Retaining the
FSO laser links was important to our client, as there are no annual running
costs or fees for these, and apart from a few issues in foggy weather when the
top of Alpha Tower tends to be obscured, these have been trouble free for the
decade-and-a-half that they’ve been at work!
Our main issue
during the move was at the Pavilions - the lifts were not functioning here, and
all the equipment and tools had to be hand carried up and down 7 flights of
stairs!
5 days later it
was all done!
Re-sited laser
link and antenna at Pavilions.
Re-sited laser
links on the Bullring
Re-aligning the
link on Alpha Tower to cope with the move to the Bullring.
But back to the
real point of this tale… The 15 year old Motorola equipment is still 100%
functional and reliable as ever. It’s never had a soldering iron applied to it,
just a radio test set from time to time to check that it still meets
specification. It’s covered with dust and dirt but otherwise as good as new, so why buy new? Despite these base stations being a very high end expensive Motorola product when new, what’s
their true cost of ownership after nearly 16 years’ reliable use? Almost
nothing – the truth of this being that you get what you pay for. And it’s worth
investing in Motorola products for the long term, for that reason alone.
"Old beasts..."
A big thanks goes to Mike himself for taking pictures and writing this article, all whilst working on the job!
