Allegan County RFP #13074C 800 MHz Public Safety Radio System Replacement Services RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications - 3/3/2016 Below are County responses and clarifications compiled from questions received prior to the deadline for final question submission on 02/19/2016 not answered in the RPF and Scope of Work Clarifications posted on 02/09/2016 and 02/17/2016. Questions from EF Johnson: 1. 20-D Additional Insurance (Page 9): Commercial General Liability Insurance and Motor Vehicle Liability Insurance, as described above, shall include an endorsement stating the following shall be additional insureds: Allegan County, all elected and appointed officials, all employees and volunteers, agents, all boards, commissions, and/or authorities and board members, including employees and volunteers thereof. It is understood and agreed by naming Allegan County as additional insured, coverage afforded is considered to be primary and any other insurance Allegan County may have in effect shall be considered secondary and/or excess. At what point is the contractor responsible for county employees or politicians? Since employees, volunteers and elected officials are covered under the County s insurance program, the County feels it is prudent to require that they be named as additional insureds on any contract the County enters into. The insurance language applies throughout the term of the Agreement for any insurance related matter associated with the products and services being provided by the Contractor under the Agreement. 2. 1.1.1 Required in bid (Page 31): The new 800MHz system must provide at least 95% coverage available through the current system and continue to provide 95%VHF coverage available through the current system, assuming the VHF system remains in operation. After discussion with some of the Fire Officers in the County it has been expressed that the current system does not provide 95% portable coverage. How are we to maintain something that does not exist without enhancements? The current Harris VHF radio system was designed to provide 95% or better in-street coverage per the contract specifications. Following installation, signal strength was measured by an independent radio consultant to the County through a comprehensive drive test covering 1,758 miles of roadway within the County with no more than 1 mile spacing between roads from August 11 through 20, 2014. The signal strength was measured using a calibrated receiver connected to a Harris unity gain multiband antenna and feeding a Field Test 7 software system from Survey Technologies, Inc. 57,309 signal strength measurements were taken while conducting these drive test of which 56,723 test locations measured a signal strength greater than -85dbm indicating close to 99% coverage. The drive test data was utilized to develop the coverage maps included in the RFP. Those maps were verified by the consultant as an accurate depiction of the VHF radio signal coverage for Allegan County. Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 1 of 10
A map in PDF format of the test points and a shapefile of the test points and signal strength measurements (VHF Signal Strength Data 2014.shp) has been posted to the county website in ESRI shapefile format with the following projection - NAD 83, US State Plane Coordinates, Michigan South 2113 in meters. 3. 1.1.2 VHF System (Page 31): Provide Allegan County with plans and pricing for the optional replacement of all VHF infrastructure with digital P25 compliant VHF equipment including base stations and antennas at the six (6) VHF tower sites assuming a VHF system remains in operation. After narrowbanding in 2012, new VHF base stations were installed at the Wayland Tower and Laketown Tower at the end of 2013 for coverage enhancements and have the potential for re-use if determined feasible by the Proposer. The resulting new digital P25 compliant VHF system must provide at least the 95% coverage available through the current system. Due to the fact that the County just purchased a majority of narrow band mobiles and portables less than 3 years ago which are not P25, is it feasible to update the system to P25 but run in analog mode to be compatible with user equipment? 4. 3.1 P25 Compliance (Page 38): Contractor shall update existing P7300 portable radios as needed to be compliant with the new P25 radio system. This would be for approximately a dozen of these older model portable radios. When replacing over 300 portables, can these dozen radios be replaced instead of reprogramed so that all portables are the same? The vendor may give a highly competitive price to replace them if they want. 5. 3.4.2 Communications Equipment Sites (Page 44): The three (3) leased RF tower sites are Valley Tower, Laketown Tower, and Wayland Tower. At these leased sites Allegan County has shelters in place, it is desirable to stay with these leased sites as much as possible? The County has no specific need or desire to stay with these leased sites beyond their current use in supporting the existing radio system. If the proposed design for the new system does not require the use of these tower sites to provide the necessary coverage, these sites can be eliminated which would result in a cost savings to the County. Have the owners of the leased towers been contacted about building side by side antennas on the towers? Owners of leased towers have been informed of the general nature of this project and the likelihood that side by side antennas will be required during the cutover period which could last approximately 3-6 months. It will be the Contractor s responsibility to contact the owners to work out the details and coordinate all tower work. Who is responsible for extra lease space while construction and testing is ongoing? The Contractor is responsible. How long after system acceptance before old equipment needs to be removed from sites? Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 2 of 10
As mentioned in response to Question 5 and referencing RFP, Page 88, Section 5.10, County shall maintain ownership of all equipment, accessories, material, racks and other items found in County-owned or leased facilities until the new radio system is fully operational and the County authorizes the Contractor to dispose of the property. Once property is released to the Contractor, the Contractor agrees to follow the disposal instructions listed in Section 5.10.4. Authorization from the County to decommission old equipment is expected to follow immediately after final system acceptance at which point the Contractor is expected to remove the old equipment within 60 calendar days. 6. 3.5.10 Central Dispatch Backup Site (Pages 50-51): The present Allegan County Central Dispatch radio system backup to the prime/master site is a mobile command center with a repeater on it. County is considering establishing a fixed backup dispatch site with one (1) dispatch console at the Plainwell Police/Public Safety building, 119 Island Ave, Plainwell, Michigan, 49080. This site would be activated if for some reason the Central Dispatch facility because unusable for a prolonged period of time. During the tour there was confusion on the number of consoles (RFP calls for 1 dispatch reprehensive was talking up to 3). What is the true need at this site? Bidders should bid on one (1) back-up console as stated in the RFP. Are the back-up consoles to be identical to new primary consoles or operated off lap top computers? Bidders may bid on either an identical primary console or a lap top computer depending on which solution is most appropriate for their system, taking the space available at Plainwell back-up facility into consideration. Is the intention to run this site off a remote base station or a true back-up center with a microwave link tie in? The intent is to run this site off a remote base station, not have a true back-up center with a microwave link tie-in. 7. 3.7.2 Mobile Radios (Page 57): All mobile units shall be dash-mount, 10-watt audio external speaker, microphone, and include all accessories required for installation. A remote-mount option shall also be provided for mobile radios with self-contained control heads. Open air mobile units and all external headsets, microphones, and speakers shall be weatherproofed and suitable for outdoor installation. Control head mounting locations shall be subject to the approval of the particular end user agency being supplied. Mobile antennas and cabling to trunk or dash mounted units shall be supplied by the Contractor as part of this procurement, replacing any existing cabling and antennas. All installations, cabling, brackets, etc. shall be part of this procurement. Fire, EMS, and special purpose vehicles with intercoms shall be equipped with a water resistant external speaker and noise-canceling microphone. In addition, when required, pump control units with headsets and water resistant speakers shall be supplied. Mobiles for fire departments shall be connected to the headset intercom system (if applicable) currently in place on fire apparatus. (Page 58): Multiple control heads - Some vehicles require a front and rear control head. Currently majority of 800MHz radios are remote head, is the intention to keep them the same? Yes, the intention is to keep them the same. Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 3 of 10
There is a comment on remote heads being weatherproof, how many need weatherproof heads and are any of those dual heads? Currently the County has 6 mobiles with weatherproof heads, and these are installed in the Marine Patrol boats. With the comments on potentially swapping Fire to 800MHz is there an option for dual band radios due to the fact they still need to maintain VHF communications for interoperability with all adjoining counties? Or do both 800MHz and VHF radios need to be tied into the headset system with a switch for dual radios? The County is willing to exercise the option of dual band radios if a vendor opts to include them in their bid. 8. 3.7.3 Portable Radios (Page 58): With the comments on potentially swapping Fire to 800MHz is there an option for dual band radios due to the fact they still need to maintain VHF communications for interoperability with all adjoining counties? Yes, that is an option. 9. 3.7.4 Battery Chargers (Page 59): Each charger provided shall be tri-chemistry, capable of recharging Nickel Cadmium, Nickel Metal Hydride, and Lithium Ion / Lithium Polymer batteries. Why does the charger have to be Tri-chemistry when spec calls for Lithium batteries? The County wants tri-chemistry chargers. 10. 3.7.5 Pagers (Page 60): No P25 requirement on pagers, but rest of system requires p25? 11. 4.3 Coverage Reliability (Page 74): This means the County requires that 95% of the service area described herein shall exhibit the specified coverage resulting in a minimum DAQ value of 3.4 through the new 800 MHz system and the new or existing VHF radio system. If existing VHF system does not have 95% coverage how are we to maintain 95% coverage on existing system? As responded to in Questions 2, independently conducted signal strength testing indicates that the County has well over 95% VHF coverage. 12. 8.5.2 Emergency Response Times (Page 110): During the warranty period, the Contractor shall arrive on site to respond to an emergency event within two (2) hours of first alarm or notification of an issue. Is the 2 hour response time 24/7/365? Who identifies the start time ( within two (2) hours of first alarm or notification of an issue. )? Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 4 of 10
Start time is identified as either the time at which any radio system or tower facility alarm is activated to indicate an emergency condition or the time at which a support call from the County notifying the Contractor of an emergency situation is logged through the established support call process, whichever occurs first. 13. 8.9 Local Factory Authorized Service Center (Page 113): The County has and reserves the right to choose another contractor or service center to provide extended warranty service. If county choses a different contractor does that contractor then assumes the penalties in sections 8.5.2 & 8.5.3 for response time? If the County and the Contractor come to a mutual agreement on switching to another contractor or service center to provide extended warranty service, the original contract would be amended and the Contractor would still be responsible for the response time. If the County entered into a separate contract with another contractor or service center to provide extended warranty service, then the Contractor would no longer be responsible for the response time penalties. Questions from Motorola: 14. Question 1: Section # 3.0 (Page 3). For initial use of phase 1 technology, these three (3) multi-site 800 MHz frequencies can also be integrated into the County simulcast system to increase RF channel capacity. More RF channels will allow for more channel capacity and less congestion. Is a 10 channel simulcast system a requirement for vendors offering phase I radio system solution? No, it is not required, but would be preferred by the County. 15. Question 2: With the focus on interoperability with neighboring counties who are on MPSCS and discussion around ISSI, has Allegan County gotten approval from the state that ISSI will be allowed? The County has not approached any MPSCS leadership for MOU to implement ISSI with MPSCS, however, we believe the state will be receptive to ISSI connectivity for efficiency and is not expected to be an issue. 16. Question 3: Following up on the answers to questions. Assuming little to no dispatch intervention for agency interoperability and knowing multiple bands exist (i.e. VHF, 800, UHF), are dual band subscribers a requirement and if so for which agencies? No, dual band is not a requirement. If Fire stays on VHF and Law stays on 800 as proposed in the main offering, there lies an interoperability challenge with mandatory agencies at a subscriber level. Also Fire and MSP is another challenge for mandatory interoperability. Please Clarify. Continue patched radio through consoles in place, allowing interoperability. 17. Question 4: Section # 3.3.1 (Page 42). Per 7th bullet New microwave antennas and waveguide if needed. Is it permissible to reuse existing microwave dishes and waveguide as long as technical Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 5 of 10
specification is meet? Reuse poses a couple of challenges on frequency selection & deployment but reduces costs significantly if we can re-use some of the antenna systems if possible. No, the County wants brand new antenna systems. 18. Question 5: Section # 5.10 (Page 88). Will the legacy radios need to be decommissioned intact and in their perspective racks and taken out of the shelters to a county storage facility? Where is the facility located? Per the RFP, Page 88, Section 5.10.3 Although Allegan County does not intend to resell any decommissioned equipment, it reserves the right to keep any property instead of handing it over to the Contractor for recycling, salvage or disposal. Should this option be exercised, Allegan County shall notify the Contractor and establish a storage location for said items so that the Contractor can remove them from the active site(s) and complete the decommissioning process. Contractor shall decommission any equipment so identified in such a manner as not to lessen the resale value. The County shall be the sole recipient of cash from sale of assets identified in such a manner. Any monies otherwise recovered from the recycling or salvage process shall become the property of the Contractor. As such, bidders should formulate their proposals to decommission legacy radios and equipment as they see fit, anticipating that the County shall not desire to keep any of it. Any changes to the County s intent will be negotiated prior to entering into a contract or managed through a change order / amendment in which case the above requirements will apply to any equipment identified. We are not responsible for decommissioned legacy equipment to be operational after the units are powered down, decommissioned and delivered to final warehouse location. Any qualifying statements such as this should be included in the proposal. Will we be responsible for disposal of legacy decommissioned units? Yes, per the RFP, Section 5.10.4, The Contractor shall properly dispose of all decommissioned equipment, antennas, coaxial cables, packing material, old batteries and any other refuse from the commission/decommission activity associated with the P25 radio system. The Contractor assumes full responsibility for Allegan County RFP# 13074C 800MHz Public Safety Radio System Replacement Services 89 proper disposal of refuse generated by themselves and any contractors or sub-contractors they utilize. The Contractor shall provide the County with documentation detailing and confirming what, how and where refuse was disposed. The Contractor shall be held accountable in either civil and or criminal court for illegal dumping of County assets. This documentation should include, but not be limited to, clearly identifying what was taken, the date removed from site, the date disposed of, the name and address of disposal facility and documentation of acceptance from the waste facility or recycle center. The Contractor shall recycle where practical, but must recycle spent batteries and scrap metals. The Contractor shall ensure any hazardous materials are properly handled and disposed of; this includes, but is not limited to, beryllium tubes often used in radio final amps. The Contractor may elect to keep abandoned items but must report this to the County so that it has a complete record of disposal. Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 6 of 10
Will decommissioning need a separate trip for decommissioning only or will we be able to do final site audits and decommissioning when we perform the traffic migration? Authorization from the County to decommission old equipment is expected to follow immediately after final system acceptance at which point the Contractor is expected to remove the old equipment within 60 calendar days. If the Contractor is confident of final system acceptance, it may be possible to combine the trips. However, the Contractor accepts all risk, liability and cost for any workers idled if system acceptance is delayed and resulting authorization to decommission the old equipment is not given by the County. Will we be required to perform Cable Harvesting of legacy wiring (power, T-1, cat5 and other associated cabling in the overhead ladder rack)? Will we be required to re-zip-tie and dress the wires that are left above in ladder rack after legacy cables are decommissioned? Will be required to install a new #2 AWG ground wire with C-Tap and cut out the old decommissioned main ground? Yes, if installation of new #2 AWG ground wire with C-Tap is deemed necessary by the Contractor to meet RFP requirements. Contractors must also dig up, cut, remove and dispose of the old ground wires no longer in use. Will we be required to replace broken tiles from legacy racks that might pull up existing floor tiles when removing the legacy equipment? Will we be required to fill in old floor anchor holes left by legacy racks? 19. Question 6: Section # 9.9.3.1 (Page 122). Please provide the quantity break down of the 254 mobile radios. Upon review, it has been established that there are only 121 mobile radios used in the County for public safety of which: 119 are Remote Mount 2 are Dash Mount Included in the 121 mobile radios are: 4 Dual Head 6 Boat Mobiles 4 Ambulance Mobiles 4 Fire Truck Mobiles The total number of portables is 275. Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 7 of 10
Questions from Harris: 20. Question 1: Section # 1.1.1 (Page 31). Please provide the GIS boundaries for the shoreline, nearshore, beach and dune areas (below the highest inland dune crest). To assist proposers, the County has posted a zip file with GIS layers containing a polyline representing the Lake Michigan shoreline (Shoreline.shp) and a polyline representing the dune area below the highest inland dune crest (DuneExtent.shp). The southern half of the county has a single steep bluff running parallel to the shoreline. The northern half of the county has a more extensive dune field adjacent to the shoreline. The County does not have any GIS data representing the extent of the beach, but the beach has a fairly uniform width ranging between 20 and 100 feet running parallel to the shoreline. The near-shore area was not delineated as its boundary is not precisely known. However, it is defined as the near-shore area of water that will fall in a radio signal shadow from any existing or proposed towers that are included in the proposer s base bid. It will have a variable width depending on how far out into the water a radio needs to be before finding a line of sight back to the nearest tower antenna that is not obstructed by a dune. Both GIS layers are in ESRI shapefile format with the following projection - NAD 83, US State Plane Coordinates, Michigan South 2113 in meters. 21. Question 2: Section 2.3 (Page 37). Has the County licensed 700 MHz trunked radio channels for use in the system in question? If yes, please supply the frequencies associated with that license? No. 22. Question 3: Section 3, para 2 (Page 38). Please define the conventional (non-trunked) elements that would remain and need to be interfaced to after a new trunked radio system is deployed. Wayland EMS VHF High Band System. 23. Question 4: Section 3.4.2 (Page 43). The necessity of 700/800 MHz hardware severely limits antenna selection. Vendors may be forced to provide a less than optimum design. Please provide Vendors with information on why 700 MHz is a requirement if the proposed system is being designed for only 800 MHz use. If an 800 MHz Phase 2 design provides ample growth, is there a need for 700 MHz architecture? The County is removing all bid requirements and references specific to the 700MHz band from the RFP. Bidders should propose an 800 MHz system only instead of a 700/800 MHz system. 24. Question 5: Section 3.7.5 (Page 60). Are vendors required to include new pagers in their proposals? RFP, Page 31, third bullet asks bidders to Include pricing for new 800MHz pagers if available. Including a bid on VHF pagers is identified in the fourth bullet under Section 1.1.2 as an Optional Bid for the VHF System. 25. Question 6: Section 3.8.4 (Page 64). Is the NICE logging recorder employed by the County an IP logging recorder that will interface into modern LMR radio systems designed around modern IP network technology? Please include the model number and included features. Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 8 of 10
Hardware: HP DL580 Server with 16GB RAM and 1TB of available recoding capacity. Software: NICE Inform Version 7.0.3.66 software that supports IP Recording. 26. Question 7: Section 3.8.6 (Page 68). Please explain in detail the function of a Self-Repeat button for the dispatch console. A tool to simply and immediately play back radio traffic; in the event the dispatcher possibly missed, needs to clarify, or has emergency radio traffic to replay. 27. Question 8: Section 3.8.10 (Page 69). Please provide the functions of the CAD application in use to which vendors must integrate. The CAD application in use is the New World Systems Aegis solution. Vendor must describe available integration options and costs as part of their proposed solution. 28. Question 9: Section 6.2 (Page 91). Please confirm that the same five (5) members of the County s technical staff require both system administration and system maintenance training. 29. Question 10: Section 6.3 (Page 92). This section covers a broad range of subjects for a wide audience including primarily dispatchers, administrators, system managers, and technical staff. Can Harris assume that dispatchers will need console operational training, and training on fleet mapping, database management, use of network control and management system, etc. will be attended by the same five (5) technical staff members attending Radio System Management Training (Section 6.2)? 30. Question 11: Section 7.3.1 (Page 101). Bullet point 4 and 7 appear to be the same subject matter. Please clarify. Bullet point #7 is removed from the RFP as it was an accidental duplication of bullet point #4. 31. Question 12: Section 13.12.2.5 (Page 150). Please provide Allegan County s detailed land clutter/cover and terrain data that is not commercially available. To assist proposers, the County has posted a zip file with GIS layers containing the following: AC_LandUse_1996.shp: land cover/land use delineated from 1996 aerial imagery based on a modified Anderson land cover/land use classification scheme (Excel spreadsheet provides summary info on all land cover/land use classifications contained in the dataset. 2009_Allegan Co_DEM.shp: Mass points representing elevation across the county. Metadata file contains specifications. Both GIS layers are in ESRI shapefile format with the following projection - NAD 83, US State Plane Coordinates, Michigan South 2113 in meters. 32. Question 13: We are wondering if additional site visits are allowed at Allegan s sites? This is in regards to the portion of the RFP that talks about grounding of the sites and shelters. We want to Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 9 of 10
provide an accurate scope of work on this matter, so we would like to do a thorough examination of the sites and maybe shovel some snow back to see how things stand today. Allegan County has determined that it is impractical to coordinate and conduct additional tower site visits. However, Tower Site Inventory information excerpted from a Needs Assessment Report compiled for the County by ACD Telecom has been posted to the bidding website as RFP13047C Supplement E Tower Site Inventory 2016-02-24. This tower site inventory is provided for reference purposes only and should be considered as best available information should a prospective bidder have failed to collect more accurate and up to date information during the tower site visits. Prospective bidders should expect that the information in this report may have already changed and will continue to change in response to maintenance and repair needs up until the radio system is replaced. Neither the County not ACD Telecom accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this report. Some grounding information for each tower site is provided as part of the inventory. Allegan County RFP#13074C RFP and Scope of Work Clarifications 3/3/2016 Page 10 of 10