The Real Rudy: Why the Radios Failed on 9/11

Well, I would like to know why Motorola had exclusivity with the state of NY. As an electronics manufacturer, they are not known for producing the highest quality of products in the first place. I imagine they came in very cheap. They pay their engineers on the low end of the payscale. Their products should be thoroughly field tested before sale anyway. The fact that Rudy knew about the interoperability problems long before 9-11 is of great concern. I'm not a Rudy fan so you're preaching to the choir here, but I'll be interested in what his supporters have to say.

The failure of preparation is instructive, as in the case of Katrina.

Disaster-preparedness is something that a great many people who really care have spent their careers working on. The perverse hijacking of disasters by hack politicians like Giuliani and Bush is an insult to those who have been denied the resources to do their jobs.

(Giuliani - "i" before both "u" and "a" and only one "l," for those who care).

Dave, Stephen just transposed the u and the i or it would have been fine. I'm sure it was a typo and not a spelling error.

Sue B.,

The word among police departments is that Motorola is, in fact, top quality equipment. Having spend nearly 30 years working with police and their radio equipment, (For the last 16 years I did the purchasing of the police radio equipment), I know that the actual differing qualities is probably much less that the operators impressions of just what is the best.

The state generally writes up detailed specifications and puts them out to bid. The manufacturers respond to the bid documents, detailing their compliance, and if it specified quality is met, the lowest price vendor wins the bid.

Actually, Motorola and Ericsson are the two major makers of this class of radio equipment. Both are excellent equipment. There are cheaper ones out there and some of them are pretty good but lack the features of the Motorola and Ericsson. (Ericsson used to be General Electric)

"The word among police departments is that Motorola is, in fact, top quality equipment."
Now that's a highly technical group!

"Having spend nearly 30 years working with police and their radio equipment, (For the last 16 years I did the purchasing of the police radio equipment), I know that the actual differing qualities is probably much less that the operators impressions of just what is the best." No one is talking about operatos' impressions. You obviously did not see this video, nor did you read what I said above, and if you did, you didn't comprehend it. Police and fire departments were not able to communicate. Do you consider interoperability problems a subjective assessment of a product's quality?

I am well aware of how the bid process is supposed to work. Once again, you are the one not aware of the issues this article raises since you did not see the video. It was pretty simple so I can't say that I think you saw it and didn't understand it. Mr. Giuliani, according to this video, somehow circumvented the usual bid process, thus my question above in my first comment.

"Actually, Motorola and Ericsson are the two major makers of this class of radio equipment. Both are excellent equipment." That is merely your opinion. You can have it but don't try to shove it down my throat. Every word I said in my first comment stands. My information is based on industry experience and not from a user perspective.

Stephen, I'm glad you wrote this article, since I think some people are misinformed about Rudy and need to see the truth, and I hope my comments have in no way digressed from that accomplishment. I also hope people will actually take the time to see the video. It really does help expose Rudy for the scoundrel he really is.

Let me add one more thing here at the risk of further digressing from the intent of this article. In this instance, it may not necessarily have been faulty equipment. NYC's layout of tall buildings and wind vaccums may have contributed to the interference of signal transmissions, nonetheless, what's the point of having these tax paid by the people devices if they are not going to work for the people? Field testing, whether incumbent on the mayoral administration of the city or the company from which they purchased the equipment (largely dependent on contract terms) was indeed someone's responsibility. If after such a test the equipment was not working it was Rudy's responsibility to see to it that he either found another vendor or rectified the situation with Motorola.

As this film, and the other I have posted with further criticisms by firefighters of Giuliani's facade of leadership, show the new motorola radios were not field tested. The father of one of the lost firefighters said they should have been field tested in subways, in high rises, in tunnels, in basements, in elevators...and they radios weren't, apparently. The new radios failed in a fire situation before 9/11, and were pulled from service.

The police all were evacuated from the buildings well before the collapse, and none were lost due to communications failures. Over 120 firefighters were lost, some having up to half an hour with which to exit the buildings before the collapse. They never got the message because of the failure of the radios.

Sue, I welcome your comments. Rudy needs to be exposed for the fake that he is.

Thanks, Stephen. I will interject a comment here that I made yesterday on an article of mine about Ron Paul, my choice for President, to answer someone's question about Rudy which was more a digression from my article since it was not about him, than it is from yours. Although it doesn't address this particular issue, I also think it is an important overlooked circumstance of his poorly orchestrated "facade of leadership."

"Well, he was at that time, and maybe still is the best known of the Republican candidates. If 9-11 could be considered a victory for anyone except the terrorists, it would be Rudy. I'm not by any stretch of the imagination saying or even implying that he was happy about it, but if it were not for that tragedy, I don't think he'd be a contender.

"His [Rudy Giuliani's] response to the attacks is highly overrated, in my opinion. His failure to deem the entire area a severe health hazard was then, and more so now, as we see respiratory and other illnesses starting to be traced to that event, in my estimation, either an oversight far too critical to be overlooked or a deliberate cover up to assuage fear and to get the recovery process underway with as little fuss as possible. I couldn't believe at that time that people living in that area were not evacuated for weeks.

I haven't seen anyone call him on this issue. Hopefully, someone like Dr. Paul will be able to shed some true light on this."

One other problem with Rudy and 9-11. He put the emergency response center in the basement of the WTC after the first WTC bombing and against the advice of the experts.

Sue,

Sounds to me like you are basing everything, by your own statement, upon one be all, see all, end all video! Don't you think that's a little limited in scope? And of course, the video didn't have any agenda to push did it? No, I didn't see it. Videos are very poor documentation by their very nature. They do supplement the written word some, of course.

I prefer to take my knowledge from those who do work with the interoperability of the equipment for their livelihood. That is exactly what i did.

You were bad mouthing the quality of one brand as though you were a radio tech and thats OK if you are. However, can you not recognize that others might not have experienced the same problems as yourself?

You also bad mouth the users of such equipment for having opinions. First, are you more qualified than the actual users? Perhaps, but please explain why. I do know that the user is the first one to bring a problem to the table. If they cannot communicate under stressful and dangerous situations, their system has failed them! Of course, any system can fail, depending on the redundancies inherent in the system and the degree of automation on board. But the more failure the more likely the user to have a negative opinion.

Rudy is not my candidate for president. However, blaming him for the failure of certain communications during 911 is reaching pretty deep! I agree that field testing is important. How do you know for fact, that this was not done? I'm sure you have documented proof of this. And since Rudy was the head radio test person, hang him!

You jumped in here like a big dog asserting yourself as expert on something it would appear you have more bias about than knowledge. Don't blame me if some of what you say is not accurate.

It is not just my opinion that Motorola and Ericsson are two of the top major suppliers of this equipment. In the first place, unless it has been added in the past couple of years to another brand, these are the only units capable of the degree of encryption most police departments now are demanding.

In the second, all you have to do is survey just what equipment is being used by various departments around the United States.

When I say both of these are good, I'll acknowledge that it would be great if there were any out there as good as they think they are. These big corporations have a corporate ego that interferes with getting the most out of equipment on various occasions.

I'm sorry, I should have realized that this was a strictly "bash Rudy" post, so please forgive me for trying to inject just a little even handedness into the fray. My bad!

The families of lost firefighters know that field testing was not done, and that it was Guiliani's admin that failed to address this specific problem. Whether Motorola is a good, or the best radio, is beside the point really. Guiliani's admin had more than sufficient time to address a particular, known problem and didn't. As far as this being a Rudy bashing post...perhaps, but with good cause. He is riding of a reputation of leadership before, during and after 9/11, and he has really very little to show that was true leadership. Is Greenwald's piece biased? Sure. The firefighters have a legitimate complaint. Greenwald presents their case, so it may really be that it is the firefighter's bias that is more important than Greenwald's.

Well gee whizzikers, Stephen! I saw James' comment this afternoon but I really had to do some work today so I thought I'd save my answer until I got home, but looks like you've done my homework for me. I owe you one. Thanks!

There is one thing I'd like to add. "Sounds to me like you are basing everything, by your own statement, upon one be all, see all, end all video! Don't you think that's a little limited in scope?" Apparently you didn't read or ignored my other comment.

FDNY needs much better radio service to do its job and protect its officers.

I have another link and Gather won't let me post it. This happened recently.