Opportunity: IMRO AZ+NM PARK OPS RADIOS (RELM)

This special notice informs the public that The National Park Service Intermountain Region intends to award a non-competitive firm-fixed price contract for RELM Wireless Hand-Held BK KNG-P150, KNG2-P150 Radios, and accessories. The award will be made directly to RELM Wireless BK Technologies utilizing the Department of the Interior FieldCom multiple award IDIQ. A signed Justification for Other than Full and Open Competition is on file; the contents are provided herein. 1. Nature and/or description of the item/service being procured and its intended use (include the anticipated cost): Intermountain Region Telecommunication shop is responsible to perform maintenance, repair and programming of all park radios. As such a substantial commitment to the RELM Wireless products has occurred over the last few years by various park units supported by IMR Telecommunication Shop. In keeping with the procurement of a brand that the IMR Telecommunication Shop is already setup to maintain where no additional technical training will be required to support the RELM brand of radios is the most cost effective. Intermountain Region topology is an incredibly vast and complex canyon system which makes VHF radio communications on the ground incredibly difficult; the KNG portable radios have the ability to transmit at 6 watts out over both digital and analog transmissions without having to change channels which is instrumental to achieving communications in this area. The National Park Service (NPS) also requires the ability to `clone¿ or program portable or mobile radios from another radio during incident response scenarios. During incident response, all available radio assets can be called into service. The primary incident response requiring cloning occurs during emergencies and non-emergency incidents. During incident response scenarios, time and resources are limited which require radios to be programmed outside of normal technical facilities, generally in a remote location. Additionally, qualified technical personnel may not be available to program a non-clone able radio. Due to Wildland fire suppression needs, NPS requires cloning compatibility with the radio cache maintained by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) based in Boise, ID. State and local agencies that cooperate with NPS incident response generally maintain programming/cloning interoperability with the NIFC fire cache as well. Radio programming methods and data are unique to a given suppliers product line. At present it is not possible to clone radios between multiple manufacturers. Therefore, the NPS requires the product of a single manufacturer. It is of the Park¿s best interest to continue toward developing and maintaining a standard of the same or similar model of equipment across all radios in the park, which will result in lower maintenance costs over time (fewer duplicate parts for different models of radios to be kept in stock), reduced costs over time to purchase duplicate accessories for multiple models of radios (and so more staff can share accessories), and radio operational safety will be increased because more users will be using the same make/model of radio, simplifying training and allowing more staff to be familiar with how to use the same radio. Each different brand requires additional learning and can reduce our ability for timely responses to our users. Hand held radios are a critical component to employee safety and communication with field personnel, single programming code plugs ensure full interoperability. By having only one troubleshooting process, we can streamline our support and provide our users with a quicker turnaround in the event of equipment failure. Also creating radio programming images (code plugs) that contain the required configurations for channel configuration and repeater control, this standard expedites the setup of new equipment. The use of images significantly reduces the setup time because we do not have to configure each device and security settings each time. Each brand has unique programming software and setup that are particular to that brand. By staying with one brand NPS reduces the number of images that are needed to be created, tested, and maintained. It is anticipated that this Delivery Order will be approximately $75,709.62. Only one vendor, BK Technologies RELM Wireless can sell and original product. 3. Market Research. Please explain the results or why one was not performed. State whether any other offers were received or anyone expressed interest: Searches using Google, Department of Homeland Security FieldCom contract, Department of Interior FieldCom contract, and GSA Advantage. A Special Notice for this action will be posted at FBO, and any information received in response will be taken under consideration by NPS. Local knowledge of the vendor pool indicates this is the only viable service. 4. If this is a determination for sole source, the Contracting Officer certifies: a. Only one source is available, or urgent and compelling circumstances exist. b. The anticipated price will be determined fair and reasonable using the price analysis techniques described in FAR Part 13.106-3(a). Prepared by Shawna R Rogers-Bailey, Contracting Officer, December 13, 2018