TSA Moving to UHF Channels?

A recent posting in the Federal Business Opportunities website, https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=25449a5f51bc288d1209e4bdb8be0281&tab=core&_cview=1
was sent to my attention.

It appears from the description that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is interested in changing out all of their radio equipment from VHF to UHF frequencies. The TSA has just recently gone through an agency-wide upgrade of their VHF radio infrastructure that included new BK radios and equipment. The information provided by the TSA includes this data on thier radio systems:

At the present time, TSA operates approximately 155 repeaters at approximately 150 airports, approximately 120 base stations at approximately at 120 airports, and over 21,000 handheld radios at approximately 415 airports located in the United States of America and its territories. TSA also has Bi-directional amplifier (BDA) and Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) systems installed at approximately 10 airports. Currently TSA manually encrypts its handheld radios and base stations monthly.

Several folks have inquired as to why they are moving. One suggestion is that the FAA, who shares many of the TSA frequency allocations, was wanting the VHF channels back. I also think that there are more available channels in the federal UHF band (406-420 MHz) than there are in the VHF (162 - 174 MHz) band.