San Antonio EDACS TRS = Patrial ESK=OFF !

Anybody noticed that the SA/BC EDACS ESK (Enhanced Security Key) has been partially turned off ?

The Gold Simulcast, Hill Country Tower and Topperwein Rd Tower sites have their ESK CC's turned off !

The Blue Simulcast, American 281N Tower and other sites have their ESK CC's now back on enabled.

ps ~ It's nice to once again see my old Pro-92,95,96,97,164 trunk track Analog TG's on the Gold TRS.

btw ~ Anybody know why the ESK was partialy turned off by the system adminitrators or radio techs?

Possible Answers: Rain Storm Damage ?, Multi-Agency Compatible Step for Flood Relief Coordination ?
The future prep for the July 5th thru Nov 5th Military Jade Helm exercise in TX not even near us, I doubt it

This system: San Antonio/Bexar County EDACS ProVoice Trunking System, San Antonio, Texas - Scanner Frequencies

> Anybody noticed that the SA/BC EDACS ESK (Enhanced Security Key) has been partially turned off ?

Michael - I am more curious as to how you noticed that ESK was off? Not sure about the Unidens, but most (all?) off the GRE scanners that support EDACS ESK do so automatically, and don't provide any indication whether or not ESK is active. Likewise with Unitrunker.

So, if you don't mind me asking - what clued you in?

Thanks.

OK I am chiming in I noted this and passed it on
This is noted because i have a personal
Custom compiled edtion of etrunker
With out call to rotation of the key-A0 to default
Key-00 so my computer just beeps every 15 seconds
Till I redirect the key back to -00 by going to the key00.bat

thanks Dog.

it didn't really occur to me that folks might still be running the old DOS eTrunker, but that certainly explains it.

I just checked and ESK is on for both the Blue and Gold sites

mostar said:

GRE scanners that support EDACS ESK do so automatically, and don't provide any indication whether or not ESK is active. Likewise with Unitrunker.

Click to expand...

If you're decoding EDACS from discriminator audio (tapped scanner or SDR), the program has an ESK indicator.

mostar said:

> Michael - I am more curious as to how you noticed that ESK was off? Not sure about the Unidens, but most (all?) off the GRE scanners that support EDACS ESK do so automatically, and don't provide any indication whether or not ESK is active. Likewise with Unitrunker.

So, if you don't mind me asking - what clued you in?

Thanks.

Click to expand...

Mostar (your 1st name goes here _________)
Well I got a late night call from from the President and CEO of RRH, Inc .... that would be " The_Dog "
He informs me that ESK was currently turned OFF on only Gold, Hill Country and Topperwein Rd sites.
I then looked over at my old Pro-2055 in which I keep the last 2 banks programmed up with Blue in B # 8
and Gold in Bank # 9 and sure enough by that time only the Gold was Trunk Tracking not the Blue site
by his phone call which was after 11pm this last Wednesday night. The Pro-2055's volume was all down
and it sits out of my view so I had not even noticed ESK being off. Sure enough I cranked up the volume
and lots of analog TG's were being received such as the BCFA and a few others. On the Pro-97 or 2055
if one parks on the Control Channel and ESK is OFF, the bottom display line reads " ED: CTL-05 99% ".
So that display line info let me know it understood the CC was on LCN#5 which it woud not have able
to decode if the ESK feature was enabled. Next, not to dare doubt the GREat Mr RRH ( Rogue Radio Hacker ),
I pressed manual on the Blue sites CC and my old non ESK enabled scanner could not read the CC Data
and show me the "CTL-XX" or the receive signal percentage strength info, just erroneous random data etc.
Next, I reached for my old Pro-97 in which I keep all 8 sites of the SA/BC EDACS TRS, hooked it up to
my roof top antenna and sure enought Hill Country and Topperwein sites were also trunk tracking analog TG's
but not with the Blue, Cagnon, Grey Forest or the 281N American Tower sites. By the way in addition to keeping
all 8 sites programmed up, I also have programmed in each of the 8 banks the matching TRS system inputs
in their respective banks in FM mode without delay just to better try to detect traffic originating close by me.
I know with so little analog system traffic this is hardly much of a usefull tool but with so many scanners why not ?

Further The_Dog heard on one of the Radio Technician Talkgroups 00-21/22/23/24 or 00-025 (Dec TG 21)
the radio techs say that "they would finish up the other sites tommorow" which did early Thursday ASAP.

Thanks for chiming in ( or coming to the cheese bait) and I hope that satisfied your curriousity regarding ESK.

btw ~ I really didn't expect to ever see ESK off again since it was enabled full time back around 3/27/2006.
However, it was sure a blast from the past to see a few of my older model radio's sing again after so long quiet
it just would have been nice to have ESK off a little longer and get word out so more local RR members
could have gotten to experience this rare happening. By the way as this threads OP what caused this event ?

I find the timing of these radio anomalies curious, if not at the very least suspicious. Just last week, on May 20th, the San Antonio City Council during their 'B' session meeting was scheduled to discuss the radio system and its need for upgrading and replacement. It is my understanding that the topic was tabled, ergo, blown off for another day.

I understand San Antonio Fire Fighter's Local 624 and the local Police Union were present at this meeting to make certain that the deficiencies of the current system were made known to the present council and to push for funding of its replacement.

I cannot help but think that somehow, the communications upgrade and its funding will be held over the heads of the Police and Fire Unions as a bargaining chip in the on-going union contract 'negotiations.'

As I mentioned in the thread regarding Balcones Heights, I did hear Bexar County Fire Alarm tone out all units for an announcement that they were having radio issues and Dailey-Wells had been notified. I would say this is related, but whether it was part of the problem, the troubleshooting, or the solution I have no idea.

With the ESK turned on, can the San Antonio system be monitored and tracked using an ESK-capable trunking scanner which also has a discriminator output (the Radio Shack Pro-668 for example) which can be fed to a computer running DSD+?

@WBSWETNAM --- Yes.

Is ESK back off on the Gold site today? I'm in Montana right now but I VNC'd into a remote computer back in San Antonio and fired up Unitrunker and I don't see the "ESK On" field on the Gold site right now.

ESK is enabled on Gold and systemwide as of tonight

blantonl said:

Is ESK back off on the Gold site today? I'm in Montana right now but I VNC'd into a remote computer back in San Antonio and fired up Unitrunker and I don't see the "ESK On" field on the Gold site right now.

Click to expand...

Lindsay, I just am seeing your message tonight and right away checked all the tower sites in my RX range
and as of 8pm Thursday night Blue, Gold, Topp, American, Hill Country and Grey Forest have ESK=ON !
The other sites of the Cagnon Rd and Hallmark Path Rd towers I cannot confirm ESK status due to no RX,

It is my understanding that the ESK issue was a side-effect of a larger system problem caused when one of
the towers took a lighting strike almost 2 weeks ago now. Back then and In the process of bringing things back online,
ESK did not, for whatever reason, re-initialize. The bigger concern was bringing the system back out of failsoft (Motorola Terminology)
or whatever is the proper term to use when an EDACS goes down., so the lack of ESK was not a priority or concern at the time.
A BCSO deputy customer told me that is was told to him that lightning was the cause of the system failure and thus the brief ESK off period.

btw ~ Well as this threads Op at least I finally received a reasonable answer explaining away why ESK was off ... it all makes sense to me now