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Analog radio with background tone

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xpqter

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Hello!

I've gotten a mission from my company to make it possible to send a tone on the radio every 10 seconds or so to warn all the users about a blast within the next minutes or so. The problem I encounter is the fact that we only use the analog Motorola GM340 and GP340 radios all over the place.
Is there any way to make a radio send a signal that would be easy to override by any other radio?
There's allways someone that dosen't seem to get the "Radio silence" message.

Thanks for answers
Regards
 

cmdrwill

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A small mobile radio with a 'base' antenna and a tone generator. And some way to activate it to warn.

It will not override a close portable to portable comms.
 

rapidcharger

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If you transmit a tone over the air, isn't transmitting something you're trying to avoid?

I would be surprised if those radios didn't have a stun feature. If you could stun all the radios while you need radio silence and unstun them remotely using sigalling, that sounds like a better way to do it..
 

kb4mdz

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How about multiple channels, if you can program something like a paging tone on ch. 2. And regular operations on ch. 1 with no automatically transmitted paging tone? Would that work?
 

W8RMH

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Some police systems can send a beep every 15 seconds or so when the channel is restricted for emergency traffic only to advise officers not to use it except for emergency use. It is not a constant tone and does not tie up the air.
 

sfd119

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Some police systems can send a beep every 15 seconds or so when the channel is restricted for emergency traffic only to advise officers not to use it except for emergency use. It is not a constant tone and does not tie up the air.

Well, it does tie up the air actually...
 

jim202

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If you transmit a tone over the air, isn't transmitting something you're trying to avoid?

I would be surprised if those radios didn't have a stun feature. If you could stun all the radios while you need radio silence and unstun them remotely using sigalling, that sounds like a better way to do it..

The reason to stun a radio is to kill it entirely. That means not TX and NO RX. Seems like your trying to defeat the purpose of notifying users on the radio system that there will be an event.
 

rapidcharger

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The reason to stun a radio is to kill it entirely. That means not TX and NO RX. Seems like your trying to defeat the purpose of notifying users on the radio system that there will be an event.

In a blast zone, isn't that what you want? Radio silence?

The way it would work, is someone would come on and say radios are being disabled, stun them and then turn them back on when it's safe to do so and announce the radios are back on. Typically when a radio is stunned, if you go to transmit, it just emits a beep or a bonk. So the users would know that they aren't getting through if they don't get the memo.

It just seems like the safest way to do it as transmitting a beep, is probably still emitting a signal in a blasting area and doesn't inhibit users from transmitting accidentally.
 

kayn1n32008

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In a blast zone, isn't that what you want? Radio silence?

Yes. The radio silence is to allow someone, who sees a hazard, to stop the blast before it happens.



The way it would work, is someone would come on and say radios are being disabled, stun them and then turn them back on when it's safe to do so and announce the radios are back on.

NO NO NO NO! Bad! You want radio silence so an impending safety hazard can be announced to hold the blast. Stunning the radios creates a serious safety hazard.

It just seems like the safest way to do it as transmitting a beep, is probably still emitting a signal in a blasting area and doesn't inhibit users from transmitting accidentally.


The tone needs to be injected at the repeater, otherwise users may not capture the repeaters receiver if there is an emergency that needs to have the blast held to address the hazard.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

rapidcharger

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Yes. The radio silence is to allow someone, who sees a hazard, to stop the blast before it happens.





NO NO NO NO! Bad! You want radio silence so an impending safety hazard can be announced to hold the blast. Stunning the radios creates a serious safety hazard.




The tone needs to be injected at the repeater, otherwise users may not capture the repeaters receiver if there is an emergency that needs to have the blast held to address the hazard.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
All these years I thought it was because the radios could detonate the dynamite. You used to see signs on the highway saying not to use your CB in blast areas.

sent via tapatalk on a mobile device.
 

kayn1n32008

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All these years I thought it was because the radios could detonate the dynamite. You used to see signs on the highway saying not to use your CB in blast areas.

sent via tapatalk on a mobile device.


While that is a concern on a site where the travelling public are, in a mine, every radio should be IS rated, and thus not such a concern. Safety, and the ability to halt the blast for safety/hazardous conditions is MUCH more important, so people do not get hurt/killed.


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byndhlptom

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analog radio with backround

"every radio should be IS rated, and thus not such a concern"

IS rating only means that the radio should not trigger an explosion/fire in an explosive/flammable atmosphere. An IS rated radio still generates RF!

If you are using electronic detonators, RF (if strong enough) via inductive coupling in the trigger wires can generate enough energy to trigger the dteonators. Thus the need to control RF sources in armed systems.

$.02
 

kb4mdz

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OK, we haven't heard back from the original poster, but I'm kinda wondering if a lot of us are jumping the gun, about 'stunning' radios & such.

He's asking about sending a tone on the radio every 10 seconds or so, so that all users might know that a blast is imminent.

I've seen this in 911 dispatch consoles and called a 'channel marker' ; turn it on, on one or multiple channels, and every whatever seconds it sends the tone out over the air; in police environments it means this channel is secured/restricted from general traffic and is to be used for only traffic for particular incident (chase, hi-profile robbery, whatever). Once that situation is done with, the channel marker comes off, to indicate regular traffic is allowed.

So, yeah, some simple audible tone generator and a timed circuit to key the radio & inject the tone into the radio.

If he says there's always someone who doesn't get the radio silence message, then IMHO he needs to institute a roll call of all radios & users. If someone doesn't respond, then ignition is suspended until he has acknowledged receipt of the "Radio silence for the next 2 minutes" message.

This would be better implemented with one of the ANI systems like MDC1200 or Kenwood's FleetSync, and each user has an ID, and all radios have or can display all other user ID's. If someone claims to have not gotten the radio silence message, but you initiate a Radio Check call to that radio and it comes back that it has received and acknowledged the Radio Check call, then where is the user??

xpqter, how big of an area are you talking about? If you're using GM340 mobile radios, is that because you have to cover a large area? Are there special & specific protocols for radio use before arming the explosives, during and after?
 

xpqter

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In a blast zone, isn't that what you want? Radio silence?

The way it would work, is someone would come on and say radios are being disabled, stun them and then turn them back on when it's safe to do so and announce the radios are back on. Typically when a radio is stunned, if you go to transmit, it just emits a beep or a bonk. So the users would know that they aren't getting through if they don't get the memo.

It just seems like the safest way to do it as transmitting a beep, is probably still emitting a signal in a blasting area and doesn't inhibit users from transmitting accidentally.

Yes. The radio silence is to allow someone, who sees a hazard, to stop the blast before it happens.


NO NO NO NO! Bad! You want radio silence so an impending safety hazard can be announced to hold the blast. Stunning the radios creates a serious safety hazard.

The tone needs to be injected at the repeater, otherwise users may not capture the repeaters receiver if there is an emergency that needs to have the blast held to address the hazard.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I've been looking into injecting it directly into the repeater since every other solution i've tried didn't work, but then it seems like we have to get in the company that actually installed the system to implement it.


OK, we haven't heard back from the original poster, but I'm kinda wondering if a lot of us are jumping the gun, about 'stunning' radios & such.

He's asking about sending a tone on the radio every 10 seconds or so, so that all users might know that a blast is imminent.

I've seen this in 911 dispatch consoles and called a 'channel marker' ; turn it on, on one or multiple channels, and every whatever seconds it sends the tone out over the air; in police environments it means this channel is secured/restricted from general traffic and is to be used for only traffic for particular incident (chase, hi-profile robbery, whatever). Once that situation is done with, the channel marker comes off, to indicate regular traffic is allowed.

So, yeah, some simple audible tone generator and a timed circuit to key the radio & inject the tone into the radio.

If he says there's always someone who doesn't get the radio silence message, then IMHO he needs to institute a roll call of all radios & users. If someone doesn't respond, then ignition is suspended until he has acknowledged receipt of the "Radio silence for the next 2 minutes" message.

This would be better implemented with one of the ANI systems like MDC1200 or Kenwood's FleetSync, and each user has an ID, and all radios have or can display all other user ID's. If someone claims to have not gotten the radio silence message, but you initiate a Radio Check call to that radio and it comes back that it has received and acknowledged the Radio Check call, then where is the user??

xpqter, how big of an area are you talking about? If you're using GM340 mobile radios, is that because you have to cover a large area? Are there special & specific protocols for radio use before arming the explosives, during and after?

It's about 9km from one end to another and about 150 meters into the ground so the so there are a couple geographical issues.
Investing in a new system is allways better than what we have, but at the moment that's out of the question.
 

kb4mdz

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OK, now we're getting to the meat of the matter. Hmm. open pit mine, I take it? And at least you have a repeater, that's good. Situated near the edge of the pit, I hope?

While a new system might be nice, if the budget constrains it heavily, then you have to get ahhh, creative with what you do have.

Better description of what is currently in place would help.
 

xpqter

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Mar 2, 2015
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Open pit mine yes, we've got a couple links too if i'm not totally wrong.

Just inspected and it's a TP6000i repeater we're working with
 

SCPD

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KISS

Am I over-thinking here, when I think why don't the OP go to the dollar store, get some kid's gadget that will make some sort of tone or chirp, and transmit it over the air every 10 seconds?
 

xpqter

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Mar 2, 2015
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Because that would interrupt conversations allready going. The point is to not interrupt anything and also make sure people can transmit over the tone.

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