APX Intelligent Priority not working as desired?

N0BDW · May 19, 2018

Howdy,

I've just upgraded the firmware on my APX4000 to APX_MEGA_R17.01.00 and am using APXCPS_STANDALONE_CPS_R17.01.01 to program said radio. The purpose of upgrading was to try the new Intelligent Priority scan feature that supposedly addressed a need we have.

The need:

We have a zone of 16 channels that has a mix of conventional and trunked channels in it. We need to be able to scan across this entire zone, **and** have priority for the selected channel regardless of if it is conventional or trunked.

The result:

We are indeed able to scan the entire zone in this mode, but we could in Multi-System Talkgroup mode as well. Now we have priority options available, but they don't seem to do anything?

- I'm selected on a conventional channel
- Person A keys up on one of the scanned talkgroups (trunked)
- While Person A is talking Person B keys up on my selected conventional channel
- I never hear the transmission on my selected channel. Person A is not interrupted for Person B as I would expect.

Is this working as intended? If so what is the point of Intelligent Priority? How is it better than Multi-System Talkgroup?

Config attached.

crazyboy · May 19, 2018

It works as designed, if priority is a trunked talk group that is the priority while it is scanning on the trunk system. No priority while it is scanning conventional members. Essentially a combination of talkgroup scan and priority scan. Nothing will do what you are trying to accomplish.

Mr_Boh · May 19, 2018

Intelligent Priority (as I understand it) is only to do priority on the system currently being scanned. So like you’re listening to channel 2 on system 2 and traffic comes in on priority channel 1 on system 2 to it will jump, but it won’t jump all the way back to probity channel 1 on system 1 while listening to system 2

N0BDW · May 19, 2018

That's a real shame. We have what I feel is a very valid use case, and nothing has been able to address it. We've been forced to carry two radios.

We have a FAST/RIT channel which is analog (due to in-building coverage issues). This needs to be the priority, if the user is selected on it. But they also need to be apprised of what is happening on the OPS channel, which is part of a P25 TDMA system.

Frustrating.

Thank you both for your replies.

crazyboy · May 19, 2018

N0BDW said:
That's a real shame. We have what I feel is a very valid use case, and nothing has been able to address it. We've been forced to carry two radios.

We have a FAST/RIT channel which is analog (due to in-building coverage issues). This needs to be the priority, if the user is selected on it. But they also need to be apprised of what is happening on the OPS channel, which is part of a P25 TDMA system.

Frustrating.

Thank you both for your replies.

The radio cannot listen to data from the TRS while it is on a conventional channel. That is why no one has made this work. We divide channels amongst members of each crew. One monitoring Ops, one monitoring dispatch for emergency alarms, rest on Rit channel for each crew of the RIT.

Mr_Boh · May 19, 2018

Have a system with a very similar use case. Here’s what we did:

We have “Fireground” zones and regular zones. The fireground ones are all set to sit on a single talkgroup with a priority override of the talkaround conventional. Users can not scan multiple talkgroups on the fireground zones. It does a couple things - less confusion because if there is more than one incident they don’t get the incidents messed up and they are all trained to use talkaround for truck to truck communications out and about if they need to because of the low range. The regular zones can scan other talkgroups. The firefighter portables and most rigs do not have the ability to scan multiple talkgroups. Senior personnel have the regular scan zones but are trained to be on scene on fireground zones.

N0BDW · May 19, 2018

crazyboy said:
The radio cannot listen to data from the TRS while it is on a conventional channel. That is why no one has made this work. We divide channels amongst members of each crew. One monitoring Ops, one monitoring dispatch for emergency alarms, rest on Rit channel for each crew of the RIT.

We've essentially resigned to having our officers have to carry two radios: an APX4000 which listens to the OPS and Dispatch channels (OPS selected priority, dispatch on scan) and then the 2nd radio is an analog conventional only radio that is on the FAST channel. FAST team members carry only one radio (an APX4000) and it is set on the FAST channel with no scan. The officer needs to relay any information from OPS/dispatch to the FAST channel. It works, but it isn't ideal.

Mr_Boh said:
The fireground ones are all set to sit on a single talkgroup with a priority override of the talkaround conventional.

This sounds like the opposite of what we want, but same basic concept. How did you get it so the transmissions on the talkaround conventional channel priority overrides the fireground talkgroup?

Mr_Boh · May 19, 2018

N0BDW said:
We've essentially resigned to having our officers have to carry two radios: an APX4000 which listens to the OPS and Dispatch channels (OPS selected priority, dispatch on scan) and then the 2nd radio is an analog conventional only radio that is on the FAST channel. FAST team members carry only one radio (an APX4000) and it is set on the FAST channel with no scan. The officer needs to relay any information from OPS/dispatch to the FAST channel. It works, but it isn't ideal.

This sounds like the opposite of what we want, but same basic concept. How did you get it so the transmissions on the talkaround conventional channel priority overrides the fireground talkgroup?

Scan list is just the conventional channel as priority. Kind of like a backwards version of the no affiliate trunk scan method.

N0BDW · May 19, 2018

Mr_Boh said:
Scan list is just the conventional channel as priority. Kind of like a backwards version of the no affiliate trunk scan method.

Gotcha. It won't actually interrupt on-system transmissions then?

Mr_Boh · May 19, 2018

No it does. That's kind of the point - you get bonked trying to talk on the system you can flip to the talkaround in an emergency and other units on the scene will hear you without having to flip. It's that way on dispatch and routine ops talkgroups too so like two units driving next to each other one can yell to the other by flipping to talkaround and no intervention is required by the receiving user. VRS are also used to patch a talkgroup to a conventional channel for the coverage gap, but that requires a VRS equipped unit on scene.

What I have seen requested is for the "direct" button on a talkgroup personality to use a conventional frequency so the users in this case wouldn't have to go to the talkaround freq in the zone to raise a subscriber without hitting a tower in conjunction with a setup like this.

N0BDW · May 19, 2018

crazyboy said:
The radio cannot listen to data from the TRS while it is on a conventional channel.

I'm confused by this statement considering the below:

Mr_Boh said:
No it does. That's kind of the point - you get bonked trying to talk on the system you can flip to the talkaround in an emergency and other units on the scene will hear you without having to flip.

Interesting. So it can check a conventional channel while listening to a talkgroup. That's what we want to happen:

- Radio selected on conventional
- TG starts chattering
- TG is interrupted because it checks conventional and conventional has action

You have the opposite setup, kinda:
- Radio selected on TG
- TG starts chattering
- TG is interrupted because it checks conventional and conventional has action

If the above is all accurate it seems like it _should_ be possible to achieve what we're looking for, and software is the limitation.

Mr_Boh · May 19, 2018

I'm hoping I didn't cause confusion. This talkaround stuff I mentioned is accomplished without multisystem. The new feature that started this post was in reference to scanning 2+ trunking systems. If all you need is a single system with scan to talkaround you have to dumb it down a bit. You can't scan both trunked talkgroups and conventional channels without using multisystem. But you can assign a conventional scan to a trunked system personality. This could be done on ASTRO and ASTRO 25 mobiles and portables too.

Mr_Boh · May 19, 2018

I would think what you are trying to do would work with dynamic priority on the scanlist and assigning the scanlist to a conventional personality.

N0BDW · May 20, 2018

Alright. I’m still a little confused here. A little more info about our setup.

- We only have one “system” — a P25 Phase II TDMA system (this one: Livingston County Trunking System, Livingston County, New York - Scanner Frequencies )
- In addition to this system we have a number of conventional analog channels that we use

In general, if someone is selected on a conventional analog channel that needs to be their priority. It needs to interrupt whatever else they are listening to and return them to that channel. But we’d like them to be able to hear what is going on with a couple of on-system talkgroups as well.

To be more specific, one example:

For our FAST team I’d like to have...

- FAST 14 ** (conventional analog, selected)
- Fire OPS 2A * (talkgroup)
- Fire Dispatch (talkgroup)

** 1st Priority
* 2nd priority

So what you have, in my mind, doesn’t seem too dissimilar from this. With what you’ve described the radio is able to interrupt transmissions on a talkgroup with transmissions on a conventional analog channel, right? What do I need to do to accomplish the same thing?

Or is my misunderstanding regarding your talkaround channels... are those indeed conventional analog?

Or is it that your scan list only has conventional analog channels in it... and you aren’t actually “scanning” any digital talkgroups? You’re hearing the talkgroup because it is what is selected? Thinking more about this... I think that may be the case? But then what still doesn’t make sense to me is that the radio is able to sample the conventional analog channel while listening to a talkgroup in this situation, but not in the one I want to set up. Again, seems like a software limitation Motorola should be able to address?

Project25_MASTR · May 24, 2018

One of the things I would look into is creating a conventional scanlist and then putting FAST14 into that with Fire OPS 2A and Fire Dispatch (you may be able to assign priorities but I've never tried). This is the non-affiliate scan method but allows you to have a conventional personality selected while still scanning the trunking system.

One major downside to this is if this is a multisite system (not a simulcast system) or a system where all the consoles are interfaced via DVSI or V.24 interfaces directly to the core and not consolettes, you will need to ensure you leave mobiles affiliated to the correct talkgroups when on scene.

MTS2000des · May 26, 2018

The bottom line with IPS has limitations due to the nature of throwing trunking personalities with conventional resources together. I would NEVER use it for any line personnel who are relying on critical traffic. But then at my agency we don't use priority talk group scan either in fire ops for IDLH personnel. Too risky. IC's carry two radios anyway. They're used to it.

UPMan · May 26, 2018

For the purposes of the radio, the trunked system is one system. Each conventional channel is also a system. In order to simultaneously monitor multiple systems (i.e. the trunked system and one or more of the conventional channels) for priority traffic without losing comms on whatever it is currently receiving, the radio would need to have multiple receivers.

Mr_Boh · May 26, 2018

MTS2000des and Paul hit the nail on the head.

I’ve been testing IPS in the function originally requested. It’s not reliable no matter how much you tune the multi system scan settings. Just (ironically) not intelligent enough. You either get it tuned to jump between systems too quickly or not quickly enough. And there’s other issues too. If you have a couple systems, switching to another talkgroup to transmit isn’t exactly fast unless you set up zones and preset keys well.

For our purposes we use it for “situational awareness” but I can’t see a mission critical purpose for multi system scan. I actually have better luck catching conversations on a scanner than I do on my APX units with multi system.

MTS2000des · May 26, 2018

As an administrator, it's a great feature. But even I have a second radio on at my desk on a talk group we use internally on the technical team so as not to miss a call.

While IPS works (I have TGs on both my system and another nearby in a scan list) very well, I have missed a call on my primary priority TG (on my home system) while the radio was stuck on the "foreign" system.

No complaints though, for it's intended purpose, it works quite well.

N0BDW · May 26, 2018

Thanks folks. Seems this is not the feature we were looking for.

APX Intelligent Priority not working as desired?

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