Smartzone???

[BMDaug]

Hey everyone, can someone point me to a site or document that explains what smartzone is and how it differs from other P25 trunked systems? Or, if someone can at least give a little rundown, I’d really appreciate it! I come from Harris land and I’m just trying to relate it to what I know without a bunch of proprietary terms and marketing fluff in the way…

Thanks,
Brian

 

[ElroyJetson]

I don't have a document to offer but the basics are pretty straightforward.

Smartzone is analog, pre-P25 (OLD) trunking which relays traffic through the system so that the talkgroup you are logged in on is carried on the tower site you are currently affiliated to. You won't be out of range or miss calls as long as you're within the range of the entire smartzone system.
Talkgroup traffic is relayed to you upon demand.

So...say you're logged in and affiliated to a police dispatch talkgroup down in the far southern end of the system's coverage area, but you have to take a trip to the far northern range of the system, well outside the coverage area of that department. As you move through the system and the radio automatically switches sites, the traffic from that dispatch talkgroup will be relayed to each site that your radio switches to.

When there are no affiliated users of a specific talkgroup at a specific tower site, the talkgroup information will no longer be relayed to that site as there is no demand for it...eventually. How long it takes for the relaying to stop is something a system administrator might be able to answer. I presume it's a variable setting.

Obviously this only works for registered system users. For non-authorized receivers, you will only be able to hear traffic if that talkgroup is in demand at the site you're listening to.

Smartzone is comparable to networked EDACS, and like EDACS, there won't be very many Smartzone systems still in operation today, and those that remain are very likely to be getting near a P25 changeover.

 

[Ubbe]

How long it takes for the relaying to stop is something a system administrator might be able to answer.

It's instant. If someone listens to a TG on a site and are the only user on that TG on that site and that user then affiliates over to another site, the conversations suddenly ends in the middle of a sentence on the old site. There's no setting available in the system for any delays. But there are settings in the system to force certain TG's to always be transmitted over certain sites, to allow the TG scan function to work properly in radios. So it could be important for a scanner to scan those "main" sites and not only the closest one.

And yes, SmartZone works just the same as most other trunked systems with a control channel and several voice channels on a site.

/Ubbe

 

[MTS2000des]

SmartZone 4.1 was the final release of Motorola's legacy type II trunking and supported both analog and P25 VOICE channels (mixed mode operation) , but used a 3600 baud CC and was not P25 trunking like we know today. Circuit switched vs. IP, old school system with a fresh coat of paint. Long off support.

 

[wa8pyr]

When there are no affiliated users of a specific talkgroup at a specific tower site, the talkgroup information will no longer be relayed to that site as there is no demand for it...eventually. How long it takes for the relaying to stop is something a system administrator might be able to answer. I presume it's a variable setting.

Unless that talkgroup is set to always be active on a specific site, the audio from that talkgroup goes away from a site as soon as the radio affiliated to it moves to a different site.

 

[BMDaug]

Thanks everyone! Much better info than a web search!! Actually relatable information…

-B

 

[GTR8000]

Lots of good info in the RR wiki, starting with this page, and clicking through the various links:

Motorola Type II - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Although SmartZone refers to the older 4.x Type II systems, MSI does retain the "SmartZone" term when referring to coverage on an ASTRO 25 system. For example, if you're setting up a P25 system in an APX codeplug, you will see the term SmartZone used in the coverage type parameter. In that context, it's basically just referencing a multi-site system, nothing to do with the older Type II systems.

 

[BMDaug]

Lots of good info in the RR wiki, starting with this page, and clicking through the various links:

Motorola Type II - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

Although SmartZone refers to the older 4.x Type II systems, MSI does retain the "SmartZone" term when referring to coverage on an ASTRO 25 system. For example, if you're setting up a P25 system in an APX codeplug, you will see the term SmartZone used in the coverage type parameter. In that context, it's basically just referencing a multi-site system, nothing to do with the older Type II systems.

View attachment 129022

Man that definitely clears up a couple of questions! The reappropriation of the term definitely muddies the waters.

Also, thanks for the link!

-B

 

[maus92]

Unless that talkgroup is set to always be active on a specific site, the audio from that talkgroup goes away from a site as soon as the radio affiliated to it moves to a different site.

Remember that "site" ≠ to a physical tower, i.e. a "site" can be a group of physical towers.

 

[GTR8000]

Remember that "site" ≠ to a physical tower, i.e. a "site" can be a group of physical towers.

Tom has forgotten more than most know about this stuff, so he doesn't need an explainer from you. 🤦‍♂️

Also, your "correction" isn't completely accurate. A P25 "site" can absolutely be a single standalone physical site (ASR in MSI parlance). Or it can be a simulcast cell comprised of multiple physical sites (known as subsites in MSI parlance). Or just for fun, it can also be a standalone TX/RX site paired with a geographically diverse standalone voted RX-only site. Or how about a simulcast cell comprised of multiple TX/RX subsites + multiple voted RX-only subsites.

There are multiple permutations of what a "site" could mean in the P25 world, but ultimately it's understood that when you refer to a site, you're referring to an entity that falls under a single Site ID or Site #. That is what Tom was referring to, and everyone that read his post understood what he meant.

 

[maus92]

It wasn't meant as a "correction" to Tom. It was meant as a clarification for others to understand that a "site" can be and often is more than a singular transmission site. Reading through these forums and looking at RRDB submissions, it is clear that the distinction is not always understood.

 

[GTR8000]

You should've been more clear, instead of using the "not equal to" sign. Perhaps you could've worded it "A site is not necessarily a single physical site..." Either way, it probably didn't need to be stated since it's been beaten to death in many other threads around here over the years.

 

[maus92]

You should've been more clear, instead of using the "not equal to" sign. Perhaps you could've worded it "A site is not necessarily a single physical site..." Either way, it probably didn't need to be stated since it's been beaten to death in many other threads around here over the years.

The "not equals" sign was just shorthand.

 

[chrismol1]

Question
not sure exactly what is an Omnilink system. When the Motorola document says Smartzone and Omnilink. I've seen trunked systems listed in database with sometimes additional sys id, additional rfss numbers, does Omnilink mean these with these linked system(s) that's broadcast as a neighbor with another sys ID or RFSS ID? "Omnilink applies for omnilink-enabled trunking channels" Is there a way to see if its an omnilink system thru a program such as SDRTrunk? thanks

 

[GTR8000]

Question
not sure exactly what is an Omnilink system. When the Motorola document says Smartzone and Omnilink, does Omnilink mean a separate linked system that's broadcast as a neighbor with another sys ID or RFSS ID? "Omnilink enabled trunking channels" Is there a way to see if its an omnilink system thru a program such as SDRTrunk?

Another Type II vs P25 bit of confusion. Although most of this info is available online, I'll recap here because I've got a few minutes to kill.

Originally, SmartZone referred to a multi-site Type II system. All sites were under the same SysID in the same "zone", and so subscribers could easily roam from site to site. This of course pre-dates P25 systems, and so RFSS was not a thing, yet.

OmniLink was the multi-zone enhancement to SmartZone systems, where you could link together multiple Type II systems that had differing SysID's to create one giant system. The NJSP SmartZone OmniLink system is an example of this. Originally they were three separate SmartZone systems (B106, B11D, B11E), which were combined to form a single OmniLink system where subscribers could seamlessly roam between sites of differing SysIDs.

Both terms were carried forward to ASTRO 25 systems when setting subscriber coverage. If you set a subscriber to SmartZone coverage, it means that it can roam between sites of the same SysID/RFSS (zone). If you set coverage to SmartZone and OmniLink, it can roam between sites of the same SysID across multiple RFSS (zones) within that system.

If you need to roam between ASTRO 25 sites that are part of different SysID's, you set the coverage to Inter-WACN Roaming. Intra-WACN Roaming is mostly for Harris systems, something I won't get into here because it's not really within the scope of the discussion.

 

[GTR8000]

Just to clarify, there is no such thing as a "SmartZone" or "OmniLink" P25 system. Those terms, on a system level, apply to the older 4.x Type II systems.

ASTRO 25 system capability is based on the core. If you want a standard single zone trunked system, you get an M1 core. If you want a redundant single zone system, you get an M2 core. If you need a multi-zone system, you get the M3 core. The M3 core can also be configured as a single zone core if DSR (Dynamic System Resilience) is required, which is a redundant core at a separate geographical location.

So then why do those two terms appear in XTS/XTL and APX CPS under P25 systems? Because MSI probably decided back in the day that it was easier to explain how the coverage options (i.e. site roaming) worked to legacy 4.x customers when they were transitioning to P25 systems.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Just to clarify, there is no such thing as a "SmartZone" or "OmniLink" P25 system. Those terms, on a system level, apply to the older 4.x Type II systems.

ASTRO 25 system capability is based on the core. If you want a standard single zone trunked system, you get an M1 core. If you want a redundant single zone system, you get an M2 core. If you need a multi-zone system, you get the M3 core. The M3 core can also be configured as a single zone core if DSR (Dynamic System Resilience) is required, which is a redundant core at a separate geographical location.

So then why do those two terms appear in XTS/XTL and APX CPS under P25 systems? Because MSI probably decided back in the day that it was easier to explain how the coverage options (i.e. site roaming) worked to legacy 4.x customers when they were transitioning to P25 systems.

Which is likely one of the reasons you see wide area sites labeled as IR or Intelli Sites by customers who upgraded from Type II.

Worth noting, if you want Astro 25 subs to play on a multi-site Harris system (wide area roaming as Harris has been known to change RFSS to match the Site ID...which will require Omnilink to properly roam between the various RFSS's.

 

[BMDaug]

This is great info everyone! I’m just trying to fundamentally understand and translate terminology between M and L3H (mostly). Even the wiki, which is amazing, doesn’t really give me everything I’m looking for in a practical and relatable way. It’s great for explaining how things work within a single manufacturer ecosystem, but operating Harris and Kenwood SUs on an Moto system starts to become less straightforward.

Thanks again!

-Brian

 

[hitechRadio]

ASTRO 25 system capability is based on the core. If you want a standard single zone trunked system, you get an M1 core. If you want a redundant single zone system, you get an M2 core. If you need a multi-zone system, you get the M3 core. The M3 core can also be configured as a single zone core if DSR (Dynamic System Resilience) is required, which is a redundant core at a separate geographical location.

There is really is no M-core level 1,2 or 3 (per se) any more.
Due to virtualization, a customer can get nearly any system with the level of redundancy or configuration they want. Even the Prime Site has gone virtualized. Heck you can get a cloud hosted redundant core now. Most of the systems new or updated now have all the bell's and whistles, just not enabled (licensed).

Virtualization has taken over, sometimes I miss the OLD days. Hard to keep up anymore with changes in technology.

Interestingly..At one time they were talking/rumored about putting an entire core on a raspberry pi, LOL, it would have been used for training in the field. Due to COVID,,,Don't think that ever happened on a Pi, but maybe a laptop.

 

[Ubbe]

Interestingly..At one time they were talking/rumored about putting an entire core on a raspberry pi

But it wasn't a fully working core, just a simulation of the management system to let you practice logging in to routers and servers and checking status and error logs and so on, without the risk of messing up a customers system. That wouldn't be a problem to run on a low performing Pi.

/Ubbe