STARS tower affiliations

[n4jri]

"Are you sure about this cause-and-effect, or is it an assumption"

It's an assumption at this time...until we can get more data. However, based on what I've seen/heard on the STARS system, it's somewhat logical.

I've wondered about this in relation to what we saw on RED1 during the Queen's visit and the last NASCAR race at RIR.

Further, if you watch the data dump, it will show affiliation and described the affiliated tower as "02" for tower 102 or 12 for tower 112. The data dump periodically receives all the affiliated towers. This data is what Pro96com uses to produce the "Adjacent Site Information" list.

Very interesting! Richard Rowland was not getting adjacent sites on his Pro96Com Monday night, but when he briefly activated the Dump screen, they all appeared. Looks like that'll need to be watched.

As to the issue of affiliation, is this what the program is calling it...and along with that, do the towers appear in the affiliation log? The nature of this relationship might be something to run by Mike Vandeveer.

I agree on the difference between affiliation and connected via the adjacent site list. It will be interesting to see the "spider web" of relations between the towers. How, for example, would a mobile unit near Leigh Mountain communicate on TG 51 to a Unit in Williamsburg? Would it flow through a common connected site (Petersburg)?

I feel sure that there would be at least a microwave path there. The big question is whether this would cause the Petersburg site to broadcast the TG with no mobiles affiliated on that TG.

Another thing that could fool us at this stage is how remarkably permissive the system is. Right now, it appears that all TG's are available on all sites, but this would result in a lot of overcrowding if the system were fully implemented--and we're seeing plenty of regional division in the way the TG's are organized. I've been told that the individual sites are capable of being much more restrictive of what TG's they carry.

I know that I cannot normally hear Norfolk units (TG 51) through the Williamsburg tower (Williamsburg is not "connected" to the Chesapeake tower). However, when I listen to the Hampton tower, I have no problem hearing TG 51.

It could be because there is no TG 51 Unit affiliated with the Williamsburg tower at that moment in time. But at least I know which tower to monitor to hear the Norfolk transmission.

This is where I think it's a question of mobile radios affiliated vs. tower sites connected. The main proof of this that I would cite is the difficulty troopers have in trying to hail each other on their TAC channels if affiliated with different towers. If no one on the Hampton tower, for example, is affiliated with Chesapeake Tac-2, they won't receive a hail from a trooper who is affiliated with the Chesapeake tower so far as I know.

There is still a tremendous amount of information to learn/discover about the STARS system.

Hopefully some of our troopers will respond to some of the more speciic issues raised. I sure hope so.

73/Allen (N4JRI)

 

[richrowl]

Tower 105 Rumford

I find this info showing on Pro96com for the Rumford Tower:

callsigns WPVP987 WPVI521
Freqs
151.0325 CWID and voice
151.4825 voice, data and private calls
152.0525 CWID and voice
152.2475 CWID and voice
152.8025 alternate control channel

Adajacent site information, status connected
101 Richmond
102 Petersburg
103 Louisa
104 Warsaw
106 Thornburg
112 Williamsburg
121 Burgess