Oakland, CA PD Radios Fail Again During High-Speed Chase

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car5le

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First - thank god no one got hurt. That could have been a bad situation. At least they folks had the sense to fall back onto another form of communication.

Ok - Not to sound like a jerk here, but who's the person who programmed OPD's radios in the first place? Did they forget about the Time Out Timer feature? That's a standard feature that's mandatory in my neck of the woods...
 
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xts3000r

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wow now i know why motorola is the best. just look at opd radios from ge/macomm/?/?/? who now
 

OpSec

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wow now i know why motorola is the best. just look at opd radios from ge/macomm/?/?/? who now

A Motorola radio without a time-out timer programmed will behave exactly the same as any other vendor's radio without a time-out timer programmed. Your comment is meaningless.
 

b52hbuff

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Doesn't the transmitting radio identify itself? And can't it be disabled from the communications console?
 
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xts3000r

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yes they do send a rid. when they talk. so it can be bricked if they want to. and motorola radios are set to 90. seconds on the time out timer. form the factory
 

b52hbuff

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yes they do send a rid. when they talk. so it can be bricked if they want to. and motorola radios are set to 90. seconds on the time out timer. form the factory

Right, so then even if the timeout wasn't set, the console operator could have disabled the radio. So sounds like operator error and not a radio issue. I hate it when technology is mislabelled as the 'fall guy'.
 

Farscan

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It is impossible to brick a radio thats transmitting unless it's full duplex which these are not. So the only thing to do is spend $30 million on a new digital system, and a new helicopter, or fire the tech that programmed the radios, because he'll program the new ones the same way.
 

radioman2001

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Interesting how they found a stuck mic, but failed to identify which radio, I wonder if it was any of the officers working this job more information would be help full, and BTW it's FCC rule that all radios that work on repeaters have a TOT not to exceed 2 min of transmit time. My agency has them set for 30 sec, if you can't get the message out by then, you need to use a land line.
 
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when i did radio programing the time out timer from motorola was always 60 not 90 from factory this was if theirs a stuck mic after 60 the channels open for radio traffic thats if that department uses MDC IDS.
 

ncarpenter

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Interesting how they found a stuck mic, but failed to identify which radio,
The article doesn't mention anything about identifying the radio that caused the open mic issue.


I know when we have open mics on our system, typically the problem is caused by a radio that is worn improperly on the belt (such as the PTT button being pressed against the side of the car's seat) and keys up for an amount of time, but as the officer shifts around in his seat, the PTT intermittently opens and closes, defeating the TOT. This could also making sending a deadbeat signal quite difficult if the PTT releases are only about a second each. IMO, systems that require access grants are great, since they eliminate multiple key-ups. But it still only takes one radio to bring down an entire talkgroup.
 

PJH

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when i did radio programing the time out timer from motorola was always 60 not 90 from factory this was if theirs a stuck mic after 60 the channels open for radio traffic thats if that department uses MDC IDS.

Actually, part of the above doesn't make any sense :)

And, Motorola has by default (from the past several/many years) four levels of TOT optios, all which are user selectable or could be modifed.

I've seen them from 30/60/90/120 to 60/90/120/infinate and any combination thereof.

The MDC thing is meaningless unless the radio supports, and the console is optioned for remote kill. I will say that in my experience is that 99% of the traditional centracom consoles do not have this option installed. Most centracom gold/mcc series I have see do have it on by default. Again, meainingless if the radio does not suport the inhibit command or its not enable in a radio that does support it.
 

cartwright

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Perhaps............

Interesting how this all focuses to equipment. While the technology can provide secondary protection and correction, policy failure seems to be the issue here. Perhaps no policy on standardized programming, as well as the normal one that seems to surface in every situation, no policy on training and continued training for dispatchers / operators of the equipment.

Agencies will continue to fail in this area as training seems to take a backseat to the environments at hand.

Policy failure is usually a term that administrators shudder at and flat out will deny existence.

You cannot hold someone accountable without first training them, having them demonstrate proficiency, and then adhere to a written policy that is in effect. Provided the policy doesn't fail because of improper administration. And yes we as administrators fail quite a lot, but do not want to admit it.
 

PJH

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One thing that I've seen many radio's do, and not locked into one vendor is when they have major problem or low battery (for portables) is sometimes this exact thing can happen.

Also doesn't rule out that as people exited the patrol vehicles that the radio mic ended up weged in between something (wouldn't be the first time).

Its been awhile since I have programmed an EDACS radio, but I am sure that a TOT is an option.

Interesting how this all focuses to equipment. While the technology can provide secondary protection and correction, policy failure seems to be the issue here. Perhaps no policy on standardized programming, as well as the normal one that seems to surface in every situation, no policy on training and continued training for dispatchers / operators of the equipment.

I have yet to see a trunked systems subscriber units not programmed differenently. Every single one I have touched follows a specific template . This is to prevent hand programming each one, or customization so that any one person can pick up a spare or someone elses and can operate it correctly. I doubt thats the issue here.

Policy/Procedues only go so far. Not every failure or incident that goes bad is a policy failure. In our system we hold an entire day class on use and do practical stuff. Works pretty well. We also turn off advanced features that are not used to lessen people playing or accidently selecting features that might throw them for a loop.

I wouldn't throw the policy thing into the wind. Most CA departments are almost over policy'd and Oakland certainly has many of them, amoung a very high crime rate.

FWIW, if you haven't seen previous threads, Oaklands system has had many complete and partical failures in general.
 
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