Value of site neighbors in trunked systems?

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wbloss

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When I receive a new system I always check the RR database for site NAC and Neighbors...and update them when old or missing info is found.
487 submissions completed!
Now that the SDS 100 is using site NAC I am pleased this will be useful.

BUT, a serious question now: of what use is site neighbors?
I suppose seeing what is nearby, but the map of sites RR has would do that.
What function/value is site neighbors?

Thanks

W
 

troymail

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In it's current form in the RRDB? I'd say it is simply "informational". One example might be (if the data could be 100% accurate, complete, and maintained up-to-date) would be to be able to see that a particular tower isn't documented as connected at all.

However, that can be confusing or misleading as well - I've monitored some (at least one) multi systems that carried the same/similar traffic but the tools I had available did not indicate the sites were neighbors (which I found pretty odd). I assume that meant that the subscriber radios weren't allowed to "roam" between the sites... Idunno

Drifting away/past from your question a bit (more)...

When radios process a control channel, they have the ability to "see" the neighbor info to include the current neighboring CC frequencies... A more interesting and useful feature of the neighbor data would be automated such that you could potentially "seed" a radio with one control channel (parms) and the radio would automatically "follow" and change to other sites as you move - maybe even build up an internal database of this information as you go. Of course (but maybe not obvious) is this could also causing problems if your radio managed to automatically "switch" to a neighbor that isn't carrying the traffic you are interested in - or even worse - a site that isn't carrying much if any traffic at all....
 

mtindor

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When I receive a new system I always check the RR database for site NAC and Neighbors...and update them when old or missing info is found.
487 submissions completed!
Now that the SDS 100 is using site NAC I am pleased this will be useful.

BUT, a serious question now: of what use is site neighbors?
I suppose seeing what is nearby, but the map of sites RR has would do that.
What function/value is site neighbors?

Thanks

W

If one believes they can trust the site neighbors/peers (you can on P25, but maybe not so much on DMR/NXDN since they don't _require_ site neighbors to be broadcast for the radios to properly roam), then I can think of at least one very good reason.

We often find new sites on multisite systems -- think of statewide systems like TRBOConnect over in IN/KY. That is a CON+ system. For many sites, only one frequency is known / has been discovered (the control channel, at the time the person monitored it). The frequency could be part of 4 or 5 different FCC site licenses -- so how do you determine what site it really is?

Well, if you have all of the neighbors broadcast by the sites, you can then determine what sites go with what FCC site locations after mapping out each site and its neighbors. Site neighbors/peers are actually very very helpful if you don't know where every site is and don't know if you copied the site locally or because of a tropo enhancement event.

That's why I always try to encourage people who have DSDPlus or Pro96Com or Unitrunker to obtain and submit the site neighbors/peers broadcast by the control channel for P25, EDACS, NXDN and DMR systems that are multisite.

Mike
 
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