NYPD CW 2

[902]

Can’t tell you how many times “radio companies”
Couldn’t figure out the problem in my area.

It's not hard, but it's not cheap and it takes some engineering (which is really where the 'couldn't figure it out' came from; anyone experienced with this today is really old, retired, or dead - or a combination of all three).

C-2 conditioned lines (more expensive, but a cost of doing business), proper level-setting, and proper adjustment of transmitter audio gain and deviation. It was delicate in wideband, it's even more critical in narrowband. Maybe the biggest thing is to dump the Plectron tone arrangement where 262.2/3487 can be used together for alert paging. Use groupings of tones that are of a certain frequency range. Anything else can distort the tones on one end or not have enough level, both making alerting unreliable.

 

[k2hz]

It's not hard, but it's not cheap and it takes some engineering (which is really where the 'couldn't figure it out' came from; anyone experienced with this today is really old, retired, or dead - or a combination of all three).

C-2 conditioned lines (more expensive, but a cost of doing business), proper level-setting, and proper adjustment of transmitter audio gain and deviation. It was delicate in wideband, it's even more critical in narrowband. Maybe the biggest thing is to dump the Plectron tone arrangement where 262.2/3487 can be used together for alert paging. Use groupings of tones that are of a certain frequency range. Anything else can distort the tones on one end or not have enough level, both making alerting unreliable.

Amen brother! I am in the old and mostly retired category but not quite dead yet. In the analog tone signaling world intermod between tones when anything was overdriven into clipping was as big a problem as RF intermod. Even without the tone remote issues, pager falsing was a big problem if TX audio and deviation were not set properly. On control line circuits, excessive level caused only crosstalk on copper circuits but once digital T-Carrier, Microwave and Fiber were involved, which required use of tone signaling instead of DC unless you wanted to get involved with E&M control circuits, excessive level overdriving the CODEC caused all kinds of havoc.

Unfortunately, some techs were sure that "more is better" so tried to fix problems by turning up the gain. I was a Telco Transmission & Special Service Engineer in the 80's. We had some customers that insisted they need to run sustained +10 tone and voice levels for "reliability". If they wouldn't listen to reason our solution was a 10db pad on the customer input interface.

Tone paging on narrow band is very critical for proper levels and can get really messy when CTCSS tones are also present. If the channel is intended as alerting only some systems have eliminated CTCSS to improve the paging reliability. There was a recent discussion on this Forum when a system decided to drop CTCSS for that reason to the consternation of listeners wanting to monitor the channel.

 

[12dbsinad]

Yep, the old RF guys are becoming a thing of the past. Today radio guys are IT guys, which is fine for half of it. Get to the fundamentals of RF to make a system work and you get the deer in headlights stare.

I can make a comfortable living with just a service monitor and a truck full of notch and band pass cavities. Full time job especially in today’s world.

 

[902]

Yep, the old RF guys are becoming a thing of the past. Today radio guys are IT guys, which is fine for half of it. Get to the fundamentals of RF to make a system work and you get the deer in headlights stare.

I can make a comfortable living with just a service monitor and a truck full of notch and band pass cavities. Full time job especially in today’s world.

RF is a greasy, smoke belching diesel engine to IT-heads. They want a nice, "black box" or subscription based service, which (in my estimation) is why many of them get bedazzled by the marketing people from Public Safety Telephone. They don't care about transport. And, in one respect, they're correct - data doesn't care if it goes over Zigbee, LTE, Wi-Fi, or a narrowband VHF channel (assuming it has enough throughput).

I'm doing a little like you. I work keeping analog and "light-duty" digital (P25 phase 1, because it "looks like" an analog system as far as channel occupancy) alive. At least until Social Security kicks in. They they can get spiffy young people in 5-11 apparel trucking out a big satellite dish and 100 ft. cell tower in 72 hours because it's so "professional" and hands-off... as long as no one else needs it. Not really comfortable pay, but the benefits stomp all over what I was getting in the private sector.

 

[IFRIED91]

RF is a greasy, smoke belching diesel engine to IT-heads. They want a nice, "black box" or subscription based service, which (in my estimation) is why many of them get bedazzled by the marketing people from Public Safety Telephone. They don't care about transport. And, in one respect, they're correct - data doesn't care if it goes over Zigbee, LTE, Wi-Fi, or a narrowband VHF channel (assuming it has enough throughput).

I'm doing a little like you. I work keeping analog and "light-duty" digital (P25 phase 1, because it "looks like" an analog system as far as channel occupancy) alive. At least until Social Security kicks in. They they can get spiffy young people in 5-11 apparel trucking out a big satellite dish and 100 ft. cell tower in 72 hours because it's so "professional" and hands-off... as long as no one else needs it. Not really comfortable pay, but the benefits stomp all over what I was getting in the private sector.

I love monitoring Westchester County PD… i must say they are THE MOST simple non-dramatic dept ever over the air in terms of both dispatchers and units in the field… “headquarters to 45 baker, 45 Charlie….” In the calmest toner hahah… “start making your way (no sense of urgency whatsoever in the dispatchers voice) to xyz for abc…time is so and so hrs… 45 baker K, 45 Adam K” it’s how radio comms should be for law enforcement… NO stupid 10 codes..

 

[12dbsinad]

RF is a greasy, smoke belching diesel engine to IT-heads. They want a nice, "black box" or subscription based service, which (in my estimation) is why many of them get bedazzled by the marketing people from Public Safety Telephone. They don't care about transport. And, in one respect, they're correct - data doesn't care if it goes over Zigbee, LTE, Wi-Fi, or a narrowband VHF channel (assuming it has enough throughput).

I'm doing a little like you. I work keeping analog and "light-duty" digital (P25 phase 1, because it "looks like" an analog system as far as channel occupancy) alive. At least until Social Security kicks in. They they can get spiffy young people in 5-11 apparel trucking out a big satellite dish and 100 ft. cell tower in 72 hours because it's so "professional" and hands-off... as long as no one else needs it. Not really comfortable pay, but the benefits stomp all over what I was getting in the private sector.

Yep, right on brother!