APX8000 mandown TX talkgroup

[rr60]

The report was interesting especially extracting modern data as part of the investigation.

I would like to understand how ATIA radio data can be extracted if a bidirectional path does not exist between subscriber and controller. I wonder what happens when a man down button is pushed if the repeater input being blocked by DTV RFI. Specifically if the button reverts to a TG on a system whose channels all occupy 6MHZ of TV spectrum and the input (s} are overwhelmed with significant RFI.

Would there still be a record of an emergency mandown press? I do not think that is possible.

As a side note, the department that runs the system says they have none, zero reporting nor knowledge when the system is taken out by RFI.

This is a modern Type II system that is all up to date.

 

[MTS2000des]

The report was interesting especially extracting modern data as part of the investigation.

I would like to understand how ATIA radio data can be extracted if a bidirectional path does not exist between subscriber and controller. I wonder what happens when a man down button is pushed if the repeater input being blocked by DTV RFI. Specifically if the button reverts to a TG on a system whose channels all occupy 6MHZ of TV spectrum and the input (s} are overwhelmed with significant RFI.

Would there still be a record of an emergency mandown press? I do not think that is possible.

As a side note, the department that runs the system says they have none, zero reporting nor knowledge when the system is taken out by RFI.

This is a modern Type II system that is all up to date.

The inbound request has to be received by the zone controller. If not, due to RFI, poor coverage, whatever- then it won't be in the ATIA data stream.

Modern type II? Nothing modern about that, as MSI stopped selling Smartnet MTC3600 based controllers over 20 years ago.

 

[rr60]

Poor terminology so noted. P25 Phase II LSM would have been appropriate. Thanks!

 

[wa8pyr]

A dispatcher has to acknowledge the alarm on a console, which allows them to "knock down". User can cancel the emergency call by long pressing the emergency button until a long tone is emitted from the subscriber.
There is no "best way", it depends on what your agency policy is.

And this generally only works if the dispatcher console has a direct connection to the radio system. If you're an agency with consoles that use RF control stations instead of a direct connection, it can't be done over the air (unless there's some new setting I'm unaware of).

As much as I've tried to find a workaround which would allow our dispatchers to knock it down via their consoles, they still have to tell the guilty party to clear it on their walkie. With Moto radios it's as simple as pressing the button again; with the Harris radios they have to go through the menu to Exit Emergency Mode in order to kill the banner (despite the claimed ability to kill it by pressing the button again, we haven't been able to get that to work).

 

[MTS2000des]

All of our console sites have core connections, albeit a couple are ultra ghetto with a third party metro E...but the whole point of console subsite is to have things like console priority, not relying on RF resources for patching, multigroup, etc.

I still get red ears when our folks tell users to "reset your radio by turning it OFF then back ON"- this does NOT clear the EA from the ZC, Only a console ack and knock down or subscriber long press will properly cancel the EA.

 

[wa8pyr]

All of our console sites have core connections, albeit a couple are ultra ghetto with a third party metro E...but the whole point of console subsite is to have things like console priority, not relying on RF resources for patching, multigroup, etc.

I still get red ears when our folks tell users to "reset your radio by turning it OFF then back ON"- this does NOT clear the EA from the ZC, Only a console ack and knock down or subscriber long press will properly cancel the EA.

Yep. I have a management terminal (Provisioning Manager, UNC Wizard, RCM, ZoneWatch, etc) in my office and can knock them down via RCM, but I only do so if the dispatch center specifically asks me to because the guilty party can't figure out how to clear the banner.

When I look at the banners on RCM for the entire system (not just our county), it never fails to amaze me how many banners pop up and go un-acknowledged for days or weeks on end. Many of them are probably from agencies which shouldn't even have emergency banners in the first place, but some aren't....

 

[MTS2000des]

When I look at the banners on RCM for the entire system (not just our county), it never fails to amaze me how many banners pop up and go un-acknowledged for days or weeks on end. Many of them are probably from agencies which shouldn't even have emergency banners in the first place, but some aren't....

Which is why we only allow emergency alarm/call to be programmed on subscribers with a "business need" to have it, and are monitored by a manned dispatch console. No public works, civilian non-PS users, or cache radios have EA activated. Only law, fire and EMS that we have a dispatch agreement/responsibility for. Each agency's emergency will be declared on their appropriated dispatch TG. This prevents what you describe from occurring.

 

[wa8pyr]

Which is why we only allow emergency alarm/call to be programmed on subscribers with a "business need" to have it, and are monitored by a manned dispatch console. No public works, civilian non-PS users, or cache radios have EA activated. Only law, fire and EMS that we have a dispatch agreement/responsibility for. Each agency's emergency will be declared on their appropriated dispatch TG. This prevents what you describe from occurring.

Yeah, unfortunately that little detail appears to have been overlooked for a lot of users on our state system; either the programmers simply didn't disable the orange button for users who didn't have a legitimate need, or it just got completely forgotten about.

What you describe was the policy on the county system I administered before we joined the state system; I can't count how many times we had an emergency call and alarm from a snow plow because the accessory plug on a Spectra (a hand-me-down from public safety) was loose; tied up a channel on the system all night long, and in a couple of cases all weekend. I made the guilty agency get all of their radios reprogrammed to completely disable emergency banners.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Yep. I have a management terminal (Provisioning Manager, UNC Wizard, RCM, ZoneWatch, etc) in my office and can knock them down via RCM, but I only do so if the dispatch center specifically asks me to because the guilty party can't figure out how to clear the banner.

When I look at the banners on RCM for the entire system (not just our county), it never fails to amaze me how many banners pop up and go un-acknowledged for days or weeks on end. Many of them are probably from agencies which shouldn't even have emergency banners in the first place, but some aren't....

Our City PD uses employee IDs for radio aliases with the goal being when the EMERG is activated our 911 telecommunicators can track whose radio it is. Well a few years ago I had a long night when I got a frantic call from our 911 center at around 2am. They had an EMERG activation but could not get a hold of the specific officer. They were worried that the officer might be in a ditch somewhere and could not respond. After several calls we finally found out the officer whose employee ID was tied to the radio had left the city and handed his radio to his replacement without telling anyone. So our dispatchers thought the previous officer still had the radio because that is all they had to go on. Needless to say all officers were reminded at next in service training to make sure that they knew proper procedures as far as keeping our 911 staff & us in the radio shop informed with who has what radio.

 

[speedway_navigator]

tied up a channel on the system all night long, and in a couple of cases all weekend.

When I was in my first 2 way shop a client was a school bus system on VHF csq. The dispatcher was getting co-channel bleed over from a user in LA so she figured out the heavy dictionary would mute the noise when it was placed on the wide gray bar at the base of the desk mic.
The FCC had a nice chat with my boss on Monday morning.

 

[ElroyJetson]

I used to service a school bus system and one of the dispatcher/managers was just SURE that the radios had longer range if you talked louder into the microphone. I turned down the mic gain quite a bit and could NOT convince her that that trick doesn't work.

 

[KevinC]

Back when I was maintaining the fleet of radios for the Pony Express we had trouble with the...NVM, no one cares.