AWIN Discussion

[INDY72]

OK.. the simulcast is its own 3 site site. Your talking about the ELR site for the orignal AWIN system?
East Little Rock Pulaski 851.16250 851.38750 853.70000 856.93750 857.66250c 857.93750 858.93750
859.93750a

That is an stand alone site for the AWIN... have you programmed in every freq to see if maybe the CC changed?

If that site is down, it may be undergoing maintenance in preparation of lining the simulcast into it for the SO coming on. It is NOT part of the simulcast system, again it is an stand alone repeater.

Or... that site no longer exists as both licenses listed for it were Special Temporary Authorities not permanent licenses... I will look in the FCC data and see if it even is still an site.... stand by

 

[INDY72]

854.1375
854.3375
856.0875
856.5125
857.5625
851.1625
853.7000
856.9375
857.6625
857.9375
858.9375
859.9375
860.9375

Try those and see if you get anything.

3 New Licenses for the Roosevelt Road site.. AKA East Little Rock.. One set of freqs not in the original list.

If you find an active CC.. and get data from it, I will redo the ELR site.. Its one of the way out of date ones....

 

[dbs1023]

854.1375
854.3375
856.0875
856.5125
857.5625
851.1625
853.7000
856.9375
857.6625
857.9375
858.9375
859.9375
860.9375

Try those and see if you get anything.

3 New Licenses for the Roosevelt Road site.. AKA East Little Rock.. One set of freqs not in the original list.

If you find an active CC.. and get data from it, I will redo the ELR site.. Its one of the way out of date ones....

The site must be down. I am still not getting anything from that site even though it shows to be getting signal from it. I can pick up transmissions on my 106 from shinall and nothing on the 436 in discovery for the elf site.

 

[INDY72]

OK, so neither the 106, or the 436 is picking up anything on those new freqs? Anyone else in the metro Little Rock area also confirming ELR site is currently offline?

Everyone keep your ears on that site for an reup, as this may be a cycling for PCSO etc to get online.... Also, I need an nieghbors list from every site you guys can pick up in the metro area so I can reverify since it seems a lot of AWIN data is now no longer valid.

Days like this make me really wish I was in the LR area just to enjoy the fun of this whole thing. I love this kind of stuff!

 

[dbs1023]

OK, so neither the 106, or the 436 is picking up anything on those new freqs? Anyone else in the metro Little Rock area also confirming ELR site is currently offline?

Everyone keep your ears on that site for an reup, as this may be a cycling for PCSO etc to get online.... Also, I need an nieghbors list from every site you guys can pick up in the metro area so I can reverify since it seems a lot of AWIN data is now no longer valid.

Days like this make me really wish I was in the LR area just to enjoy the fun of this whole thing. I love this kind of stuff!

I haven't been able to get anything from elr for sometime now. I don't know if it's my location or what....it's definitely closer than shinall. I have my scanners set on Cabot and shinall and they do really well on the depts. I have programmed. I do have elr programmed in the 436 so I can keep an eye on it.

Davenlr mentioned something about the elr site not too long ago.....Dave what were your findings?

 

[davenlr]

I am getting a good signal on ELR but no transmissions at all. If I stop on that site, the radio just bounces the signal meter from 0 to 5 bars, and the display shows alternating LNK and an occasional DAT

Ill enter those frequencies you posted and see what I get.

Entered the frequencies (deleted one, and added a few that were missing), cleared out the band plan, and it showed LNK for a while, the popped up P25, then went back to LNK. All the other sites I get show DAT instead of LNK. Dont know what all that means yet.
The scanner added 851.00625/6.2500 to line one of the band plan.

Not sure what a neighbors list is, but LRPD is currently coming in on Metro Simulcast, Shinall, and Round Mountain.

 

[INDY72]

Sounds like tweaking on the ELR site. Maybe getting it redone for the Pulaski County additions.

 

[dbs1023]

Sounds like tweaking on the ELR site. Maybe getting it redone for the Pulaski County additions.

That's what I am thinking. I ran discovery again today for 3 hours on elr and still did not have a single hit. I can not wait for Motorola to get another department online.

 

[chudson584]

I have something that needs a little more input, namely from milf, I've heard throught the grapevine that a few agencies, ASP being one, will be slowly transitioning away from AWINS. I was told today that there simply isn't room for radios to be logged into talkgroups. They told me while in their training they were told to stay away from channels they didn't need to be on. Example: If something was going on on one one of the MAC channels and you weren't apart of it it was advised that you not just listen in because it would take up space. I wasn't aware that talkgroups had shortened space. I thought on trunked systems talkgroups could have practically unlimited users in one group. Anyone care to chime in? Looks like AWINS is headed for the grave from what ive heard over the last year a two. A complete waste of money resource if it happens.

 

[davenlr]

Sounds to me like they are talking about using up all the frequencies on one site, if everyone in the state tried to listen in, then that departments traffic would all end up on that one site. I can see where one site with 5 or 6 channels couldnt handle 30 departments at once.

I see no way they could run out of actual talk group ID's.

And if ASP was to move, just where would they go? Cell? Low band highway patrol of old?

 

[03msc]

I agree, that doesn't make sense...at least as far as my knowledge of a P25 trunked system, as AWIN is (again...there is no S on the end of AWIN).

It almost sounds like someone was speaking without the proper knowledge, but again I don't claim to know everything about a P25 system so maybe it's right. Or maybe they were somewhat right but either said it wrong or it was interpreted incorrectly.

Hopefully milf or someone else who has the knowledge of how the system works will chime in with a brief, clear answer.

 

[chudson584]

I guess I add an 'S' to the end because thats the way I hear it all the time. I am aware that it is just AWIN. I guess I could be politcally correct and use the 'S' as 'system.' lol We've got two AWIN mobiles in our Raytheon bridging system for interop where I dispatch and it would be a shame to see it go away. Yes, I said interop within our dept. utilizing a bridging system. Some federal agencies we work with in Newton county do not use AWIN and we are trbo at the SO.

 

[dbs1023]

I was curious if anyone knows what all of the county/rural fire depts etc plan to do with the UHF and VHF channels. Is it in the works to have them upgrade to awin?

 

[03msc]

I was curious if anyone knows what all of the county/rural fire depts etc plan to do with the UHF and VHF channels. Is it in the works to have them upgrade to awin?

I suspect some (many?) will convert them to a DMR variant of some sort, or maybe NXDN? I suspect DMR is more likely...unfortunately.

I don't think they will go AWIN due to the fact that a majority of the personnel on such departments use portables/handhelds only and the AWIN coverage isn't as great as it would need to be for portable coverage...

Again, just my speculation.

 

[davenlr]

What is DMR? From the tone of your message, it sounds like something we wont be able to listen to? Why wouldnt the pulaski co ones just stay on the old system? Seems to be working ok for them.

 

[chudson584]

You can listen to DMR/trbo on a tapped scanner and DSD. I really dont care for trbo. No gain control. Loud people will blast the speaker out of the radio and quiet people you cant hear. Sucks when you turn up tour radio to listen to someone who is quiet then someone loud comes on. We're getting a little off point here. AWIN does lack a bit in coverage and as much money that was put into it should stay. They should have looked into cheaper options as fars as equipment brand. Motorol is overpriced and under delivered. Plenty of other rigs out there perfectly capable of working on AWIN. Even without affiliation like my EF Johnson 5100. Just punch in the voice freqs from a site(this is if you have a commercial radio and not a scanner) and you can listen all day without worrying about affiliation and someone remotly stunning/killing your unauthorized radio.

 

[chudson584]

^^^Yes, horrible grammer. lol type way to fast and not much of an editor

 

[dbs1023]

You can listen to DMR/trbo on a tapped scanner and DSD. I really dont care for trbo. No gain control. Loud people will blast the speaker out of the radio and quiet people you cant hear. Sucks when you turn up tour radio to listen to someone who is quiet then someone loud comes on. We're getting a little off point here. AWIN does lack a bit in coverage and as much money that was put into it should stay. They should have looked into cheaper options as fars as equipment brand. Motorol is overpriced and under delivered. Plenty of other rigs out there perfectly capable of working on AWIN. Even without affiliation like my EF Johnson 5100. Just punch in the voice freqs from a site(this is if you have a commercial radio and not a scanner) and you can listen all day without worrying about affiliation and someone remotly stunning/killing your unauthorized radio.

I have been interested in an actual radio not a scanner for a while now. I stopped looking once I found out they can be bricked remotely. If I can get one without the worry of being bricked what should I look for and what should I expect to shell out? I definitely want to listen to swim....do they make multi band portables?

Now I'm off to find out what tapped and dsd means..

 

[INDY72]

The issues for trunked systems for "growing room" so to speak is the following:

On the older Legacy Systems (Smart Net, Smart Zone) is the extremely limited number of available RID's that can be used. On P25 Phase I, this number goes up dramatically, but has limits per the number of Zones (Zone Controllers) on a given system. LWIN experienced nearly maxing out its capacity and added another Zone to the system, allowing an additional large number of RID's. On Legacy, and P25 Phase I's you also have the issue of number of users per site vs number of available freqs. This is limited to 1 TG active per a Voice Channel (VC) at a time on Legacy, and P25 Phase I's. Say you have a 5 Channel Site - This means 1 Control Channel (CC), and 4 possible VC's. This limits 4 TG's that can be active simultaneously on that site.

Now, welcome to the future, the world of TDMA, which for P25, is either Phase II or X-2 (which was an interim step during finalization of Phase II TDMA protocols)....
***Phase I is FDMA***
With Phase II, you now can have 2 TG's (On current TDMA Standards) active on a VC. Lets take that same 5 freq site and upgrade it to P25 Phase II capabilities - 1 CC, and 4 VC's, but now you can have 8 TG's going.

Apply this to say an 30 freq monster site. Analog, and P25 Phase I = 29 TG's at once. P25 Phase II would mean 58 TG's at once.

Now for non P25, TDMA means DMR (MotoTRBO etc...) With a smaller agency on analog VHF/UHF, or 2 uses to be happening simultaneously you would need multiple repeaters using differing tones, or would need multiple different freqs. (F1 Dispatch, F2 Tactical etc... or F1 SO, F2 EMS etc...) As there is no P25 Phase II standard for conventional, to go TDMA you would need to go DMR. With DMR, now you get to use spectrum much more effeciently. Now you can do this: F1 Dispatch Slot 1, Tactical Slot 2, F2 Car to Car Slot 1, SWAT Slot 2 etc... Or F1 SO Slot 1, EMS Slot 2, F2 EMA Slot 1, VFD Dispatch Slot 2 etc...


AWIN is going to have to add another zone if they grow much more and add a lot of users true. But the issue is not with the RID's currently, it is with number of users vs freqs on certain sites. This will be alleviated once AWIN upgrades to Phase II capabilities. Yes this will be happening as they have 700 MHz sites now, and in just a couple of years, all 700 MHz must be Phase II compliant. They have an waiver filed currently to delay having to have the system fully ready by the deadline, but it is still going to happen.

 

[INDY72]

You can listen to DMR/trbo on a tapped scanner and DSD. I really dont care for trbo. No gain control. Loud people will blast the speaker out of the radio and quiet people you cant hear. Sucks when you turn up tour radio to listen to someone who is quiet then someone loud comes on. We're getting a little off point here. AWIN does lack a bit in coverage and as much money that was put into it should stay. They should have looked into cheaper options as fars as equipment brand. Motorol is overpriced and under delivered. Plenty of other rigs out there perfectly capable of working on AWIN. Even without affiliation like my EF Johnson 5100. Just punch in the voice freqs from a site(this is if you have a commercial radio and not a scanner) and you can listen all day without worrying about affiliation and someone remotly stunning/killing your unauthorized radio.

Here is the problem with this: You have no idea who is who unless you recognize the routines/voices/etc...