What Saianet Tower does BNIA CFR work off of? Also What tower does the UB Police work off of?
BNIA CFR AND UB POLICE
- Thread starter BusDriverDave
- Start date
both tag seneca one tower reguarly
How many times does this have to be said. Those users can operate off any of the SaiaNet sites. If a radio is affiliated to a site that TG will be available. There is no dedicated site that they use. It all depends on RSSI and roaming of the subscriber radio
Yes, but users such as an airport are in a fixed location, so questions about "home" sites would be legit in those cases.
How so? It's smack dab in the middle of Lancaster, Seneca One, and UB North tower coverage area. I've caught them on all three. One edge of the airport probably hits one better than another edge of the airport. It's been discussed multiple times on here regarding what tower carries what traffic, and the same answer has come out multiple times. Furthermore, subscriber units move about the area, off airport property, and of course, dragging that TG onto whatever tower works best for them. Airport Fire runs mutual aid off the airport property. I believe their motto for a bit was "Have truck, will travel", as they got a nice new mid-mount truck, which can be staffed, and wants to see some work and get dirty.
The same goes for the BNIA field crews. They have been on multiple towers, all while plowing snow on the runway....
I think we're missing the forest for the trees. My point is that the airport cannot move about, so it will always be found on the same tower or towers. The fact that a user in a fixed location is within range of more than one site does not invalidate the general observation.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2016
- Messages
- 1,912
Just my take....Most times it will hit the same tower, but not every time. Same with WSPD . No need to put in every tower of saianet. You should however do the research and put in more then one, because they can use ANY tower and you may miss some transmissions with only the seneca one site programmed in. A sdr dongle is great for doing this kind of research, but you can also do it it on a scanner by programing in the nearby sites and watching or better yet, recording the data and reviewing it later. Then duplicate the system and program each site they hit on, (one site per entry), repeat for each site you got hits on.
OK I'm pretty sure I understand how multisite trunked radio systems work, but I'm certainly open to being educated if not. Assuming that I DO understand, that statement is not accurate. Traffic on a particular talkgroup will be heard on ALL sites where a radio sitting on that talk group has affiliated. Otherwise, what is the point of being able to roam to a different site?
I think the OP's real question was, "If I want to hear the airport, which site or sites would be the best choice?"
"You need to listen to all of them since a unit from one of those talk groups *might* be affiliated" is not the right answer.
Here's a real-world example on the same system. A number of school districts in Monroe County are using Saianet for their buses. A couple summers ago, when one of the districts had just switched over, there was a trip (sports I think) to somewhere in the Buffalo area. I was monitoring their talkgroup (from the Rochester Saianet site) and heard the drivers express amazement that they could talk back to their base from Buffalo. Obviously their radio had roamed to one of the Buffalo-area sites; it was not still hitting the one in Rochester. But guess what? I heard the traffic on the Rochester site, since that's the whole point ... all traffic on a given talkgroup goes out to every radio on that talk group, independent of which site they are affiliated with.
So going back to the Buffalo airport. The radios at the airport are going to affiliate to the closest site, and if one monitors that site you'll hear all traffic on those talkgroups, even if some radios are affiliated to a different site. Even if there are two close sites and radios roam between the two, as long as there is ONE radio affiliated with the site you are monitoring, you'll hear all the traffic.
Going back to my school bus example, if someone asked me "which site should I monitor if I want to hear XYX buses" I would tell them "Rochester, or maybe Bristol". I wouldn't tell them, "Oh but you have to listen to ALL the sites because a bus might drive to Buffalo". Even if ALL their buses drove to Buffalo, their base station would still be affiliated to the Rochester site and ALL traffic on the TG would still be heard on that site.
Same with the airport. The mobiles move around, but the airport doesn't! (Yes, that's what @DaveNF2G already said; I just used 10x as many words!)
All of them, no. Pulling up Site 25 - Syracuse is probably not going to ever be fruitful in monitoring any BNIA TG's. More so, ones they logically would be affiliated with, or their neighbors, they'd be nearby as well. A prime example of this is West Seneca PD. Units could be closer to Site 4 - East Aurora, BUT, as it's been discussed previously, Site 4 is more for targeted coverage within EA and not the blanket coverage Site 1 has. Because of this, WSPD units most likely would be affiliating with Site 1. Plus, the only way to really figure out which sites they'd be actually affiliating with is through Saia's servers or really intensively tracking RID affiliations in DSD.
Closest site, but not always. Best site, yes, which can vary. Further supporting this idea, I'm fairly confident BNIA Airport Fire, like many (if not all) public safety agencies on SaiaNet, are using TRBONet consoles tied back into SaiaNet's servers via microwave links (or whatever the proper terminology would be for it all), and not using physical radios bringing an affiliation to an on-site radio rack feeding a dispatch console. So best site or "home site" can vary, basically depending on the way the wind blows (not literally, but I'm assuming you understand RF coverage can fluctuate depending on many variables).
I understand the whole logic of not monitoring a whole wide area system to listen to specific things, but BNIA is a bad examples of arguing a "home site" to listen to them best on. UB is self explaintory, they have a site right on one of the campuses. One of their other campuses is in the shadows of Site -1. Someone asking where to monitor UB PD just can't read a DB page. BNIA is literally in the middle of three sites that report (per their coverage maps) >=-60 dBm coverage on that specific piece of property.
Similar threads
