Centracom gold elite information

[Murdoc1905]

First things first: I fully understand that if I don't know what I'm doing I should just give up now, I understand that the gold elite system is extremely difficult to setup and probably won't work properly.

With that being said,
Background: I am a volunteer for a small department that has a chief that built our radio network himself by hand, so as you can imagine budgets are a concern.

Information: our radio system is at one of our locations, with a T1 line attaching it to our dispatch facility that is run by a different county. What we are looking to do is set up an emergency backup dispatch center (2 dispatchers) locally in case of power outage, loss of service, or other unforseen accidents. (chief likes to be redundantly redundant) what we have is a bunch of Centracom Elite Dispatch hardware that was removed from an upgrading dispatch facility as well as the software that goes with it.

Questions: I have no idea what comprises a "complete" system, we have a pile of hardware that was forcibly removed (wires cut in some cases) if someone could give me either pictures of hardware required or part numbers would be great (b1822b). I am trying to see if we even have enough to make a system functional. If not we will try another option. I just need information so I can go to the chief and say "it's possible" or "don't waste your time"

 

[WA0CBW]

Wow! Installing/programing one of these that has been forceably de-installed without documentation is an almost impossible task. If you could get it working switching from the main dispatch to this console might not even be possible in your situation. I was a Motorola tech for 40 years and I installed many Gold Elite consoles and I wouldn't attempt what you are trying to do for any amount of money.
Bb

 

[Thunderknight]

Depending on scale, if it’s just one or 3 radio channels with limited numbers of bases, you may want to consider something like local tone remotes or a simple button and LED console. Not as fancy as the main setup, but it may be enough to keep you running in a bad day.
The other solution is if you are all repeaters is just some control stations at your backup location.
Paging can be a stand-alone paging encoder.

 

[zz0468]

I just need information so I can go to the chief and say "it's possible" or "don't waste your time"

Tell him not to waste his time. It's a good rock solid system when it's installed and programmed by people who know what they're doing. It could be a nightmare for people who don't.

"Forcibly removed" doesn't bode well for making this stuff reliable.

Pull the boards and see what you can get for them on eBay. There's a lot of agencies out there looking to nurse their older systems along for another 5 years. This isn't the stuff to start with.

I'd be looking for grant money, if I were you.

 

[Murdoc1905]

I do appreciate the Information, and I do realize that the odds of getting a functional system are extremely remote, but that won't stop us from trying. It would be a million times easier if there was actual system install documentation, however I understand that if there was you would Have had any dispatch IT guy thinking he could do it and end up breaking both systems. The system was forcibly removed, however it was, from what I can tell, a 6 console system. There are consoles that have the wires cut but also some that have been removed properly. I am pretty good at troubleshooting and figuring things out however due to the nature of this task it isnt exactly public knowledge. I've gone as far as looking at communication theory trying to figure out how the system would function https://patents.google.com/patent/US5093829 but this still only gets me to understand how the system "should" function. It doesn't tell me what pin out on the b1822b should connect to the Ceb or aeb or even if the rj45 connector on the b1822b should go to rj45 on dispatch computer, or convert to serial, or what. Time I have, money is always in short supply. This is not a setup in a weekend type thing, we will be at this in our free time probably over the next few months. But I'd hate to get the system mostly set up to find out I need a special 27.6vdc power supply that no one makes and costs $5,000 for a used one.

 

[Murdoc1905]

Well I found a lot of information thanks to https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...WMAJ6BAgAEAE&usg=AOvVaw2T-kZAFd9Mr0OasexqkLrf so I should be able get an idea of what I have vs what is needed.

 

[Murdoc1905]

Thanks to a wonderful soul who uploaded the whole book, I found the CEB maintenance manual. https://www.scribd.com/document/84413446/cebmaint
Only downside is you have to sign up for a free trial with your card. But you can cancel it of course before you get charged. It is the whole 370 page manual thou. Just thought I'd share.

 

[Murdoc1905]

Are there any special ethernet cables used to connect the server to the central electronics bank interface? There are two cables attached to ports 1 and 2, both with different wiring.

 

[Murdoc1905]

https://image.ibb.co/hdUteS/0428181011.jpg

 

[zz0468]

Are there any special ethernet cables used to connect the server to the central electronics bank interface? There are two cables attached to ports 1 and 2, both with different wiring.

The server doesn't connect to the CEB. There are no Ethernet connections to the CEB.

 

[Murdoc1905]

So do you know what the central electronics bank interface is used for? (the network switches below the cages in the picture)

 

[zz0468]

So do you know what the central electronics bank interface is used for? (the network switches below the cages in the picture)

Those are not network switches. They're patch panels.

The CEB is going to have two main types of cards. COIMs, which interface to the operator position PC's with their CIE - the actual "console", and BIMs which interface to the radios themselves.

There will be other cards as well. In the pic, I see LORI cards, which are for a logging recorder. I also see an AIMI card, which serves several functions, in this case mostly providing timing to all the other cards. It would also connect to an Ambassador switch in a larger network with multiple CEB's.

The COIM is going to have a 7 pair connection that carries select transmit audio, select receive audio, unselect receive audio, and a RS232 data circuit to the CIE, the box with the speakers that lives with the PC and monitor.

The BIM is typically going to have 3 pairs, for 2W or 4W audio and a control pair for something like E&M keying.

The cards in the cages plug into a backplane, which has various connectors on it. I can't see what's connected to what in the picture, but I expect that there's cabling from the backplane connectors to the patch panels, and then the patch panels connected the CEB to it's various external pieces like operator positions and radios.

Gold Elite CAN be connected to a network, but doesn't have to be. The network would be connected to the PC's at the consoles via standard ethernet connections. The network would be used for the configuration files that each position loads when it boots up. Once running, it doesn't need the network at all, and the config files can be stored locally, completely negating the need for a LAN connection. You really only need the network for a very large system.

 

[Murdoc1905]

Okay, that makes sense. So if I have a cable running from the P1 connection to the patch panel with a BIM card in slot 1 the way to convert a conventional radio's analog signal to digital and back is to plug a cable into the slot 1 of the patch panel and run it to the radio? Or is it pin specific,i believe I was reading something like "pin 56 and 57 are used for 2 wire and 58 and 59 for 4 wire" I'll have to find it again, but something like that. OK, so after I build the .cat file in the Cdm and have to upload it to the cards on the CEB (operator cards with the R232 card, and tty cable for the ACIM) do I have to also upload anything to the CIE? Is that done with the same tty cable? I pulled the aimi card as we won't need it and put a basic timing module in. We will be placing an Astro Console on the system for testing.

 

[Murdoc1905]

I found it, in that ceb maintenence manual

Would this mean that I should push the connector to a 66 block and then build a cable that would interface with what I need?

 

[cmdrwill]

" push the connector to a 66 block "

Punch down a cable to the 66 block, and that goes to the radio(s). So yes that would be an interface cable. We used twisted pairs cable like CAT 3 cable.

 

[Murdoc1905]

That's what I thought, thanks for the info. Would I need a separate bim for the consolette radio and one for the conventionals?

 

[NVAGVUP]

That's what I thought, thanks for the info. Would I need a separate bim for the consolette radio and one for the conventionals?

For the most part, yes. If each radio (trunked or conventional) has a dedicated function, yes.

But it also depends upon how each fixed radio is set up. Radios/consollettes can be set up with multiple frequency/talkgroup configurations. Corresponding BIM programming needs to be programmed to generate correct function tones. Not enough info to determine how your consollette/radios are configured.

As someone who has installed/programmed/maintained many Gold Elites/CEB's, you are wading in some deep water my friend. Good luck.

 

[Murdoc1905]

As someone who has installed/programmed/maintained many Gold Elites/CEB's, you are wading in some deep water my friend. Good luck.

Don't I know it.
One benifit is that we were able to get all of the Centracom manuals on pdf. So I'll be reading all of those in my spare time.

As far as the radio setup itself, I'm not a radio guy so it's all magical pixies to me, but from what I understand, we have 800mhz consolettes which communicate us with our dispatch. We also have an internal 40-50mhz radio setup which consists of 3 radio towers in different locations across our district with different frequencies that communicate back to our base station where there is a voter which automatically selects the best one to use. So it would only be 1 consolette attached and 1 input/output that would route thru the voter. I think. The 800mhz consolette is sent to dispatch via "accessory 2 and accessory 3 ports on the back, 25 pin serial converted to cat5e then plugged into the T1 modem. There is an" accessory 1" port which is ethernet, and I'm wondering if it would be possible just to plug that directly into the ACIM card. Or if I would need to 66 block it to the p1 connector.

 

[Murdoc1905]

Forgot to add, the 3 radios are Cdm1250's and the consolette Is a xtl-5000 I believe. We have a backup 3 radio setup, in case the other goes down, as well as 2 backup consolettes for the same reason.

 

[Murdoc1905]

Finally got the pc's talking to the CIE's talking to the COIMs. Found out we had 2 separate centracom elite systems mixed together. One with a lot of older version cards and one with newer. So after we sorted that out it just took configuring things properly to get everything to talk. All we have left is to add the radios. And for us that's just simple punchblock to bim modules. Found out we don't even need an acim card. It's easy to say in hindsight, but after reading the full 12 manuals it's actually a pretty simple system for what we need. I don't think I ever want to try to wrap my head around ambassadors or embassy situations thou. I'll leave that to the people who get paid to have headaches.