Columbus City New Site & Direct Ops

[amcferrin90]

I was beginning to play with DSD Plus and in getting the files and such together there's a OH.CSV file I needed, downloaded and explored. I noticed an extra license for the city trunked system and the address being the two water towers on east Broad. License info: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?fccCallsign=WQWY325

It's licensed for all of the city trunked channels. I noticed the last trip down Broad (first in a long while) that there was some new antenna gear on those water towers. Is this going to be another simulcast site?

Other question. I heard Truro Fire dispatched to a house fire. When B161 arrived on scene he directed all ops to "Direct Charlie" I think it was "Direct 3 Charlie" but it's kinda irrelevant. I did afterwards here E161 from inside the structure and B161 communicate but the beginning of the communications had a beep. Once they put a contained request from E161 to B161, B161's first response had the beep, then when he called it back to MECC there was no beep. Are they using an on-board bi-directional repeater to take the simplex channel into the trunked channel and vice versa?

-Alan

 

[wa8pyr]

I was beginning to play with DSD Plus and in getting the files and such together there's a OH.CSV file I needed, downloaded and explored. I noticed an extra license for the city trunked system and the address being the two water towers on east Broad. License info: https://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?fccCallsign=WQWY325

It's licensed for all of the city trunked channels. I noticed the last trip down Broad (first in a long while) that there was some new antenna gear on those water towers. Is this going to be another simulcast site?

The site on E Broad has been operational since the migration to P25.

 

[amcferrin90]

The site on E Broad has been operational since the migration to P25.

I wonder if it was offline? We did a BDA pretest at the former Lucent site and it failed. They must be under the transmitter being a half mile away. But then thinking of Truro running ops on a direct channel, well within range of it. I'll have to do some testing.

 

[wa8pyr]

I wonder if it was offline? We did a BDA pretest at the former Lucent site and it failed. They must be under the transmitter being a half mile away. But then thinking of Truro running ops on a direct channel, well within range of it. I'll have to do some testing.

In-building coverage out there stinks and always has. Lucent is likely so close that it's "under the umbrella" for the E Broad site, so they would probably need to use a directional antenna pointed at a different site (or directly at the top of the E Broad water tower).

 

[DualReverse]

Other question. I heard Truro Fire dispatched to a house fire. When B161 arrived on scene he directed all ops to "Direct Charlie" I think it was "Direct 3 Charlie" but it's kinda irrelevant. I did afterwards here E161 from inside the structure and B161 communicate but the beginning of the communications had a beep. Once they put a contained request from E161 to B161, B161's first response had the beep, then when he called it back to MECC there was no beep. Are they using an on-board bi-directional repeater to take the simplex channel into the trunked channel and vice versa?

-Alan

Hi Alan,

Yes, a lot of the battalion chief buggies are equipped with a mini-repeater system to function as you heard. The idea is that the 700/800 radios might not make it inside a building. So, the units on scene will switch over to a simplex frequency for close contact unit-to-unit comms. Then someone will activate a mini-repeater to link that channel to a trunked talkgroup. 'Direct-C' is used a lot because it's programmed as the last channel/talkgroup in each zone of a radio, so the member can just turn their dial all the way to the end and hit Direct-C. There are also Direct-A and Direct-B, used for the same purpose. Hope that helps/.

 

[amcferrin90]

Hi Alan,

Yes, a lot of the battalion chief buggies are equipped with a mini-repeater system to function as you heard. The idea is that the 700/800 radios might not make it inside a building. So, the units on scene will switch over to a simplex frequency for close contact unit-to-unit comms. Then someone will activate a mini-repeater to link that channel to a trunked talkgroup. 'Direct-C' is used a lot because it's programmed as the last channel/talkgroup in each zone of a radio, so the member can just turn their dial all the way to the end and hit Direct-C. There are also Direct-A and Direct-B, used for the same purpose. Hope that helps/.

This is something that has bothered me for many months. My profession is in the construction industry providing life safety systems in new buildings. We deal with the building code on a routine basis which has us working with AHJs from various cities and townships. This is the exact thing that I've been hoping the public safety folks would latch on to. In lieu of that whole function, they are requiring building owners to install bi-directional amplified antenna systems tuned for public safety systems. We made the jump to get into those systems but as a professional I've been against this thinking of BDA systems. They are expensive and they're not dealt with properly. Just to put one in, the installer has to know what frequencies are being reproduced, which radio system the local department is using, etc. Then when there's an actual fire in a building with a system, you have to count on it not being physically harmed and taken out by structure damage. Just a bad idea perpetrated all the way around when there's a better way that each department has total control over.

I wish somebody would spread this line of thinking of in-band mini-repeaters around to other departments. Thanks for your info.