Contact your system admin

[slobonmycob]

is something that gets told alot on the forums that most people avoid doing. It has been the best decision I’ve made and honestly, I wish I would’ve contacted mine sooner.

After contacting one of the system admins I am now trained on programming all the radios for my agency, trunking and conventional. My agency no longer needs to use a radio shop to program our radios and was given all the tools I need by the state. Mine admin even offered to review my code plugs before writing them to the radio. I’ve learned so much about the system and how it operates.

So if you’re on the fence about contacting your system admin, then I say do it!

Disclaimer: Of course you need to be an authorized user and a part of an authorized agency.

 

[cavmedic]

is something that gets told alot on the forums that most people avoid doing. It has been the best decision I’ve made and honestly, I wish I would’ve contacted mine sooner.

After contacting one of the system admins I am now trained on programming all the radios for my agency, trunking and conventional. My agency no longer needs to use a radio shop to program our radios and was given all the tools I need by the state. Mine admin even offered to review my code plugs before writing them to the radio. I’ve learned so much about the system and how it operates.

So if you’re on the fence about contacting your system admin, then I say do it!

Disclaimer: Of course you need to be an authorized user and apart of an authorized agency.

Thats great unless the system uses OTAP/OTIP, and a change is sent OTA and your programming gets wiped....

 

[slobonmycob]

Thats great unless the system uses OTAP/OTIP, and a change is sent OTA and your programming gets wiped....

We do not lmao. That’s something we discussed.

 

[buddrousa]

Not all radios on a system have to be OTAP you send your programming to a set group of USER ID's.

 

[Cortexian]

Thats great unless the system uses OTAP/OTIP, and a change is sent OTA and your programming gets wiped....

All depends on the extent of training and access the system admins will provide. I'm an authorized tech/programmer on multiple systems now. Some have a process to allow agency techs to access at the system level to manage their own agency related info and manage their own OTAR/OTIP.

Generally, I prefer to coordinate with the system admins so our radios are only OTIP through our own processes. If they plan to push something system-wide, I request the details, update our codeplugs, and can often have our radios updated before the main update is even pushed by the system admins.

 

[speedway_navigator]

Thats great unless the system uses OTAP/OTIP, and a change is sent OTA and your programming gets wiped....

Do any of the radio mgfs have a way to block or require user permission to accept OTAP?

 

[cavmedic]

I can’t speak for Moto. But in Armada ( Vikings) If it’s enabled in the programming and a P25 system, you would need the system key to access those settings do disable it if it were read locally.


When your armada is connected to the armada server, you can make the changes and set it to update on connect. So when the radio affiliates, it will take the otap, or otip if it connects to programmed WiFi and VPN.

 

[KC3AWP]

I can’t speak for Moto. But in Armada ( Vikings) If it’s enabled in the programming and a P25 system, you would need the system key to access those settings do disable it if it were read locally.

Can confirm on Moto APX, its like that as well

 

[merlin]

System adminestrators are you 'go-to' persons if you are authorised personell as such.
Some very few, may even cater to scanning/monitoring on a private level.
The problem is there are so many whackers out there, you might no find anyone on the inside that will even talk to you.
Amateur is about the only place you can find system information and help and that often depends on being licensed.
Your disclaimer separates hobby scanning from the mix.

 

[Cortexian]

Do any of the radio mgfs have a way to block or require user permission to accept OTAP?

That would generally defeat the industry use-case for OTAP. If a system requires OTAP and they actually use it to push updates it's likely because the subscribers are supposed to be completely maintained by the system admins and not individual agencies/users.

Almost all radios have the ability to defer an update until you power-cycle (to prevent radios from being updated/rebooted while in use, which has numerous safety implications). However once you power-cycle, or defer the update a certain number of times the update WILL be forced through eventually.

 

[slobonmycob]

Your disclaimer separates hobby scanning from the mix.

Oh no I agree entirely! I made the post because I see a lot of people here who claim to work for an authorized agency but try to avoid going to their system admins.

 

[TampaTyron]

There are ways to block otap from the subscriber side, but much easier to stop the radio from affiliating at all.

TT

 

[kayn1n32008]

Thats great unless the system uses OTAP/OTIP, and a change is sent OTA and your programming gets wiped....

Changes are sent to specific radios... not just blasted out to any radio on a system. To OTAP your radio needs a unique IP address and also has to have OTAP as an enabled feature.

 

[modernsnipe14]

Thats great unless the system uses OTAP/OTIP, and a change is sent OTA and your programming gets wiped....

After someone's first time doing that and having to drive out somewhere that will end quickly and someone will learn to be way more cautious.

Must be a small system if just anybody gets access to programming radios in a system unless there's more to the story.

 

[cavmedic]

21 sites and 4000 radios. Define small system.

All it takes is one teknishan with an eBay cable and downloaded software