March 2, 2022 presentation by Director Boyce:
County Council
Live and Recorded Public meetings of County Council for Delaware County, PA
delcopa.granicus.com
Delaware County Pa New System
- Thread starter captaincab
- Start date
That would be my guess. The EFJ Atlas system operates as described in the letter. Expensive gamble. Seems predicated on leveraging the DMR system.
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Anyone know of such a system currently being used by a county, city or state?
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Just wanted to update this thread a bit since the information regarding the DMR system and items that will be used for the near future were brought up in this thread previously. The county did approve the purchase of a new radio P25 Phase 2 radio system at last night's council meeting and there is a new thread here related to that.
I wanted to clear up a few things that were mentioned earlier in this post and hopefully answer some of the questions people asked.
First, there were a couple of people that mentioned grabbing some UHF General pairs from the PW pool. This was tried multiple times and no pairs were able to be acquired due to the abundance of licensed UHF PW pairs throughout the region. There were some pairs that could be licenced but would be limited to only very small footprints in certain sections of the county. Nothing that could be used on a larger scale. Fortunately, we were able to grab the two med pairs that were available and had them licensed at multiple sites throughout the county. Being that we could only obtain these two additional pairs, it was necessary to maximize our potential with what was available. Many agencies in the county, both police and fire, already owned DMR capable equipment that they were using as their daily radio on the normal analog conventional system. This coupled with the need to maximize the limited two additional UHF pairs lead to the decision to go DMR for the alternate radio system.
I wanted to avoid any type of IP site connect with roaming if possible. With that in mind we found a viable solution in the Kenwood Kairos repeaters which allowed us to quickly deploy a 5 site DMR conventional SIMULCAST system. The Kairos repeaters in use connect to one another via IP but there is no need for roaming between pairs which eliminates the delays and safety issues that other DMR roaming type systems have the potential to create. The system provides countywide portable on street coverage on both UHF pairs. Two repeaters at each of the sites, one for each pair.
Talkgroups on the system include:
Police-A (Alternate) - Officers can quick switch to this with single button if unable to use normal analog conventional channels
Police-B - Available for full sector fail back
Police-C - Available for full sector fail back
Fire-A (Alternate) - Fire and EMS quick switch with one button if unable to use normal analog conventional channels
Fire-B
Fire-C
These channels have been used extensively over the last year since their inception and have proven to work well as an alternate not only when ducting is bad but also when there has been intentional interference on channels.
The NX-5300 radios that were purchased along side this system at the time were purchased because they could be used with all channel types that were available within Delaware County. Some of you may not know this but the TAC teams in the county run P25 conventional simplex during tactical/SWAT event so a radio that was capable of P25, DMR, and analog was needed so that officers could cary one radio and be able to access all channels needed. All MPOETC police officers in the county were issued radios with both DMR and P25 entitlements. Quick buttons on the remote speaker mic and the radio face were configured for quick access to the alternate channels in the event of ducting. Close to 2000 radios were issued out. Every single radio that left the 911 was bench tested and aligned on our Freedom R8000 service monitor. A very long process, but a process that allowed for tracking and a paper trail to go with every radio.
Questions about ducting came up previously in this thread as well and few people explained it pretty well. Our channels in UHF-T band sit on UHF TV channels 19 and 20. Be mindful that we use 25Khz and 12.5Khz channels. Each broadcast TV channel operates on almost a full 6Mhz of UHF spectrum. This is why when the conditions are right, several county channels will often experience issues at the same time.
The ducting that occurs creates issues on the repeater inputs, and is not something you would hear on the repeater outputs that you normally listen to. Take a channel like Fire Ch 1. A single transmitter with several receivers at multiple sites throughout the coverage zone. When ducting is severe, the noise floor at the receivers which is normally around -115dbm will increase and we have seen it as high as -70dbm when ducting was very severe. This means that the signal coming from the portables or mobiles must be stronger then the unwanted -70dbm signal that is making it to the receivers in order to make it in to the system and be heard. When ducting conditions are bad, you will likely hear nothing as the units are unable to get in to any receivers on the channel they are using. You may also notice a fade when listening. Signal starts strong but fades to static during transmission as the noise floor fluctuates.
Just wanted to answer some of the items that I saw perviously in the thread. I'd think anything related to the new P25 system should go in that thread if possible.
I wanted to clear up a few things that were mentioned earlier in this post and hopefully answer some of the questions people asked.
First, there were a couple of people that mentioned grabbing some UHF General pairs from the PW pool. This was tried multiple times and no pairs were able to be acquired due to the abundance of licensed UHF PW pairs throughout the region. There were some pairs that could be licenced but would be limited to only very small footprints in certain sections of the county. Nothing that could be used on a larger scale. Fortunately, we were able to grab the two med pairs that were available and had them licensed at multiple sites throughout the county. Being that we could only obtain these two additional pairs, it was necessary to maximize our potential with what was available. Many agencies in the county, both police and fire, already owned DMR capable equipment that they were using as their daily radio on the normal analog conventional system. This coupled with the need to maximize the limited two additional UHF pairs lead to the decision to go DMR for the alternate radio system.
I wanted to avoid any type of IP site connect with roaming if possible. With that in mind we found a viable solution in the Kenwood Kairos repeaters which allowed us to quickly deploy a 5 site DMR conventional SIMULCAST system. The Kairos repeaters in use connect to one another via IP but there is no need for roaming between pairs which eliminates the delays and safety issues that other DMR roaming type systems have the potential to create. The system provides countywide portable on street coverage on both UHF pairs. Two repeaters at each of the sites, one for each pair.
Talkgroups on the system include:
Police-A (Alternate) - Officers can quick switch to this with single button if unable to use normal analog conventional channels
Police-B - Available for full sector fail back
Police-C - Available for full sector fail back
Fire-A (Alternate) - Fire and EMS quick switch with one button if unable to use normal analog conventional channels
Fire-B
Fire-C
These channels have been used extensively over the last year since their inception and have proven to work well as an alternate not only when ducting is bad but also when there has been intentional interference on channels.
The NX-5300 radios that were purchased along side this system at the time were purchased because they could be used with all channel types that were available within Delaware County. Some of you may not know this but the TAC teams in the county run P25 conventional simplex during tactical/SWAT event so a radio that was capable of P25, DMR, and analog was needed so that officers could cary one radio and be able to access all channels needed. All MPOETC police officers in the county were issued radios with both DMR and P25 entitlements. Quick buttons on the remote speaker mic and the radio face were configured for quick access to the alternate channels in the event of ducting. Close to 2000 radios were issued out. Every single radio that left the 911 was bench tested and aligned on our Freedom R8000 service monitor. A very long process, but a process that allowed for tracking and a paper trail to go with every radio.
Questions about ducting came up previously in this thread as well and few people explained it pretty well. Our channels in UHF-T band sit on UHF TV channels 19 and 20. Be mindful that we use 25Khz and 12.5Khz channels. Each broadcast TV channel operates on almost a full 6Mhz of UHF spectrum. This is why when the conditions are right, several county channels will often experience issues at the same time.
The ducting that occurs creates issues on the repeater inputs, and is not something you would hear on the repeater outputs that you normally listen to. Take a channel like Fire Ch 1. A single transmitter with several receivers at multiple sites throughout the coverage zone. When ducting is severe, the noise floor at the receivers which is normally around -115dbm will increase and we have seen it as high as -70dbm when ducting was very severe. This means that the signal coming from the portables or mobiles must be stronger then the unwanted -70dbm signal that is making it to the receivers in order to make it in to the system and be heard. When ducting conditions are bad, you will likely hear nothing as the units are unable to get in to any receivers on the channel they are using. You may also notice a fade when listening. Signal starts strong but fades to static during transmission as the noise floor fluctuates.
Just wanted to answer some of the items that I saw perviously in the thread. I'd think anything related to the new P25 system should go in that thread if possible.
captaincab
Member
Delaware County announced the new system will be Kenwood here is the press release.
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- Mar 12, 2010
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- 45
Affirm. Here is the link to the thread on the forums. New Radio System Approved for Delaware County
Not sure why we need two threads discussing the same system. I had put in a report to the "powers that be" to merge the two but apparently it was overlooked. Ah well, is what it is
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- Sep 9, 2019
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Do you still have the link to this? Looking for it and can't seem to find it!
I don't have a link to the actual document, but dig around - you should be able to find it.
Septa apparently has no problems with ducting, as mentioned here they are still on 500 mhz band ( narrow band 12.5 ) city operations , trains and septa police, rail operations, maintenance , etc.
The difference here is almost every transit station is using a repeater throughout the city and it is from what I’m told ROIP, truly simulcast throughout the system including very clear communication underground in subways as well as on the surface.
I can only surmise the repeaters are set up power wise to not cause hetrodyning effect, I have listened to their comms occasionally and they always seem to be very clear.
The difference here is almost every transit station is using a repeater throughout the city and it is from what I’m told ROIP, truly simulcast throughout the system including very clear communication underground in subways as well as on the surface.
I can only surmise the repeaters are set up power wise to not cause hetrodyning effect, I have listened to their comms occasionally and they always seem to be very clear.
Just my two cents😂
The thing that makes no sense at all is this, originally delco was on vhf hi, everything seemed to work just fine, Philadelphia was on UHF , phila fire was on VHF, I never remember hearing of any operational problems on these frequencies, so why not just use the same frequencies and set up a digital trunked system , the guess work is done because it’s already time proven to work!
add crossband switching to the system to create interoperability with other public safety departments, seems like it would have been less expensive to do and more dependable!
personally I don’t like trunked systems for public safety, for delivery services it’s fine.
they can crash, they can be brought down
With the old systems even with a hung carrier you could still get a message out, with trunked once the controller crashes during a major event, it’s game over Helen!
this is why New York claims they will never go back to a trunked system, during 911 emergency it was a fiasco, system crashes, channel groups got confused ( by the controller ) I would think poor programming?
The thing that makes no sense at all is this, originally delco was on vhf hi, everything seemed to work just fine, Philadelphia was on UHF , phila fire was on VHF, I never remember hearing of any operational problems on these frequencies, so why not just use the same frequencies and set up a digital trunked system , the guess work is done because it’s already time proven to work!
add crossband switching to the system to create interoperability with other public safety departments, seems like it would have been less expensive to do and more dependable!
personally I don’t like trunked systems for public safety, for delivery services it’s fine.
they can crash, they can be brought down
With the old systems even with a hung carrier you could still get a message out, with trunked once the controller crashes during a major event, it’s game over Helen!
this is why New York claims they will never go back to a trunked system, during 911 emergency it was a fiasco, system crashes, channel groups got confused ( by the controller ) I would think poor programming?
Septa3371CSX1
Member
SEPTA does very much have issues with ducting on their 500 system. Monitoring on my XTS I can hear supervisors unable to use their portables during ducting events and some of the mobiles don't make it across. That system needs to be replaced not just for that reason but also the analog voice can be hard to understand. I've had to ask Control to repeat themselves a few times as things get garbled up. Also the Transit Police recently got APX radios that use Philly's trunk system with the talkgroup and conventional channel patched into each other full time. I believe the use of the city system is a stop gap measure until SEPTA gets their new system up and running.
Getting back to Delco I've been noticing terrible reception on the Command channel lately. I'm not sure if Delcomm is selecting a tower at the console or if the channel is down at some sites as it comes across rather noisy and staticky at times.
Septa has more hetrodyning interference than it does ducting problems.
The T band system is true simulcast throughout the city and underground tunnelways, ultimately just about every transit station has a repeater in it that are all linked possibly ROIP, when 2 or 3 people try to transmit at the same time you will get interference and hetrodyning, ducting is a complete different issue, as far as transit police, they are using the 500 system , the city 800 system does not work in most places underground, the septa 500 system uses bleeder cable throughout most of the underground tunnelways, therefore it is more reliable and dependable, personally i believe septa’s 500 systems to be more reliable and dependant than the city public safety system.
Septa has multiple channels it can use or switch to, unlike the city’s system.
If you lose the control channel or a controller, your done, fail safe or fail soft will not help you underground, this is the reason New York dumped the trunked system after 911!
The T band system is true simulcast throughout the city and underground tunnelways, ultimately just about every transit station has a repeater in it that are all linked possibly ROIP, when 2 or 3 people try to transmit at the same time you will get interference and hetrodyning, ducting is a complete different issue, as far as transit police, they are using the 500 system , the city 800 system does not work in most places underground, the septa 500 system uses bleeder cable throughout most of the underground tunnelways, therefore it is more reliable and dependable, personally i believe septa’s 500 systems to be more reliable and dependant than the city public safety system.
Septa has multiple channels it can use or switch to, unlike the city’s system.
If you lose the control channel or a controller, your done, fail safe or fail soft will not help you underground, this is the reason New York dumped the trunked system after 911!
captaincab
Member
Exactly systems like septa’s will still function underground under fail soft conditions because of the way it’s designed and the frequencies being uhf.
This will probably end up paywalled for some folks:
www.delcotimes.com
Delaware County breaks ground on $40M communications lifeline
Dropped mobile calls are annoying but for first responders dropped communications can mean life or death.
www.delcotimes.com
I missed the ceremony as I was getting excellent instruction by Speedway Navigator and crew.This will probably end up paywalled for some folks:
Delaware County breaks ground on $40M communications lifeline
Dropped mobile calls are annoying but for first responders dropped communications can mean life or death.
This will probably end up paywalled for some folks:
Delaware County breaks ground on $40M communications lifeline
Dropped mobile calls are annoying but for first responders dropped communications can mean life or death.
Yup, can't get to it, cliff notes?
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