E-tones testing on TG#00-021 on Blue Simulcast

[Michael-SATX]

At 1am for at least 30 minutes or more I kept hearing E-tones testing on TG#00-021 on Blue Simulcast.
I heard no techs speaking, just lots of random lengh very crackly sounding E-tone bursts of traffic.
I regret that I only had the wildcard on the Blue unlocked, I usually keep the Gold wildcard locked
or else I would get lots of analog TG's like SAPW, AC and the SAFD 04-021 PC Auto Dispatch, etc
I guess at some point in the RRDB this TG could be changed from "MA-Com" to "Radio Testing-1" etc.

Currently in the RRDB this TG is listed as M/A-COM1 Testing TG# 00-021 (17 for you hex folks

So a few days ago I heard some radio tech discussing how crackly and distorted the E-tone Code-3 calls
are sounding on the system. Anybody know why in the last 2 weeks the sound quality went south ?
Next time you here an SAPD Fleetwide Code-3 call on TG# 02-000 listen to how distorted it sounds !
Are these type E-tone/code-3 calls now patched by way of outer mongolia and then back by tin foil wire ?

On a side note, I'm bummed that TG# 02-041 SAPD Traf-1 Patrol is no longer mixed mode anymore

 

[Michael-SATX]

I'm at work near my Demo Pro-197 and I'm hearing the radio techs back on the Blue TG#00-021
testing both voice and warbling (they call it) E-Tones sound quality on all the LCN's one by one.
Just heard them say that LCN-19 will be in test mode. The sound quality is GREat today
It sure beats that distorted and crackling sound quality that has been heard for weeks now it seems.

 

[jim202]

I'm at work near my Demo Pro-197 and I'm hearing the radio techs back on the Blue TG#00-021
testing both voice and warbling (they call it) E-Tones sound quality on all the LCN's one by one.
Just heard them say that LCN-19 will be in test mode. The sound quality is GREat today
It sure beats that distorted and crackling sound quality that has been heard for weeks now it seems.

Can I ask the question here of where the term "E-tones" comes from? Been in this field a long time and this is the first time I have ever seen that term used with a trunking system.

 

[Michael-SATX]

E-Tones is short for "Emergency Tones" that are commonly broadcast out in front of the voice traffic
to first get the officers attention so they can be sure to take notice of whatever info needs to get out.
On our mixed mode EDACS Pro-Voice Digital and EDACS standard analog trunking system we have
very few of the Code-3 calls go out in the clear or in analog voice mode. So the vast majority of the time
one in SATX will hear the E-tones and then our scanners are silient, meaning that the voice traffic was
in the Pro-Voice (No-Voice) Digital and thus muted by most of the scanners on the market currently.
Only a few times a day do we hear E-Tones followed by analog voice traffic relaying info to our officers.
I hope this helps you Jim.

 

[texasemt13]

Can I ask the question here of where the term "E-tones" comes from?

Michael is correct, short for "emergency tones." Most FFs or EMTs just call them "tones."

Michael, wonder why all of a sudden they went bad? I'm not familiar with the device that tones units out, but judging from the varying tones I hear from all the cities I travel through, I can only imagine it's a piece of hardware implemented into the system. Any thoughts? I wonder if each console has the device or they can hit a few buttons in sequence to recall a specific tone from the device which is wired in at the site (or elsewhere)?

 

[otter9309]

All tones are generated through the Maestro console, and not a seperate piece of equipment.

 

[texasemt13]

All tones are generated through the Maestro console, and not a seperate piece of equipment.

So if I get this right, it's built in to the console? So if I'm hearing tones that sound completely different (not even the same ballpark) it's probably because they have a different brand of console?

 

[otter9309]

No, the tones are manually keyed in by frequency. For example the county fire all call is 1006 hz

 

[mostinterestingman]

Blue was moved from the SAPD tower to the new Frio st tower. They were probably working out some bugs with the timing on that simulcast. Gold is still on SAPD tower for now.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Hello Mostinteresting, will you clarify some info on some of our systems infrastructure...

Do you understand it to be that the Blue TRS was just on that old tower located behind the
old SAPD HQ that was at 214 Nueva St OR rather is Blue a Simulcast layer that is timed
and broadcast at the same time accross all 8 towers ? Do you mean just the Blue controller
was moved over to the new tower off of Frio St ? Do you know if it's all the same electronic
equip used except for the actuall tower,antenna arrays and feedlines ?

ps ~ Curious as to your official capacity .... with the city/SAPD or the communications vendor ?

btw ~ 16 posts .... my my how do you keep it that low when you always have GREat stuff to say

 

[otter9309]

Blue is a simulcast. The 214 tower was one of the multile towers but has since moved (new timing, etc).

The mostinteresting, is a VERY reserved person

 

[Michael-SATX]

Thanks Otter "On the move" ... are there more than the 8 towers that make up our BLUE Simulcast ?

ps~What is ur official capacity while I'm being a curious george ? (ur reserved also w/114 posts/11yrs)

btw~What is your profile avatar of ? it lQQks like a pickup or an SUV and something unknown inside ?

 

[mostinterestingman]

Blue is a 6 site simulcast, as well as Gold, on the same towers, except for the interim while things are moved to the new tower on frio. Blue was first, Gold to follow, then the SAPD HQ Tower goes to Newell.

6 Simulcast sites, 6 Level 1 / Multi Sites, 2 BDA's.

Control Points are not on site.

My official capacity is about half full

We will leave it at that

 

[otter9309]

What he said.

As for me, I am half empty.

 

[Michael-SATX]

Ah ha, a conspiracy theory abounds, you two are the same person: 1)Mr Half Full & 2)Mr Half Empty
So put em together and you got one "veryinterestingman" .... ..........

Seriously, On the Blue Simulcast, are LCN's 17 & 18 Blank on purpose ? (after rebanding )

SATX Blue Simulcast TRS :
856.437500
856.712500
856.762500
856.987500
857.437500
857.762500
857.987500
858.212500
858.437500
858.762500
858.987500
859.212500
859.437500
859.762500
859.987500
854.212500
0.000000
0.000000
854.662500

 

[SCPD]

Someone needs to validate that.

There are 30 frequencies listed on WNGU984. 854.212500 isn't one of them.

 

[majora11]

I verified in Unitrunker that 854.2125 is actively being used on BLUE simulcast (both voice and control)

 

[mostinterestingman]

Both Blue & Gold are 19 channel sites, BUT, with extra hardware left from rebanding, a few channels can be disabled on the simulcast and turned on at a few of the level one sites, allowing less queuing on those smaller sites. If all hell breaks loose in the simulcast footprint, those channels can be turned back on and disabled at the level 1 sites, but with the extreme over engineering of the simulcast for the amount of users, thats not likely needed.

Otter and I are not the same, however we do have a 24/7 telepathic connection running 256bit AES

 

[blantonl]

One thing that is interesting is that the Blue simulcast site is completely under-utilized. I don't think I've ever seen that site utilized over 60%. Meanwhile the Gold simulcast site that supports all of Fire, County AND most of the analog public works traffic is consistently utilized nicely.

To put this into perspective - every SAPD Patrol channel and Open (talk) channel would have to be simultaneously utilized to give the site 100% utilization. Back out an LCN for capacity and backup planning and well.... If I was the planning man putting together the loading plan, I'd say that the outlying northern sites could really use some of those LCNs from Blue vs the overcapacity on Blue.

I see the northern sites like Hill Country and Topperwien maxing out to full capacity all the time since they are covering capacity from Blue and Gold (currently 17+17 = 34 LCNs) - yet they each only have 14 LCNs.

I think another solution would have been to consolidate all law enforcement operations on Blue (SAPD, BCSO, Courts etc) and everyone else on Gold. But that wouldn't resolve the loading issues on the northern sites - even with the recent additions of LCNs on those sites.

Edit: as always, there are far more circumstances that I am aware of in the design decision processes, but I do have significant experience in queuing theory, information technology, the evolution of the system, and being a resident of San Antonio YMMV, FWIW

 

[mostinterestingman]

I believe you will see a much more balanced system once the whole P25 upgrade is complete.