Experiment: Build Your Own Stream

[ofd8001]

Thanks!

 

[johnmoe1]

This is very cool. I'd be interested to know more behind the execution of this. How many of what radios? What software, something you wrote yourself?

I use a single Nuand bladeRF. A lot of software I wrote. The system monitors 11 control channels and the about 150 associated audio channels and stores all of the audio (audio duplicated across multiple sites is only stored once). A subset of the audio is now converted to mp3 and uploaded.

 

[johnmoe1]

* It now makes an attempt at hang time. If the gap on the talkgroup is less than 8 seconds and the next clip for the talkgroup is already loaded, it will be played before anything else.

* It now includes a pause button and a skip-to-present button. (Resuming after pausing for hours will not work, because I don't keep the audio available for that long.)

* Bookmarking a set of checked talkgroups should now work.


Until recently, I had never listened without dead air removed. It all seems a lot more action packed when there is no silence.

 

[JT-112]

I'll have a listen, thanks for making the changes.

You know you possibly have a commercially interesting setup there, right? There are many people who have been fed up with Uniden and GRE/Whistler for a long time on on simulcast reception issues...

Edited to add: I see you also added hang time on the display, very nice

 

[ofd8001]

Excellent additions!

I'm guessing you have something that translates Radio ID numbers into alpha tags. Do you have this information on a spreadsheet? If so, could I PM you with an e-mail address to which you can send a copy?

(I'm getting all my scanner "stuff" set up for a trip up that way in a few weeks).

Thanks for all you've done!

 

[mrmeowmittens]

Covered on last page http://forums.radioreference.com/mi...riment-build-your-own-stream.html#post2403437

 

[ofd8001]

I might not have explained this too well. I'm looking for a list of aliases associated with a given radio's 6 digit identification number, as compared to what a specific call sign is.

On the first line of the display I'll see "Minneapolis police 1" which the name/alpha tag of the channel. The second line will show "Minneapolis Dispatch" or something like "#114529". (On the fire side it may show "Minneapolis Engine 21" on that second line.

What I imagine is going on, the Radio ID number, for example that 114529, is being captured in the datastream. Johnmoe1 has created some alpha tags for these transmitting radio ID's.

I believe Johnmoe1 may have a list somewhere which translates, at least some, Radio ID numbers into alpha tags.

My Uniden 536 has the ability to show an alpha tag for a transmitting unit, which I have done for our local system (for example, radio number 101010 is Louisville Fire Truck 1).

 

[johnmoe1]

I might not have explained this too well. I'm looking for a list of aliases associated with a given radio's 6 digit identification number, as compared to what a specific call sign is.

On the first line of the display I'll see "Minneapolis police 1" which the name/alpha tag of the channel. The second line will show "Minneapolis Dispatch" or something like "#114529". (On the fire side it may show "Minneapolis Engine 21" on that second line.

What I imagine is going on, the Radio ID number, for example that 114529, is being captured in the datastream. Johnmoe1 has created some alpha tags for these transmitting radio ID's.

I believe Johnmoe1 may have a list somewhere which translates, at least some, Radio ID numbers into alpha tags.

My Uniden 536 has the ability to show an alpha tag for a transmitting unit, which I have done for our local system (for example, radio number 101010 is Louisville Fire Truck 1).

Yes, it was listed earlier in the thread. https://github.com/johnmoe1/ARMERData

 

[ofd8001]

Exactly what I was looking for!

Thanks!

 

[davef3138]

I'm curious how many minutes of audio a day you're capturing, I'm sure it's a massive amount.

Here's my radios.txt file as generated from Pro96com, if it's useful to anyone:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0PsP1EO18eSVHZQMUdGV1hIZTg/view?usp=sharing

It would be fun to build a central repository for this data somehow. Something that would merge submitted ID lists into a single live document. A wiki page doesn't really lend itself well for this purpose.

I did find that the 436HP has a limit of 10,000 or so objects for a system. I was only able to paste in 9500+ radio IDs before ARC536 truncated the list. So I basically just try to whittle the list for import to include the counties around me and most State Patrol and county dispatch position IDs. I don't have an automated way to prune it down though...


-Dave

 

[johnmoe1]

I'm curious how many minutes of audio a day you're capturing, I'm sure it's a massive amount.

If I am doing the math correctly, yesterday I captured right around 434 hours of audio. After deduplication (same audio on multiple sites), I ended up with about 200 hours (multigroups and most patched talkgroups are only counted once). I listened to about 20 minutes of it.

You can see live-ish statistics at Radio Statistics .

 

[B-One]

Amazing work johnmoe1. I will second the earlier request for interop talkgroups.

 

[handwiper]

this is absolutely amazing, keep it up! don't let this project die.

 

[N0FPY]

Very nice application

I would also like to have you add tactical talk groups.

 

[handwiper]

I would also like to have you add tactical talk groups.

meh, might be breaking RR's policy by doing that, would it?

 

[ofd8001]

I'm thinking he is doing his own scanner feed which may not involve Radio Reference/Broadcastify. As such he may not be bound by their rules.

Plus, from what I understand, for a great majority of times, the TAC channels are patched to "regular" talkgroups. So anything that's heard on TAC may already be "hear-able" via another talkgroup.

Having said that, things like pursuits may be interesting to monitor. If the tAC channels were available, one may not have to listen to a lot of channels just to catch that occasional pursuit or majore fire incident.

 

[johnmoe1]

I'm thinking he is doing his own scanner feed which may not involve Radio Reference/Broadcastify. As such he may not be bound by their rules.

Plus, from what I understand, for a great majority of times, the TAC channels are patched to "regular" talkgroups. So anything that's heard on TAC may already be "hear-able" via another talkgroup.

Having said that, things like pursuits may be interesting to monitor. If the tAC channels were available, one may not have to listen to a lot of channels just to catch that occasional pursuit or majore fire incident.

That is how I read the rules. The content rules are about stuff hosted by broadcastify. That said, I am at least starting with talkgroups that are likely already available online. I am not sure I want to be the person who first makes a bunch of new talkgroups available online. I'll give it some more thought.

One partway option would be to have an option to turn on any* talkgroup that is patched to a TAC talkgroup. So if Minneapolis Police 2 is patched with L TAC 1 for a pursuit (as it was a couple of hours ago) it would start playing.


Also coming "soon":
* Tone detection (I really hate listening to them, so there will be an option to turn down/mute portions of clips that contain a tone. Detection seems to work.)
* Tone decoding (I think this will work.)
* Partial talkgroup listening (Say you are interested in Lakeville PD but really don't care about Burnsville. You could ask for all "conversations" involving a unit named Lakeville PD. Interested in Minneapolis fire-type calls, but not medical calls? Only play dispatches following the fire tones.)
* History (Select a talkgroup and see all transmissions for the last X hours and be able to go back and listen to them.)




* Not quite any. There seem to be two ways to patch talkgroups. In the more common way, there is a message sent out saying the talkgroups are patch and then only one copy the audio is transmitted and all the radio ids appear correctly. In the less common way, anything said on talkgroup A appears as if said by a dispatcher on talkgroup B and anything said on talkgroup B appears as if said by a dispatcher on talkgroup A. All of the audio is duplicated and sent twice (and half the radio ids are wrong). It would take some work to figure out that the two talkgroups are actually patched copies of each other. Luckily, the less common is not very common.

 

[dwgelle]

Great job John! Keep it up. I second "sixtytwo's"comment about a good product possibility.

 

[fwfdengine2]

How will you get it to decide weather Minneapolis fire or medical call? I know they use separate tones but what program/how will you separate them?

This program is amazing. I use it almost everyday.

 

[handwiper]

Can you comment more on your setup, john? You're running your bladeRF, are you on windows or linux? are you using gnuradio? unitrunker? multiple VCO's? how do you go about recording so many talkgroups all at once and then playing it all back.

Really interested in how it all works.

Thanks!