Fdny--si

[FDNY216]

FYI,

I heard radio repair testing with SI around noon.

usually if it is the dept testing they go over as radio mechanic. they id as radio repair which means motorola is testing the new SI repeater to dispatcher


heads up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Citywide173]

I guess the big question is....was radio repair transmitting on VHF or UHF?

 

[FDNY216]

Its ukn.

heard the mdc sigal go over, i would guess it is a 50x50 chance it was uhf

 

[tbendick]

We have MDC on the VHF poratbles so the dispatchers know when we are not on a rig radio. This is why when you hear a progress report that is static with MDC the dispatcher will tell them to use the rig.

 

[FrankRaffa]

Actually, we tell you to use the rig because it puts out 100 watts as opposed to the HT's 5. There are only a few pickup sites in each borough and sometimes you're not close enough to hold them with the HT.

Also, they added more links to the chain that the audio has to travel to get to us which tends to distort the audio to us. Weak signals make that even worse thanks to the analog to digital to analog conversions.

 

[n2nov]

Actually, we tell you to use the rig because it puts out 100 watts as opposed to the HT's 5. There are only a few pickup sites in each borough and sometimes you're not close enough to hold them with the HT.

Also, they added more links to the chain that the audio has to travel to get to us which tends to distort the audio to us. Weak signals make that even worse thanks to the analog to digital to analog conversions.

From my experience with the phone company in providing the tie-lines for various agencies, what Frank is referring to is that the receive sites take in the analog signal, convert it to 9600 baud (or probably better these days) digital and converts it back to analog for the dispatcher to hear and for the repeater to transmit back out to the field. Even analog to analog relays can cause distortion and delays. Imagine when more than one level of translation and/or digital are added to the mix!

 

[FrankRaffa]

The analog audio enter a receiver, get sent as analog audio to the CO's then gets digitized and sent to PSAC on a T1. Then, it's distributed on a voice over/LAN to our local PC where it's reassembled into some semblance of English.

It never ceases to amaze me how something as simple as a radio can be made so inefficient.