Inyo County Moving to Mobile Relay Associates NEXEDGE System?

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Progline

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Forgive my ignorance, I don't have any NEXEDGE/NXDN capable equipment or experience in monitoring it.

Is this a trunking system that the Sheriff would essentially be a subscriber to? And presumably be given a talkgroup(s)? Since this would be a multi-site system, would the users be responsible for switching from one hilltop to another as they travel? (IE, going from the border desert patrol area, back to Independence - Silver, Mazourka & Rogers would probably cover the majority of their patrol areas, I'd guess).
 
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mcjones2013

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Since this would be a multi-site system, would the users be responsible for switching from one hilltop to another as they travel?

This will be invisible to the end-user. They will stay on their designated talkgroup, and the radio will join whatever site is the strongest in the background.
 

MtnBiker2005

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Each site has a NXDN48 control channel.
On some scanners/softwares it will show the site number.
‘RAN’ number on all the site frequencies will match the site number too.

Audio sample on this page.
 
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Progline

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Thank you gentlemen, that was very interesting. So, they will be a subscriber to a wide-area trunked system. I wonder what this means for their Communications Dept staff? Will the vendor only be responsible for providing the subscription & service and the County would be responsible for providing and maintaining the radios?

There has been a push for "hosted solutions" on the part of tech companies providing IT applications (run on the vendors own hardware), etc to Local Governments to replace their in-house stuff. This supposedly enables the gov't to save on labor and equipment costs to create, operate, and maintain these things. I don't know how many California local governments have gone this route. I can see the case for this on the County's part, but the life-or-death aspect of Law Enforcement communications puts a lot of pressure on the vendor for full-time reliability. This goes beyond radio coverage for Joe's Aggregate Hauling & Sam's Towing service. The County has addressed the need for backup power, etc. but what about equipment failures on a remote hilltop? This will be interesting.

I guess the only way to monitor it (providing it was non-encrypted) would be the SDS-100/200 route? Well, good luck to them.
 

Ravenfalls

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Try it and you'll see it's not that simple.

I, too, am surprised that a law enforcement agency is considering use of a non-government-controlled system. I assume they put building a new system out for bid and found they couldn't afford it. Is there a precedent for this (i.e. are there other departments on such systems)?

In Arizona, Payson Police moved to a private system that provides nearly Statewide coverage. If a public safety system is not available, then the moving to a private system comes @ a lower cost.

In future they can apply for DHS grant to help move to the California system.

My guess is that PD are trying to get themselves encrypted at the lowest cost to a system that provides them required coverage. The agency can control encryption keys since Motorola loader works on the Kenwood NXDN radios.
 

es93546

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If Inyo County switches over to the Mobile Relay Associates system it will cause a huge problem in interoperability in the two county (Inyo, Mono) region commonly called "The Eastern Sierra." All public safety and government, with the exceptions of Cal Trans, State Parks and CHP, are on VHF-High. It does not present a problem for the CHP as they can talk to nearly everyone, everywhere. State Parks is on 800 MHz, but all of their law enforcement ranger vehicles have a separate VHF-High radio in them. It would be nice for all agencies to be able to communicate directly with Caltrans, but the dispatchers of all the region's agencies are linked via a microwave intercom system known locally as "the Hotline."

The only use of UHF in the region is by businesses and the extenders for the Mono S.O., Fire departments and Mono Co. EMS. There is a lot of UHF linking, but those are polarized, narrow signals of course. Not only will they be switching to a seldom used band, it will be a proprietary system, that other agencies would likely have to pay a fee to establish interoperability for.

The Inyo County S.O. recently licensed 173.3375 for countywide mobile use. I suspect it is for vehicle/handheld extenders. I don't know how those would be tied into a MRA system.

MRA has been very active licensing in the Eastern Sierra on a couple of dozen high level repeater sites, not just in Inyo County. Mono County is in the midst of planning a new comm system for at least the S.O. Maybe they are contemplating switching over to MRA as well. That is one alternative guess in our speculation. Here is a second and I think more realistic guess. Each law enforcement agency will get onto the MRA system for PII (10-27, 10-28. 10-29 etc.) communications only. All the agencies have an immediate need to do so and coming up with the funding to establish repeaters with an additional frequency that could be encrypted might be very costly. I think the agencies are well aware of the interoperability they have and its high value. I don't think they want to lose that. Mutual aid is often employed here, more so than in metro areas as each agency does not have enough resources to respond to significant incidents.

**Optional Reading** For example, there was a shooting at a gas station in north Bishop a couple of years ago. One suspect was killed, a CCW licensed bystander interrupted a car jack attempt. The CCW bystander was wounded. A female subject that was in on the car jacking attempt drove their vehicle off at a high rate of speed. Responding was the Bishop PD, Inyo Co. S.O., Mono County S.O., CHP (Bishop and Bridgeport Area Offices units), CA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, Caltrans, the U.S. Forest Service, the BLM and Symons Ambulance, who has the EMS contract for northern Inyo County. EMS had to respond and stage until law enforcement cleared them. Bishop PD responded to the scene and was the primary investigative agency. A perimeter around the area had to be established and a coordinated search had to be initiated. U.S. 395 had to be shut down and the "Mule Days Parade"/Christmas parade/downtown detour, with permanent Caltrans signs in place, had to be flipped and roadblocks set up. Everyone could talk with each other, except for Caltrans and the hotline was used. CA State Parks did not respond, because their nearest units would be in Bodie State Park in northern Mono County and they are spread so thin, they can't always respond immediately. A command repeater, a search repeater and tacticals were designated. Repeater frequencies were left open for normal dispatch traffic. They did this by pooling the radio systems they each had. Everyone heard of the incident because their radios were on scan. It has taken decades of planning to reach this ability to respond this way. I attended some meetings in the early 1980's for this type of interagency disaster/mutual aid coordination when I worked for the U.S. Forest Service. To throw a proprietary UHF system into this mix would undo what has been built here over at least 4 decades.
End of **Optional Reading**

One additional thought. EMS Hospital/Medics communications will switch over to MRA. A lot of people don't understand why EMS needs to keep their comms private. I've spoken with one of my sisters, who worked in emergency rooms as a nurse from 1964-1993 in southern CA and she explained the need for their comms to be private. I won't explain why here as this post is lengthy already.
 

ladn

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**Optional Reading** For example, there was a shooting at a gas station in north Bishop a couple of years ago.
WELCOME BACK!
Thanks for the in-depth explanation of the MRA take over. When I first heard about this, it raised a lot of suspicions, and your very detailed post brought up even more points. This seem to be somewhat analogous to the proliferation of privately operated prisons--the private sector taking over or infringing on an area previously exclusive to governmental agencies.

As for over the air PII, wouldn't a better solution be secure MDT/MDC's for 10-28/10-29, AWWS/NCIC traffic? Let MRA be the contractor on that if need be.
 

mmckenna

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As for over the air PII, wouldn't a better solution be secure MDT/MDC's for 10-28/10-29, AWWS/NCIC traffic? Let MRA be the contractor on that if need be.

It's easier to run those sorts of checks over the radio, especially if chasing someone, or driving on the twisty roads.

NXDN will only support a bit less than 4800baud in 6.25KHz mode or a bit under 9600 in 12.5KHz mode, and that isn't good enough for what most officers do/desire. It's easier for them to use LTE and have that where available, and use the radio where it's not.
 

es93546

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Thanks for the in-depth explanation of the MRA take over. When I first heard about this, it raised a lot of suspicions, and your very detailed post brought up even more points. This seem to be somewhat analogous to the proliferation of privately operated prisons--the private sector taking over or infringing on an area previously exclusive to governmental agencies.

As for over the air PII, wouldn't a better solution be secure MDT/MDC's for 10-28/10-29, AWWS/NCIC traffic? Let MRA be the contractor on that if need be.

MDT's require cell phone coverage or some other type of data network. In rural areas there are a lot of areas without that type of coverage. Rural counties are not only challenged by this, but also with financial problems. I remember when the LAPD first got MDT's. It required a voter imitative for a bond. Rural counties don't have the amount of land, sales and people to fund such bonds. In rural areas there are a lot of areas covered by VHF (Low and High) that have zero cell phone coverage. This is going to be problematic for the CHP. They have the MDT, but if they are on the Tioga Pass road (CA 120 west) they aren't able to use them. Some areas of U.S. 395 have no cell coverage, depending on the carrier, with Verizon having the best coverage. CA 120 east (U.S. 395 to U.S. 6) has a very long stretch of non Verizon coverage, so you know that the other carriers are dead in that stretch and other segments. It looks like MRA is trying its best to eliminate as many blind spots as possible, they seem to have every electronic site that the public safety agencies have licensed now. UHF will provide a little less coverage than VHF, so we will see how it works.
 

es93546

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Many thanks. As the months and years roll on, I become less able to participate in conversations and write. I had some trauma to the brain at 35. The long term effects from it stayed at bay, at least cognitively, until about 8 years ago, but now 35 years later, at 70, I'm suffering from more substantial cognitive loss than would be normal for my age. I've been tested and it is not dementia or Alzheimer's and is rather specific to certain functions of the brain. Some functions have declined substantially and others remain superior. It can come and go so I will only be on here when I'm capable.

“Getting old ain't for sissies.” Bette Davis.
 

es93546

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An example of non coverage for cell phones and radio is a stretch of U.S. 395 between the Crowley Lake overpass and Toms Place we hams call "Radio Free Crowley." The terrain and the location of electronic sites cause nearly all radio to not work at all from UHF up and even ham 2m. There can be some bad accidents and rock slides in that several mile stretch. The only thing that works for me in that stretch is Sirius radio, but it gets a bit marginal in a portion of it.
 

ladn

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An example of non coverage for cell phones and radio is a stretch of U.S. 395 between the Crowley Lake overpass and Toms Place we hams call "Radio Free Crowley."
I know that stretch of 395, but I've never heard it called "Radio Free Crowley"! I'm a Verizon customer and have had decent coverage in most areas of Eastern California along the 395 corridor. Unfortunately, when I'm at Cerro Gordo, Verizon is marginal unless I'm up on a ridge. AT&T is pretty decent in the townsite since there's an AT&T cell site on Buena Vista ("Cerro Gordo") Peak. The canyons are mostly dead zones.
 

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Two new sites been granted this week.
_________________________________________________
WROM312 - Mobile Relay Associates
11/03/2021 License Issued - (NEW)
Shoshone SS - Shoshone, CA INYO County
_________________________________________________
WROM734 - Mobile Relay Associates
11/05/2021 License Issued - (NEW)
SLATE - VALLEY WELLS, CA INYO County

 

es93546

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I've got a lot of reprogramming to do this winter. I need to put CRIS frequencies in my scanners, which I haven't done yet. I suppose this MRA system for the Inyo SO will employ some type of modulation similar to cell phones that won't allow scanner reception. I think this is a major mistake by the county. I will ruin the interoperability that exists in the region. MRA will benefit as everyone will have to migrate to it. That will take a very long time. You can't just flip a switch to accomplish this.
 

mcjones2013

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I suppose this MRA system for the Inyo SO will employ some type of modulation similar to cell phones that won't allow scanner reception.

Modulation of the MRA system is NEXEDGE48 (NXDN). The more-recent Uniden and Whistler scanners handle NXDN, as well as software-defined radios and a program such as DSDPlus. It's unknown if Inyo SO going to use encryption on the MRA system with their talkgroups, but the MRA system itself is not encrypted as a whole.
 

PrivatelyJeff

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I've got a lot of reprogramming to do this winter. I need to put CRIS frequencies in my scanners, which I haven't done yet. I suppose this MRA system for the Inyo SO will employ some type of modulation similar to cell phones that won't allow scanner reception. I think this is a major mistake by the county. I will ruin the interoperability that exists in the region. MRA will benefit as everyone will have to migrate to it. That will take a very long time. You can't just flip a switch to accomplish this.

‘It’s NXDN, which is well supported in modern scanners, and they can just flip switches, considering they make multi band radios now days and they can also patch between frequencies and talk groups easily.
 

KK6ZTE

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‘It’s NXDN, which is well supported in modern scanners, and they can just flip switches, considering they make multi band radios now days and they can also patch between frequencies and talk groups easily.
There's no multiband NXDN portable.
 
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