grumpy_hermit
Member
I noticed today that they are transmitting FD traffic simultaneously on MARCS and 154.22.
Lima Police and Fire > MARCS Transition Imminent
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cfr301
Member
Yep they must have got that issue resolved. Shawnee Does the same thing but for different reasons.
Mike can correct me if I'm wrong bu Lima is doing it right now for station paging issues I believe,
Shawnee does it for its Volunteers who don't have MARC's radios or wear pagers to be alerted. MARC's doesn't do paging as of yet anyway.
Rick
Yes, LFD tones and the initial call are being simulcast on MARCS and 154.220 since all 5 stations have radios that when the tones are tripped a PA announces the call throughout the station. I don't see this changing, since tones will not work on digital, that is the only way to make the call announcements heard everywhere in the stations. Central does have the capability to tone out calls also and is occasionally used if dispatch has an equipment problem. LFD does have a few pagers, but those are used very infrequently and usually by 40 hour personnel.
Mike
Mike
cfr301
Member
Makes me wonder how MARC's intends to remedy this problem. Once the dead line to get off VHF or go narrow band has arrived, it won't make much sense to have to use both systems, that would be a SERIOUS waste of tax payer money! LOL
Rick
good to have almost all of allen coutey on the state of the art TRS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
is Lima Fire Dpet got thier issies worked out at last from what i am reading?
is Lima Fire Dpet got thier issies worked out at last from what i am reading?
grumpy_hermit
Member
From what I've seen/heard so far, it seems that MARCS is a step backward and the value of this huge investment is debatable. Besides losing the capability to use tones, the radios don't allow a priority channel to be set. This means that if a radio is scanning multiple TGs, it can easily miss calls on the operator's main channel.
cfr301
Member
"S U P P O S E D L Y" Motorola and EF Johnson are in a race to find a fix for the priority issue. You can scan,.... but if the radio is on another channel it won't leave that channel until the traffic stops unless you take the Mic. off the hook. Then the radio will return to the Priority talk channel the radio is set on. As a retired cop I got to tell you THAT SUCKS!
I've been told most officers keep their portable on their dispatch channel, NOT scanning, leave it turned up a little with the Lapel Mic close to their ear they hear dispatch calling, The car radio in SOME cases is set to scan if the officer thinks he can manage that.. Again that just SUCKs!
The Tone thing is going to take some serious doing, somebody wasn't thinking when that idea was missed!
So it's a bug with the MARCS system, or the radios? Priority works great north of the border on MPSCS.
You can't do a tone-out page with trunked systems like a regular pager, so it's not as though somebody "forgot" about it, it's just not realistically possible.
cfr301
Member
The Priority works to take the radio back to the Primary channel if the Mic is taken off the hook, but isn't over riding traffic on other channels for the primary like the VHF systems did.
I KNOW that!
The somebody's who didn't do their jobs were the agency planners and the companies selling the system. There have been numerous over sites, like dead spots in basements for fire fighters, paging issues for volunteers and tone issues for out stations that crept up the day MARC's went on line or with a day or so after the agency started using it. It wasn't well thought out.
Going Digital was supposedly the end all deal it hasn't been what it was cracked up t be. Is it better yes, but issues that should have been thought out weren't, in PUBLIC SERVICE and other high risk jobs that can be deadly!
BusterCMH
Member
Every radio system has dead zones. That has to do with site planning, not whether it is digital or not. The big difference is the radio now tells you when you are out of range (if that feature is enabled), where the conventional radio didn't (until no one answered you or the repeater didn't activate).
I remember when Akron went digital. The FFs were upset that the radios went out of range in some basement areas. When they tested with the old radios and new radios side by side, they had better coverage with the new digital radios, they just didn't know when they were "out of range" on the old system.
As for station alerting, paging on VHF is just one option that is selected, most often because of current investment and the fact that Mot does not make a trunked, digital Minitor pager for people to carry. There are other LAN based and wireless data based options through Zetron, Loucution, WesNet and others. Heck, Delaware County gives each firehouse a base radio set to a talk-group just for that station. They alert by adding that stations TG to the simulcast of the dispatch. No tones, no other link. It does require putting a digital control station in each house and does not solve the pager issue, although many volunteers can set their walkies to the "PA" talk-group and hear all of the runs for that station.
Options are limited when you run a comm center on control stations and not direct console connection. Since MARCS generally cannot accomodate additional direct consoles, and because of the cost, control stations are still an effective solution. Union County has been doing it since their cut mid decade.
Congrats to Lima and Allen County on their conversion. For this being their first big radio upgrade since the early 70s, job well done and still in progress.
I remember when Akron went digital. The FFs were upset that the radios went out of range in some basement areas. When they tested with the old radios and new radios side by side, they had better coverage with the new digital radios, they just didn't know when they were "out of range" on the old system.
As for station alerting, paging on VHF is just one option that is selected, most often because of current investment and the fact that Mot does not make a trunked, digital Minitor pager for people to carry. There are other LAN based and wireless data based options through Zetron, Loucution, WesNet and others. Heck, Delaware County gives each firehouse a base radio set to a talk-group just for that station. They alert by adding that stations TG to the simulcast of the dispatch. No tones, no other link. It does require putting a digital control station in each house and does not solve the pager issue, although many volunteers can set their walkies to the "PA" talk-group and hear all of the runs for that station.
Options are limited when you run a comm center on control stations and not direct console connection. Since MARCS generally cannot accomodate additional direct consoles, and because of the cost, control stations are still an effective solution. Union County has been doing it since their cut mid decade.
Congrats to Lima and Allen County on their conversion. For this being their first big radio upgrade since the early 70s, job well done and still in progress.
That's interesting. Well, send them up here, we know how to do that right with digital trunked in Michigan
BusterCMH
Member
That's interesting. Well, send them up here, we know how to do that right with digital trunked in Michigan
Yep. It's a programming feature issue......
cfr301
Member
I'm by far not saying the upgrade isn't a good thing, it is, but I know some firefighters that were 20Ft from their truck in a basement that would debate that out of range thing. The problem was solved by putting repeaters on Pumpers , but that was an AFTER thought, which was my point.
cfr301
Member
Of course you do!That's interesting. Well, send them up here, we know how to do that right with digital trunked in Michigan
BusterCMH
Member
Just like any repeater based system, on a trunked system it is not whether you can see the target you are trying to talk to, it is whether you can see the radio tower you need to hit to get your message repeated by the system. Lima PD had to learn this when they went from a simplex to a repeated system back in the late 90s.
After-thoughts are not system failures. They are fixes for issues that were not caught during planning, and are not unique to digital or trunked systems. OSP uses mobile extenders. Butler County has 700MHz simplex channels for fireground ops, many fire departments use simplex VHF for the very same reason.
I had a police officer get ticked off because they were 100' from another cruiser an could not talk to that car. When he finally told me the detail that they were in another county training and nowhere near the repeater, I took the opportunity to explain how talk-around/simplex mode worked. That was on a VHF system. I have had to explan "car to car" mode to trunked users as well.
Thanks for the discussion!
It's not an issue for MARCS to fix. Paging of local units is solely the responsibility of the user agency.
There are other options out there such as alphanumeric pagers, but they're not the responsibility of MARCS to address.
cfr301
Member
Your making my point from another view. The planners be they the Radio Company and OR the agencies involved didn't think of everything. Its getting fixed lets just hope its not at the expense of injury or death. I'm very well versed on repeaters and how they work, Walk behind the wrong building at 3am and call for help just once, you'll learn very quickly what works and what does not.
Rick
cfr301
Member
It might not be MARC's , but if you sell me a radio that doesn't do what I need it to, I'm coming back to you to make it right. MARC's itself may not have the responsibility for these problems but Motorola or EF Johnson should have KNOWN these issues were out there and either provided solutions or made the BUYER BEWARE!
BusterCMH
Member
My experience is they (both the vendors and MARCS) consistently tell users up front what the limitations are and give options.
I have confirmed that priority does not work on scan with Lima FD. It will be brought up next week when all the LFD radios are reprogrammed. They came programmed so that when their emergency button is pressed, the radio switches to Lima PD talkgroup. :roll:
As far as toning out, while I can't speak for the other FDs in Allen County, Lima FD knew that the dispatches where going to be simulcast on VHF and MARCS. However in Lima, the techs didn't set up simulcasting on the temporary dispatch location and had to return to do so. It was not a case of the agencies not knowing.
As for basement deadspots, it was know from the inception of the initiative in Allen County that vehicular repeaters would be needed and they were part of the initial equipment purchases. This wasn't a surprise that happened after the conversion. If departments didn't get repeaters, it is probably their own fault for not ordering them. Also, at least all the LFD and I believe all the fire department radios in Allen County, have five simplex fireground channels programmed. I don't have those frequencies yet.
Right now there are learning curves being gone through in Allen County. Agencies that have always used simplex are learning about how repeaters work, all agencies are learning how trunking works, and all agencies are learning the quirks of digital (just like when everybody got digital cellphones and needed to get use to the new sound). Lima PD and FD are just the newest group to learn about some of these things.
Mike
As far as toning out, while I can't speak for the other FDs in Allen County, Lima FD knew that the dispatches where going to be simulcast on VHF and MARCS. However in Lima, the techs didn't set up simulcasting on the temporary dispatch location and had to return to do so. It was not a case of the agencies not knowing.
As for basement deadspots, it was know from the inception of the initiative in Allen County that vehicular repeaters would be needed and they were part of the initial equipment purchases. This wasn't a surprise that happened after the conversion. If departments didn't get repeaters, it is probably their own fault for not ordering them. Also, at least all the LFD and I believe all the fire department radios in Allen County, have five simplex fireground channels programmed. I don't have those frequencies yet.
Right now there are learning curves being gone through in Allen County. Agencies that have always used simplex are learning about how repeaters work, all agencies are learning how trunking works, and all agencies are learning the quirks of digital (just like when everybody got digital cellphones and needed to get use to the new sound). Lima PD and FD are just the newest group to learn about some of these things.
Mike
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