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This issue has come up in the forums and will probably be brought up many more times, so I figured I'd put together a sticky post to provide information regarding the Oklahoma City EDACS system.
Please read carefully each of the following items:
1. The Oklahoma City EDACS ProVoice system is a new trunked system deployed at the end of 2005 to support all public safety and city services communications for the City of Oklahoma City. All City of Oklahoma City Police, Fire, and Public Works operate on this system.
2. The system uses ProVoice Digital modulation for many public safety operations. This means that your scanner WILL NOT monitor the digital talkgroups on this system. There is no way possible to monitor any ProVoice digital communications with any scanner today. Most OCPD and OCFD operations are in ProVoice digital mode. Trunktracker scanners will ignore any ProVoice talkgroups and not even display them, regardless of whether or not you can track the system or not.
3. This system supports a feature called EDACS System Key (ESK), which, when enabled on the system, will cause your trunktracker scanner to not be able to track the system. Currently, the ESK feature is NOT enabled on the system, which means your trunktracker is able to monitor any analog transmissions on the system.
4. When ESK is off on the system, your trunktracker can monitor analog transmissions on the system like a normal EDACS system. Let me reiterate that regardless of the status of the ESK feature, you CANNOT monitor ProVoice digital talkgroups, the scanner will ignore them.
5. There are two areas within the system: Core and Wide Area. The Core System is made of the inner city sites that contain and control a large majority of the radio traffic. The Wide Area System is comprised of the towers that reside away from the metro and provide coverage to the further reaching areas of the city and help fill the remaining gaps in coverage.
6. The Wide Area System is digital Provoice for public safety talkgroups just like the CORE. There is no analog simulcast of the public safety talkgroups at all once the link radios are removed from their service.
7. Link radios. Currently (3/22/06) there is a link between the new ProVoice system and the legacy VHF system allowing you to hear both. Unfortunately this is not permanent. These are the radios that are going to be used for providing mutual aid links to other agencies once everyone in the city has switched over.
8. There is no definite answer on when the links will be shut off. The only definite answer is when everyone in the field gets switched over to EDACS, which could be two weeks or two years from now. The city has had problems with other vendors providing other technologies to their new cars, which has set the mobile installation program back. The city is fitting out new cars for 2006 but is waiting to be able to deliver a finished product for all cars before rolling new/updated police cars out. It is a logistical nightmare seeing how the city has about 700 police vehicles alone. They also have to fit out Fire Trucks and the rest of the city services too. It would be an even worse nightmare if they kept sending cars out and bringing them back for new items so they are going to do it all at once.
This should hopefully answer any questions that you might have....
NOTE: This was openly plagiarized from blantonl's "Listening to San Antonio - the FAQ" post in the Texas regional forum and freqscout's earlier post on this topic in this forum.
Please read carefully each of the following items:
1. The Oklahoma City EDACS ProVoice system is a new trunked system deployed at the end of 2005 to support all public safety and city services communications for the City of Oklahoma City. All City of Oklahoma City Police, Fire, and Public Works operate on this system.
2. The system uses ProVoice Digital modulation for many public safety operations. This means that your scanner WILL NOT monitor the digital talkgroups on this system. There is no way possible to monitor any ProVoice digital communications with any scanner today. Most OCPD and OCFD operations are in ProVoice digital mode. Trunktracker scanners will ignore any ProVoice talkgroups and not even display them, regardless of whether or not you can track the system or not.
3. This system supports a feature called EDACS System Key (ESK), which, when enabled on the system, will cause your trunktracker scanner to not be able to track the system. Currently, the ESK feature is NOT enabled on the system, which means your trunktracker is able to monitor any analog transmissions on the system.
4. When ESK is off on the system, your trunktracker can monitor analog transmissions on the system like a normal EDACS system. Let me reiterate that regardless of the status of the ESK feature, you CANNOT monitor ProVoice digital talkgroups, the scanner will ignore them.
5. There are two areas within the system: Core and Wide Area. The Core System is made of the inner city sites that contain and control a large majority of the radio traffic. The Wide Area System is comprised of the towers that reside away from the metro and provide coverage to the further reaching areas of the city and help fill the remaining gaps in coverage.
6. The Wide Area System is digital Provoice for public safety talkgroups just like the CORE. There is no analog simulcast of the public safety talkgroups at all once the link radios are removed from their service.
7. Link radios. Currently (3/22/06) there is a link between the new ProVoice system and the legacy VHF system allowing you to hear both. Unfortunately this is not permanent. These are the radios that are going to be used for providing mutual aid links to other agencies once everyone in the city has switched over.
8. There is no definite answer on when the links will be shut off. The only definite answer is when everyone in the field gets switched over to EDACS, which could be two weeks or two years from now. The city has had problems with other vendors providing other technologies to their new cars, which has set the mobile installation program back. The city is fitting out new cars for 2006 but is waiting to be able to deliver a finished product for all cars before rolling new/updated police cars out. It is a logistical nightmare seeing how the city has about 700 police vehicles alone. They also have to fit out Fire Trucks and the rest of the city services too. It would be an even worse nightmare if they kept sending cars out and bringing them back for new items so they are going to do it all at once.
This should hopefully answer any questions that you might have....
NOTE: This was openly plagiarized from blantonl's "Listening to San Antonio - the FAQ" post in the Texas regional forum and freqscout's earlier post on this topic in this forum.
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