Memphis/Shelby County APCO-25 Update

[tspainiv]

yea CC 859.4625 MPD west dispatch and car to car and MPD info is all that's patched right now. Also SCSO North, West/Central, and Info. There is also CC 860.96250 it's the same stuff as the other CC but will eventually become the CC for Fire and EMS of both SC and Memphis.

 

[dsbyrd]

Official Word from MPD

What with all the speculation going on, I wondered what would happen if I just asked MPD to comment on the new system and the progress. A lieutenant responded to my e-mail with an invitation to call a contact person in radio maintenance.

I wish I had been better prepared- but here's some info gleaned from our conversation:

The garbled audio for the West we have been hearing is indeed due to the patch. They plan to take the patch down and go live on the new system very soon, possibly even today.

The North precinct will be next to go online.

He confirmed, as we all know, that SCSD is online. He said S01 is already on, and S02 will probably come online this week.

We should starting hearing city fire after the first of the year as well.

They are having some "problems" with Motorola (as others have suggested). They hope to complete the transition for the whole system after the first of the year. I asked if that meant the first quarter of 2006 and he said yes.

I mentioned how strong the signal is up in Munford where I live. He said I am probably hearing the site at Fire Station 31, Overton Crossing and Hawkins Mill.

Hope this is of interest.

 

[tspainiv]

Really cool dsbyrd!! Thanks for the good work!!

 

[SCANFANATICA]

Well haven't had many posts in the last few days.Still sounds patched, but not too bad,pretty listenable. I still haven't got the Don Starr program,I'm just scanning the control channels for now.

 

[tspainiv]

That's all I'm doing is just scanning CC no point really in inputing all the frequencies. MPD west sounds alot better and also am hearing stuff on the special event talkgroups for the SO. Must be a saturation tonight.

forgot to add also hearing the court deputies on SO now too. Also more Car to Car traffic with the SO.

I heard some testing from some of the radio techs in the CJC checking coverage in the different court rooms and stair wells and elevators. Heard them say they had a problem with something and were waiting on motorola to come back on monday (12th) to do more testing and that they weren't going to give out the radios for the court operations till it was fixed and they had no coverage issues.

 

[Gatorman]

MPD TG's do sound better. My report is about the same as tspainIV.

 

[ARTHUR5]

Hi

did anybody know what kind of radio the mpd is using?

 

[memphislawenforcer]

Going from Motorola Astro Sabre's Vselp to STX5000's IMBE.

 

[matthewtomek]

Hey memphislaw, did you get the PM I sent you about a week ago??

 

[dsbyrd]

Have heard a couple of references, I think on both MPD West and SCSD dispatch that leads me to believe the radios have some sort of panic button. For example, heard an officer say he accidentally hit it while trying to adjust the volume! Dispatcher asked him to "clear it."

Can anyone verify how this works?

 

[SCANFANATICA]

I listened to the MPD back from 83 until they went to the v-selp in 96, and in the analog days they also had a kind of emergency function if they got into trouble and needed more help.I guess thats probably what they have now,the same thing.I heard that yesterday also.

 

[tspainiv]

It has an emergency button that when pressed makes a call to the dispatch office. If it's a mistake, you press and hold for like 2 or 3 seconds to clear it. This is what I have read. The Motorola radios used for the Arkansas AWIN system have this feature.

"...from the AWIN website..."

".....Emergency Button Tip: Law enforcement personnel using the new AWIN radio can activate the emergency button by pressing it once. If you press the button while you are out of range from an AWIN digital tower, you will receive an out of range message.

If you have activated the emergency button in error, you can deactivate it by pressing and holding the emergency button for three seconds. This should clear your radio and the channel......"

 

[memphislawenforcer]

That is the basic idea but the best thing about it is it will allow the user that has an emergency button activated to key up over anyone else on the channel. the system is set up so you can key over the disparcher, at least at the same time, the dispatcher will hear you even of she is talking but normally if another unit is talking you will get a busy tone if you try to key up. the emergency function allows you key up over unit by cutting them off.

 

[matthewtomek]

Over at the FD when an emergency button is activated from either a mobile or a portable, every CAD screen in our office throws up a big flashing red box advising emergency alert actrivated and tells us whose radio it is that was activated. We can look at our radio console
to see which talkgroup it was actvated on, dispatch, fireground, etc.

It is activated at least twice a day by someone on the job. And then they will set it off a couple of more times trying to reset the radio to get out of emergency mode! If you listen to the fire radio, you will hear the dispatcher say, "so and so, do you have an emergency, your emergency button was activated?" And then 99.99% of the time they will come back and say no emergency, hit it by mistake.

 

[memphislawenforcer]

And the other .01% someone is yelling on the radio about "shots fired" or "I've got one running..." those are very interesting listening. I think the bc 396d has an emergency ID alert setting that notifys the user of emergency traffic. I know my 346 does.

 

[Gatorman]

The 396 does have an emergency ID alert. It can be turned off/on by the user. It also allows you to decide what kind of alert YOU want the 396 to use. It does work. I have heard users at SCSO set theirs off. Earlier description by MT is accurate.

Unfortunately, the Memphis system did NOT have a way to determine where the officer in trouble was located. This was an expensive option. So, the only thing you know is whoever has a particular radio is in a jam. It will be interesting to see if the new system they have invested in is able to provide the location of a specific radio/user?????

I can't imagine the Memphis Police Association would stand for that though.

 

[memphislawenforcer]

Well the MPA just ain't what it used to be. We are going to get screwed next year on our new contract. Anyway there was talk of installing GPS in the squad cars like they have in fire vehicles but they haven't done anything like that. The city approved money to install cameras in all new squad cars about 3 years ago, but I havent seen a camera yet. they have looked at a lor of stuff like cameras with integrated computers with software that will run tags as you drive down the street. we'll see.

 

[matthewtomek]

We have AVLs in just about all the units. There has been talk about putting them in the apparatus as well, but like memphislaw says, it will be a while before we see anything like it.

 

[ButchGone]

re:

I am listening to the live scanner feed from Memphis, and the audio sounds very watery. Is this the result of streaming via the internet? Or is this how the system sounds?
I'm curious what people think about audio quality using different type scanners...of course Uniden VS Radio Shack.
What kind of scanner is providing audio for this feed?
Thanks!

 

[SCANFANATICA]

What we are hearing on the scanner and the net broadcast is a patch from the MPD old VSELP system to the new system that is being built as we speak .I think it's kind of like being simulcast, and not full APCO 25 mode yet .Someone else here could prob explain it better than I ,but it's not full APCO 25 transmissin yet.