XPR MotoTrbo Emergency Acknowledgement

[KX4KDH]

I'm back again with another...

I can see in CPS where a radio has the option of "Emergency Alarm Ack". However, I cannot figure out how to tell this radio to acknowledge the alarm. Nothing in button assignments, or anywhere else. So how exactly would this base station (for the dispatcher) acknowledge an emergency alarm?

 

[N1GTL]

If it is set to acknowledge, it will automatically do that. The acknowledging radio will sound an alarm and display the subscriber ID that sent the emergency. Only one radio should be set to do the acknowledgment.

 

[KX4KDH]

So if that person is out of the room, they will miss the emergency call? I’m guessing the display will show the emergency and radio ID after the acknowledgement. Or at least I hope so. What does this do to the other subscriber units that also receive the alarm? Does it shut off the alarms on those, also?

 

[Firebuff880]

That's not a simple yes or no. You should look at the system planner chapter - 2.3.4 Digital Emergency.....................................................................................

Acknowledging the Emergency and Clearing an Emergency are two very different actions.

 

[KX4KDH]

All of this is coming from the fact that the dispatcher cannot send an alert tone across like what you would get for a private call on MotoTrbo. Motorola suggested some half-baked approach of using the emergency function to accomplish this.

Before, they would send a 2 tone set that would "alert" all of the radios. The radios would alert for a few seconds, and the dispatcher could make their announcement.

Now with MotoTrbo, this cannot be done. At least not without all subscriber units pushing a button to shut the radio up from alerting. And even after that, the red LED keeps flashing until you cycle the power, or change channels. (You wouldn't believe how many "why is this red/green light flashing?" questions I get.)

All of this, and they also want every subscriber to have an "emergency button". Hopefully you can see the situation I am in.

 

[KX4KDH]

That's not a simple yes or no. You should look at the system planner chapter - 2.3.4 Digital Emergency.....................................................................................

Acknowledging the Emergency and Clearing an Emergency are two very different actions.

I am on it now. Thanks!

 

[KX4KDH]

I can't find anything in CPS about "clearing" an emergency.

 

[Firebuff880]

Button assignment Emergency On / Emergency Off If you assign one to say the Short Press the Other will appear in the Long Press.

 

[Firebuff880]

Correction - It's been pointed out that I was looking at an OLD system Planner

Current System Planner - R2.10 it's actually Chapter - 2.6 Digital Emergency..................................................................................................................83.

 

[N1GTL]

Button assignment Emergency On / Emergency Off If you assign one to say the Short Press the Other will appear in the Long Press.

That will cancel it on the subscriber. I thought the OP was looking for info on the control station. When that receives an emergency, it will continue to display the emergency. I think you have to actually navigate through some menu options to clear it? (menu > backspace > ??) Something like that

One thing not mentioned is if this is analog or digital. I was "assuming" digital. If digital, you can set up a channel in the control station as an "ALL CALL" and the user could put out a broadcast on that different talk group. The subscribers will let out a chirp. I think you can even change the alert tone though I have not done much testing.

 

[KX4KDH]

Yes, you can assign a "chirp" to an all call group. The funny thing is no matter what "Ringer Style" I choose (Ringer 1-10), it will not change the tone. The little blurp you get as an RX tone isn't going to fly.

And yes, this is digital. Single repeater conventional. If it were analog, I wouldn't be having these alerting issues. If I had any hair, I would have pulled it out by now!

 

[N1GTL]

I just opened a code plug and saw you cannot change the ringer style for ALL CALL.

Is it conventional or Capacity Plus? You may be able to do some trickery if CP by creating a different talk group other than ALL CALL and assigning that talk group to your received group list. Then you can use the different ringer styles for that specific group.

 

[KX4KDH]

You are correct, and I forgot to mention I created a talk group called "alert". This is where I can change the ring styles, but nothing different happens on the radio.

Digital conventional, by the way.

 

[TampaTyron]

The Emergency behavior in Mototrbo is not intuitive and is very difficult to get users to understand and accept. I would strongly recommend avoiding it unless you are using a console that can deal with the emergencies properly. TT

 

[KX4KDH]

Ty, I think you are absolutely right. I have not introduced this feature, so I may skip it. I’m still going to beat up on this alerting thing, though.

 

[TampaTyron]

I used to be a big fan of implementing all of the amazing features of the radios. In the last 10-15 years or so, it has been more of an IT style model where I disable Everything and make users justify the features that get turned on. TT