Nebraska (Statewide) Wireless Interoperable Network "N-WIN"

[cellphone]

ever since yesterday ive been hearing troop B traffic (norfolk dispatch) on the Cedar bluffs tower. Talkgroup 3087 yesterday and now 3015 today.

3087 is reported to be B Dispatch 3. 3015 is reported but not confirmed to be a talkground “B OP 1”. They may have been using B OP 1 for dispatch due to some talkgroup numbering changes that were occurring.

Does that mean that since yesterday, someone from troop B has been in the area with their radio on? Or is something else going on here?

For a talkgroup to be transmitted on the Cedar Bluffs tower, there must be a radio that has that channel selected. It could be a Troop B trooper in the area, radio maintenance testing or passing through, or another Troop officer that is monitoring or scanning Troop B talkgroups.

another question: Is there a certain list of towers for troop A, a certain list for Troop B, and so on... Or can any trooper use any tower to talk on their specified talkgroup at any time? like, the radio would just pick the tower with the strongest signal.. And when a dispatcher keys up their mic to try to get a hold of/find a trooper, Is there a list of towers that broadcast the dispatchers voice?

Any troop can use any tower. When an officer selects a talkgroup and affiliates with the tower, the system knows to transmit all radio traffic on that talkgroup on that tower.

This Wiki article has some high level trunked radio concepts. It is worth a read if to better understand how affiliation works on large trunked systems.
http://wiki.radioreference.com/index.php/Trunking_Basics

 

[SquierStrat]

Thanks for the information! It helps alot. It now makes sense why ill hear lots of traffic, then it will be dead for an hour or 2, then lots of traffic.

 

[KF0SKV]

Speaking of lots of traffic, I had all the following on the Norfolk tower this afternoon and continued through the evening:

Troop A Dispatch 1
Troop HQ Lincoln
Troop B Dispatch 1&3
B OPS 1?? TG 3015
Statewide Event 1, TG 3060-Still going as of 10pm.
NPPD KCC

For a while I thought I was listening to ORION!

TG 3015 is most likely B OPS 1 (Was Norfolk Dispatch?). Although not confirmed, it also has been used quite a bit for NSP/NFM coordination of the ongoing northern wildfires.

While I was monitoring the voice traffic, I was also watching the frequency utilization over Pro96com. 154.3250 and 154.9050 were all utilized. 155.2500, is an alternate control channel, but was never used, of course can't use 155.5875, the main control channel.

 

[KF0SKV]

TG 3010-New B OPS 2 Sec???

I am beginning to think TG 3010, Ainsworth Dispatch, could possibly be the new B Dispatch 2 Secure. Quite a bit of encrypted traffic being passed on this talkgroup. Did not catch any RID's. Didn't make it to the laptop fast enough.....go figure.....

 

[cellphone]

On 3010, if you can get Radio IDs, if you frequently see Norfolk Dispatch Console IDs (40010, 40011, and 40012), then it may be a dispatch talkgroup. If you are only seeing a lot of 31xxx and 32xxx, then it might be a car to car encrypted. Keep us posted.

On another note, I think they are changing the naming convention of the "OP" talkgroups to "LE". I have confirmed talkgroup 3015 identified as "B LE 1".

 

[khphighwayman]

HQ Troop

Anyone hearing any rumors on when HQ Troop will be switching fully to NWIN? Heard some random traffic this morning off Beatrice site. But not the amount and type of traffic i expect to hear when theyre using the site all the time. Thanks!

 

[SCPD]

Anyone hearing any rumors on when HQ Troop will be switching fully to NWIN? Heard some random traffic this morning off Beatrice site. But not the amount and type of traffic i expect to hear when theyre using the site all the time. Thanks!

I don't think all the trooper's have radios yet. I have heard the dispatch say a couple of time that trooper xxx doesn't have a radio for the new system.

 

[SCPD]

I am beginning to think TG 3010, Ainsworth Dispatch, could possibly be the new B Dispatch 2 Secure. Quite a bit of encrypted traffic being passed on this talkgroup. Did not catch any RID's. Didn't make it to the laptop fast enough.....go figure.....

Look in the channel grant history tab. It will list the talk groups, radio IDs and what frequency they used.

 

[PJH]

Troop A is on the system full time as of last week.
The system admins might have the ability to select what towers the talk groups can be used on.

They do have this ability, but it is seldom used these days. Its called "tresspass" and is usually used on systems with very limited capacity. This prevents radios from traveling all over an area that really doesn't need any resources...

To put it in Nebraska perspective, you don't need a public works radio from Omaha affliating and talking to people in Scotts Bluff if the area out there has very limitied capacity and would interfear with more pressing communications. When the radio is powered on, the system controller will see what rights it has on the system. If out of area, the user will just get a denial bonk and it won't work.

Such an option is used on public safety radios for obvious reasons. A better method is using priority access where radio ID are grouped in system priorty - so bascially if DPW, schools etc are tying everything up and a public safety radio needs to use the limited space, when the radio transmits it will bump the least important radio/talkgroup off the system to allow channel access to the higher one.

All these features have been available since at least Smartnet was rolled out. I think even privacy plus supoorted it.

 

[KF0SKV]

Colorado DTRS and many others, is another system that intentionally limits what radio/agency uses certain towers, especially along the Front Range. Besides to keep the channel loading in check, a lot of DTRS towers are on high terrain, covering wide areas. Certain agencies or talkgroups that attempt to affiliate to a certain tower gets denied.

I haven't seen any denials on Nebraska SRS yet at least on the Norfolk tower, but I have seen channel loading at capacity with the lower priority users, e.g., NPPD get put into queue until a channel becomes available. During the fires up in northern Nebraska, each channels were near or at capacity with the amount of NSP/NFM traffic flowing from the firefighting efforts.

 

[PJH]

Its more difficult on OBT systems due to all the legacy channels in use, plus greater potentional range of the lower freq bands.

What has worked well (when properly thought out) is using 700/800 spectrum in the metro areas and OBT in the rurual areas. This is much easier to do in these days with the dual/multiband radios that are offered.

Of course, when you have a major incident in an area with expected loading to be under 1000 voice calls a day, you can never be prepared. HOWEVER, this is also where tactical comms off system can be used off the network and typically works better for scene communications. Far too often in areas that get systems such as these, they forget or do not realize that when your out of range of a tower, your out of range no matter how much money it costs or how cool it is.

There is also no reason for 50 agencies to be "bringing" their talkgroups to an area for tacitical or casual comms when a cellphone or simplex comms will do the job. Just comes down to a preplan and training to explain how things work. Some places are better than others.

Now back to NWIN

If anyone has access to template or codeplug, I'd be interested to help correct any details in the database

 

[gator]

is it possible to program Nwin in a 996t beings it dont have the p 25 standard option that the 996xt has

 

[KF0SKV]

Yes you can!

is it possible to program Nwin in a 996t beings it dont have the p 25 standard option that the 996xt has

Per the RadioReference wiki, the 996t does have APCO P25 Digital Audio Decoding installed. You will be able to monitor NWIN with the 996t.

 

[SCPD]

With x96T models. The system in Motorola type 2, the SITE is APCO25.

 

[gator]

do I have to put in a bandplan with the 996t or just leave it blank ?

 

[SCPD]

do I have to put in a bandplan with the 996t or just leave it blank ?

No leave it blank. The scanner will download it from the control channel. Make sure you select APCO25 for the site not VHF.

 

[SCPD]

Here's a screen shot from Butel 996t basic. This is the site setup.

 

[Ex-Dispatcher]

Howdy, Ex!

Depends on what type of scanner you have! For the Unidens, if you have a non XT scanner, I'd go with a single system and all of the CC's and AC's for the East part of the State. For the XT line, I use a single system and THREE sites (West, Central, East) to contain the CC/AC channels. I assigned a unique System Quick Key for each site, giving me the ability to list to the "zone" I want to.

Hope that helps!

73

I'm back in your fine state, and still having zero luck receiving anything on N-WIN. I'm using a GRE PSR-600 with N-WIN programmed as a single system, with CC for the sites in the SE portion of the state. I have it as P-25 auto, and have tried the Multi-Site mode as off, stationery, and Roam (threshholds 85 low, 99 high). Any other suggestions????

 

[realgeo]

I'm back in your fine state, and still having zero luck receiving anything on N-WIN. I'm using a GRE PSR-600 with N-WIN programmed as a single system, with CC for the sites in the SE portion of the state. I have it as P-25 auto, and have tried the Multi-Site mode as off, stationery, and Roam (threshholds 85 low, 99 high). Any other suggestions????

Howdy!

I am not a GRE user, but in the Uniden realm, there's "ID Scan" and "ID Search" modes. In "ID Scan"mode, the scanner will only listen to the TGIDs that you already have programmed. In contrast, "ID Search" will let you listen to all TGIDs that become active on the system.

Is it possible that the GRE is running in "ID Scan" mode, when you have no TGIDs programmed? 3075 is "Troop A Dispatch" and 3071 is "Troop HQ Dispatch" - try programming those numbers into your scanner and see if they pop-up now.

Good luck and 73

 

[SCPD]

By default, the GRE 600 only scans talkgroups that have been programmed. The equivalent of "ID Scan" mode is our wildcard scan. The wildcard must be programmed as a talkgroup but it actually is a catch all (except those marked as lock-out).