New LV Monorail Radio System???

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bryan_herbert

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On February 04 at 0830 hours, Monorail Control mentioned they were starting to hand out new radios. Everything seemed fine until yesterday when I noticed I havent heard anything in over a week. I opened up the system to receive other talkgroups and confirmed the system is still operational however, Las Vegas Monorail is silent.

I spent several hours yesterday doing a spectrum search and so far I havent found them. Assuming theyre still contracted with CRT/Frontier Radio, Im programming all of their freqs in conventional mode to see if I can find them that way. If theyre not there, I will try other companies TRSs and even the railroad freqs. We may also have to assume theyve moved to an LTE system like many businesses are being pushed to. At $300 per radio plus a small subscriber fee, theyd be crazy not to do it.
 

bryan_herbert

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After searching 150 - 1000 MHz, I cant find them anywhere. I might have to break my Strip boycott and go ride the rail to get a peek at their new radios.
 

Hooligan

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Normally, members of the Vegas Area Radio Geek Alerting Network utilize limos dispatched by the 'adult entertainment establishment' promoters to get to & fro along the Las Vegas Strip area (listen to 452.750 & 452.4375 DMR CC9 amongst others -- WPMP801 Cap+ system to hear these limos, though we force them to maintain radio-silence when VARGAN is involved), but Friday night, select VARGAN members took to the more pedestrian method of riding the Las Vegas Monorail to go from our suites at the Westgate Las Vegas to wine, women, song & radio-festivities at the MGM Grand. A round-trip between those two fine locales increased the liklihood that the VARGAN operatives would encounter Las Vegas Monorail Corp. security and/or maintenance personnel, then perform trickery & deceit as-necessary to observe LVM employee communication devices.

Arriving at the MGM Grand Station around 070730Z MAR20, VARGAN Radio Identification Specialists observed a cluster of three LVM Security Officers attempting to fix an escalator. When asked "How do you like your new radio system?" All three looked up & chimed-in that they're very happy with it, and it's 100 times better than the old system!" Unfortunately, all that could be observed from the vantage-point were big Motorola RSMs (speaker-mics). Not to keep the eager women waiting, we departed the station to commit higher-priority shenanigans.

Fast-forwarding about an 90 minutes later, some VARGAN operatives, but not the Radio Identification Specialist contingent, meandered back to the MGM Grand Monorail Station to head back to the Westgate-LV. They bravely sacrificed taking the Northbound Monorail that had just arrived, & loitered until it departed, so they could then inconspicuously walk further down the platform area to where a sole LVM Security Officer was standing & have 5+ minutes to surveil him before the next Northward train arrived at the station. Using a pretext, a conversation was started with him ("Excuse me sir, what time's the next train to Helsinki?") and he was visually distracted while another VARGAN operative bravely risked arrest for lewd activity by staring intently and even photographing the unwitting LV Monorail officer's waist area, where his RADIO was mounted to his belt. Despite not having VARGAN Radio Identification Specialist indoctrination, this operative had completed the VARGAN RIS prerequisite home-study course and recognized the Las Vegas Monorail Corporation Security Officer's radio to be a... MOTOROLA SL300 (with RSM).




VARGAN was surprised to observe a mere SL300, instead of something like an XPR7550/7580/7590 capable of Capacity+, but when you consider that even during the busiest of times (IWCE & NAB), they really just need two voice channels, and that their required RF coverage really doesn't mandate a large footprint extending far beyond LV Monorail property -- so either one well-placed DMR repeater with good ERP, and/or some Bi-Directional Amplifiers/Distributed Antenna Systems -- the cute little SL300s make some sense (especially if you also consider the LV Mornorail is losing $$ & the relatively cheap SL300s do have Transmit Interrupt Capability in DMR mode).

SL300s cover VHF, or 403-470MHz, FM & DMR, simplex & repeater, but do NOT do Capacity+, encryption, etc. While the prior analog 800MHz TRS they used had numerous talk-groups for them, it's likely that their new system just has one or two RF channels, providing a couple talk group channels (Security & Maintenance/Custodians). Based on their traffic loading & somewhat unique lexicon ("Control, please hold train 3 at Convention Center," "Fare-evader at Sahara" et al), it shouldn't take long to locate their RF channels.

NOTE: THIS IS AN UNCLASSIFIED, PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS & FINDING BY VARGAN, SUBJECT TO REVIEW AND CORRECTION UPON FURTHER DATA ACQUISITION AND STUDY.
 

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Paysonscanner

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Normally, members of the Vegas Area Radio Geek Alerting Network . . .

I see that VARGAN (Vegas Area Radio Geek Alerting Network) uses the TITIC public relations firm to write press releases concerning its activities. TITIC is a very old firm, dating back to a time when language, any language, was being developed for verbal communications. TITIC did not even require the use of any written language to get its start, thus making it the oldest, continuously operated, public relations firm in the world and likely Quadrants A (Alpha) and B (Bravo) of the Milky Way Galaxy. Finally, the sign at the entrance to the TITIC building, where vandals frequently cover up the last two letters, reads "World Headquarters of Tongue Implanted Thoroughly In Cheek, Inc./LLC"
 

Hooligan

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CRITICAL UPDATE: A VARGAN Radio Identification Specialist on-assignment outside Nevada has performed a forensic analysis of the surveillance photo and identified the communications device as likely being a /v\otorola TLK100, not an SLS300!


Their form-factor & antenna are very similar to the SL300, but if you look near the bottom of the radio in the photo, you can see that there's bluish writing. With the SL300s, there's no writing there, but with the TLK devices, WAVE(tm) is written in blue. The bottom half-inch or so of the SL300s are thinner than above it & this is visible as what appears to be a horizonal line on the SLs. The TLKs do not have that, nor does the device in the photo.

TLKs use 4G LTE. Our RIS operative offered the editorial that it was a little dumb for LVM to go with 4G LTE/WAVE devices now, when 5G is being deployed and presumably /v\otorola is preparing a 5G/WAVE product. Hopefully Las Vegas Monorail is renting the devices now, and can easily make a 5G/WAVE upgrade when available.
 

Cameron314

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What 800mhz trunked system were they on? I see they are licensed for VHF. Seems dumb to be using the TLK's for this use case when a single repeater could likely cover their work area with a much lower on going cost. When you start adding up the cost of service for the LTE service with more then a handful of radios you are paying to build your own system pretty quick if you don't need wide area coverage.
 

Thunderknight

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TLKs use 4G LTE. Our RIS operative offered the editorial that it was a little dumb for LVM to go with 4G LTE/WAVE devices now, when 5G is being deployed and presumably /v\otorola is preparing a 5G/WAVE product. Hopefully Las Vegas Monorail is renting the devices now, and can easily make a 5G/WAVE upgrade when available.
Considering 4G LTE technology will be around for a long time, and the bandwidth requirements of PTToC are so low, I really don't think there is any issue. The only possible (and I stress possible) advantage of a 5G network technology would be if the PTT servers were closer to the edge, allowing faster call setup times. But again, for this use, I think the difference would be imperceptible.
 

bryan_herbert

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I was afraid thats where they had gone to. It explains why the commercial/business bands are getting quieter. It also explains why the cellphone companies are snatching up so much spectrum. Theyre even taking spectrum from ham radio operators.

I hate to say it, but I would not be surprised to see public safety go this route within 20 years as hard as they tried to grab the T-band.
 

Hooligan

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Las Vegas Monorail Survives after Bankruptcy Transaction

"The Strip-trip provider for tens of thousands of convention attendees each year will remain operational—and the deal assists another transportation system too."

Somewhat disingenuous, as LVCVA seems to mostly have bought the LV Monorail Co. assets to render-moot a non-compete clause regarding localized mass-transit ssystems, however I've seen recent LVCVA statements indicating their intent is to re-open the LV Monorail for public use as soon as it's feasible (china plague...), though its long-term future remains doubtful.
 
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