New Statewide Public Safety Radio System Planned for State Police / Partner Agencies

[garys]

I know a few people at MSP that have involvement in this. You'll have to take my word for that as I'm not a name dropper. One of whom told me a few years ago that he was instructed that there would be X amount of money for radio upgrades each year. No more, no less, and not to ask for more.

Those decisions are not made in Framingham, they are made on Beacon Hill.

Like Zone 1, the 700 Mhz Overlay is jointly administered by the City of Boston, the MSP, and other agencies. Zone 1 is reserved for non MSP users, as is the Overlay. At least that's the current status, but everything is subject to change.

Good luck clearing it up.

That makes sense. I'm mostly curious as to "why wasn't more money set aside until now", that sort of thing. It clearly was someone's priority back then, but as you said, priorities change - so I guess it's a question of what caused the priority change.



I don't believe anything at all, not even you! :^) The license of the overlay being in MSP's name and this article brief does point in that direction, though.

I'm browsing around and looking for more information that can clear this up. But there's a clear lack of information, unfortunately.

 

[masstech]

I know a few people at MSP that have involvement in this. You'll have to take my word for that as I'm not a name dropper. One of whom told me a few years ago that he was instructed that there would be X amount of money for radio upgrades each year. No more, no less, and not to ask for more.

Unable to make infrequent large capital purchases - that does pose a problem for infrastructure-type purchases.

Those decisions are not made in Framingham, they are made on Beacon Hill.

So even above the superintendent's head!

Like Zone 1, the 700 Mhz Overlay is jointly administered by the City of Boston, the MSP, and other agencies. Zone 1 is reserved for non MSP users, as is the Overlay. At least that's the current status, but everything is subject to change.

I did not know about the jointly part! Okay, so does that mean for the Type II system, Zone 5 is for MSP use, and both 1 and 5 cover the Boston area?

Good luck clearing it up.

It's getting clearer and clearer, thanks to you! Reading the RR and SNE forums and conversing with you all has been quite the enjoyable and enlightening experience!

 

[garys]

Zone 1 and the Overlay cover roughly inside of the Route 128 loop. Or what used to be called that.

Zone 5 covers most of eastern MA, except for Plymouth and Bristol Counties and Cape Cod. It extends from the NH state line and down to the RI state line. It extends west out past Framingham.

I did not know about the jointly part! Okay, so does that mean for the Type II system, Zone 5 is for MSP use, and both 1 and 5 cover the Boston area?

 

[jmorrissey23]

Ah, so CoMIRS is now treated as the primary system, with the Type II system set up on top of that? Does that mean for users on both sides of the site converter, the other side appears transparent? Meaning radio IDs get passed through, etc.

Where can learn more information on radio systems management, and perhaps more specifically, where can one learn information that you have?

Owned by the City of Cambridge, but operated and maintained by Cambridge Fire, correct?

If connectivity between the state's core and Cambridge's site on top of the Harvard building is lost, does that mean the site fails? This sounds like trouble. Does the Cambridge site have it's own controller, or does the site truly run "off of" MSP's core?

When letting outside traffic on your site, is that on a whitelist basis?

Is, for example, Cambridge's system linked directly with Boston (meaning less network travel time) or is traffic for an example TG that is on both systems passed through MSP's controller?

When describing a system as a site or simulcast, are we describing one site vs multiple sites?

Not confusing at all. This is very informational, thank you!

P.S. Would you happen to be Joe Morrissey, the fire buff, of MorrisseyPhotos? I've seen some of your photos online before, just wanted to say wonderful work!

The Radio IDs are the same on analog as they are on P25, as SmartX allows Talkgroups, Radio IDs, Emergency Triggers and other data to pass through from digital to analog and vice versa. Motorola has a info sheet about how SmartX works online (https://www.motorolasolutions.com/c...oducts/_documents/txwarn_smartx_casestudy.pdf)

If one of the sites loose connection to the system controller or another site it would go into site trunking mode. There is a page in the Wiki on here that describes how that works. (IPSC: Site Trunking 101)

You are correct that the simulcast sites transmit from multiple towers at the same time on the same frequencies where a stand alone site transmits from only one tower.

Also I'm glad you like my pictures!

 

[masstech]

Zone 1 and the Overlay cover roughly inside of the Route 128 loop. Or what used to be called that.

Zone 5 covers most of eastern MA, except for Plymouth and Bristol Counties and Cape Cod. It extends from the NH state line and down to the RI state line. It extends west out past Framingham.

Ah, so while the Zone 1 equivalent exists in CoMIRS (as the 700 overlay), there is no Zone 5 equivalent yet, since it has not been built out?

 

[masstech]

The Radio IDs are the same on analog as they are on P25, as SmartX allows Talkgroups, Radio IDs, Emergency Triggers and other data to pass through from digital to analog and vice versa. Motorola has a info sheet about how SmartX works online (https://www.motorolasolutions.com/c...oducts/_documents/txwarn_smartx_casestudy.pdf)

Thank you for the link. Something that's stumping me is how talkgroup IDs line up. Decimal values are not the same, but hex is.

If one of the sites loose connection to the system controller or another site it would go into site trunking mode. There is a page in the Wiki on here that describes how that works. (IPSC: Site Trunking 101)

Ah, so it's at the site controller where you program things like talkgroup whitelists and patches (so TGs that normally are in Boston, for example, come to Cambridge, or two talkgroups are tied together)?

You are correct that the simulcast sites transmit from multiple towers at the same time on the same frequencies where a stand alone site transmits from only one tower.

For a simulcast system, since there are multiple sites, there are multiple site controllers, and one? system controller?

So for example, MSP Zone 5 would have multiple site controllers, and one system controller, but Zone 1 would only have a site controller?

MSP's system controller would then be connected to the Zone 5 system controller, and the Zone 1 site controller?

 

[garys]

The only P25 portion of the MSP system is in Western MA. The analog system is still running there as well. The other systems that are running P25 share the Astro 7.1 Core as Joe outlined.

Personally, I'll be surprised if the entire system is built out in 5 years or so. It's not impossible, but it's a lot of labor in addition to a lot of equipment purchase.

Ah, so while the Zone 1 equivalent exists in CoMIRS (as the 700 overlay), there is no Zone 5 equivalent yet, since it has not been built out?

 

[jmorrissey23]

Thank you for the link. Something that's stumping me is how talkgroup IDs line up. Decimal values are not the same, but hex is.

Ah, so it's at the site controller where you program things like talkgroup whitelists and patches (so TGs that normally are in Boston, for example, come to Cambridge, or two talkgroups are tied together)?

For a simulcast system, since there are multiple sites, there are multiple site controllers, and one? system controller?

So for example, MSP Zone 5 would have multiple site controllers, and one system controller, but Zone 1 would only have a site controller?

MSP's system controller would then be connected to the Zone 5 system controller, and the Zone 1 site controller?

The analog Motorola SmartZone systems used 16 bit status bits which are not used on P25 systems. Therefore digital talk groups are analog talk groups divided by 16 (ie. LPS-1 is 36336/16=2271)

All sites simulcast or not share the same system controller. Each non-simulcast site has a site controller that is tied into the zone and system controllers. Simulcast sites have a one site controller at the prime site, and all of the other transmitter sites connect to the site controller at the prime site and are called remote sites. So for example the Worcester Simulcast has a prime site on Skyline Drive, that is where the site controller is, the sites at the airport and SW cutoff are remote sites to the Skyline Drive prime site, as they broadcast the same frequencies at the same time, but do not have their own site controller. Together the three sites make up the Worcester Simulcast.