New system

[BlakeN]

I am from Avoyelles parish. I just found out that our parishwide police and S.O. Dept's are going to be changing their current Edacs system to Nextel. I have never heard of this system before. Will a Radio Shack Pro 95 scanner still be able to track this type of system. And if not what type of scanner would i need? Thanks!

 

[INDY72]

Umm if they go to using Nextel radios.. you will NOT be able to ever hear them again... Nextel uses an Motorola iDen digital format which can NOT be monitored by ANY scanner manufactured. But I doubt that any Public Safety organization with a clue would use Nextel. Most likely they would jump on the LATIE system once its up and running... Also see other posts in the forums.

 

[INDY72]

Another thing to think about... Since currently they run an M/A-Com EDACS analog system, perhaps they are going to upgrade to an Provoice Digital format for the existing EDACS system....

If so.. again BAD NEWS... No scanner made can monitor Provoice EDAC S....

 

[BlakeN]

Ok another question i have. I am thinking about buying a portable GE/ERICSSON Edacs radio off of Ebay. I have all the parish frequencies ALONG with all the talk group ID's. My question is what software would i have to buy/download to program this radio? Any replies would be greatly appreciated. BTW reason i am asking is because it is going to be late this year before the parish switches to the other system. Oh also i am a law enforcement officer in the parish so it is legal for me to have it. I just wanna buy one for my own personal use to monitor traffic on my off days. I have my scanner but needless to say it only recieves, no transmitting(duh)

 

[INDY72]

I believe its called Programmer. You will also need a slower PC running DOS, RIB, and cable. And then you need system key, system ID, LID, permission from your system's administration, talkgroups,.. and iether someone from your radio shop to do it for ya,.. or know how to do it all yourself. If its anything like the RSS needed for Motorola radio programming, it can't be done on say an XP machine.. the speed is just to fast for proper communication between the radio, and PC....

Maybe one day the geniuses that design radios, will also create a high speed interface that will allow you to use top notch PC's.....

Interesting that you can send huge amounts of data at a fast pace along MDS's,.... but to program the thing you have to go back to slow tech....

ALSO- The software will run you in the range of at least $250.00, possibly more....

 

[N_Jay]

I believe its called Programmer. You will also need a slower PC running DOS, RIB, and cable. And then you need system key, system ID, LID, permission from your system's administration, talkgroups,.. and iether someone from your radio shop to do it for ya,.. or know how to do it all yourself. If its anything like the RSS needed for Motorola radio programming, it can't be done on say an XP machine.. the speed is just to fast for proper communication between the radio, and PC....

Maybe one day the geniuses that design radios, will also create a high speed interface that will allow you to use top notch PC's.....

Interesting that you can send huge amounts of data at a fast pace along MDS's,.... but to program the thing you have to go back to slow tech....

ALSO- The software will run you in the range of at least $250.00, possibly more....

That is not the issue.

The older radios have a minimum of interface circuity for the programming port. As such the timing of the data is very critical. Older programming software relied on the hardware of the serial port (or parallel port) to establish this timing.
As PCs advanced, the serial port become more independent from the PC bus and this timing sync was lost.

This is a similar problem to the old PC game that wrote directly to the screen and would not work when PCs moved to a model where everything must go through the display driver.

 

[MASTRTECH]

Programmer is $2500.00 currently. Included in the package was the RIB. The cable for the radios run about $100 each.

Programmer will run on XP/2000/NT/98. There is not a problem with the com ports on newer machines. This was true with the DOS versions of programmer, but since the platform changed the com port issued has evaporated.

 

[INDY72]

Sweet.