Newbie questions about Oakland County Smartnet vs CLEMIS Open Sky

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rdale

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Five radios scanning far-flung talk-groups from a site that does not normally have any of that traffic will tie up 5 channels at one site.

We're only talking one county... What "far flung" talkgroups on the Oakland County system would not normally be carried throughout Oakland County?
 

RayAir

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That's a horrible feature not being able to scan another TG without using system resources. Scanning another TG should not have any affect on the system. When I worked in EMS years ago, I used to listen to city fire and PD on the scanner. We used to also have the scan feature on our Motorola radios which we used quite often. It came in handy and provided a "heads-up".
 
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mikey60

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We're only talking one county... What "far flung" talkgroups on the Oakland County system would not normally be carried throughout Oakland County?

There are 36 tower sites on this system, many with only 8 talkpaths (2 freq, 4 slots each). Each tower site has it's own set of frequencies. Departments in the north end of the county would rarely be heard in the south end, and vice-versa. It's kind of like a mini MPSCS with the way the towers only carry the traffic that is needed at that site.

Apparently with OpenSky radios, when in scan mode, would cause all of the scanned talkgroups to be on the site the radio is affiliated with, and with the number of departments in Oakland county, would fill up those talkpaths pretty quickly.

Mike
 

rdale

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Thanks - I wasn't aware of that. Sounds like the type of system you'd never want to use for public safety purposes.
 

pjbracing

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rdale said:
Thanks - I wasn't aware of that. Sounds like the type of system you'd never want to use for public safety purposes.

With Sheriff Bouchard running for state govenor how does he justify his inc
ompatible county system with the state system?
 

pjbracing

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rdale said:
Thanks - I wasn't aware of that. Sounds like the type of system you'd never want to use for public safety purposes.

With Sheriff Bouchard running for state govenor how does he justify his inc
ompatible county system with the state system?
 

rdale

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Are you sure it can't connect to MPSCS? I thought they had mutual aid talkgroups on it?
 

pjbracing

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I think they can patch some limited talk groups but. . . Not as easy as being on the same system
 
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N_Jay

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We're only talking one county... What "far flung" talkgroups on the Oakland County system would not normally be carried throughout Oakland County?

Your post was about MPSCS.

However, there is still no assurance that the news station will not be using significant resources from its local site.
 
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N_Jay

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That's a horrible feature not being able to scan another TG without using system resources. Scanning another TG should not have any affect on the system. When I worked in EMS years ago, I used to listen to city fire and PD on the scanner. We used to also have the scan feature on our Motorola radios which we used quite often. It came in handy and provided a "heads-up".

All multi-site "steered" or cell-like systems have this issue.

Sorry, wishing for county-wide or state-wide simulcast just to make it easy to scan is a step backwards.
 
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rdale

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Your post was about MPSCS.

Sorry you got confused - my reply was about the media getting an OpenSky radio for scanning purposes. I used the fact that with a lot of perseverance, we were able to get an MPSCS radio for a media outlet in the past, but it was all at our expense.

Of course you can't request non-carried channels. I can't get a MPSCS radio in Lansing, and ask for all of Livingston County's talkgroups. But if I'm in Livingston Co, and the talkgroups are already being carried on the tower I'm listening to, then they can't prevent it.

My guess is (once again, a guess) that if the media REALLY wanted access to some of the talkgroups, they could get it. I don't know how Oakland Co works, but I'd guess that the sheriff's dispatch is on all towers. Same with county fire. Those would not be big drains on the system if a media outlet wanted in too. But my guess is that the media doesn't care enough to bother.
 

rdale

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It's obvious for anyone involved in public safety. If you can't even listen to your neighbor because it's too much drain on the system, then that system isn't a good idea. All of our sheriff cars have a fire radio that gets all FD's in the county. They can also listen to the cities that have their own PD, whether they are in the city or 3 miles away. Apparently you can't do that with OpenSky, and that's not a good thing.
 
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N_Jay

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Sorry you got confused - my reply was about the media getting an OpenSky radio for scanning purposes. I used the fact that with a lot of perseverance, we were able to get an MPSCS radio for a media outlet in the past, but it was all at our expense.

Of course you can't request non-carried channels. I can't get a MPSCS radio in Lansing, and ask for all of Livingston County's talkgroups. But if I'm in Livingston Co, and the talkgroups are already being carried on the tower I'm listening to, then they can't prevent it.

My guess is (once again, a guess) that if the media REALLY wanted access to some of the talkgroups, they could get it. I don't know how Oakland Co works, but I'd guess that the sheriff's dispatch is on all towers. Same with county fire. Those would not be big drains on the system if a media outlet wanted in too. But my guess is that the media doesn't care enough to bother.

One of the nice things about the OpenSky architecture is you can relatively easily get aces to audio streams from the infrastructure.

Of course it is still up the department to provide such access, but the Network First core makes it a little easier then some of the legacy trunking core networks.
 
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N_Jay

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It's obvious for anyone involved in public safety. If you can't even listen to your neighbor because it's too much drain on the system, then that system isn't a good idea. All of our sheriff cars have a fire radio that gets all FD's in the county. They can also listen to the cities that have their own PD, whether they are in the city or 3 miles away. Apparently you can't do that with OpenSky, and that's not a good thing.

I guess all the agencies that don't rely on open monitoring are just not "real public safety" agencies? :roll:
 

rdale

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I guess all the agencies that don't rely on open monitoring are just not "real public safety" agencies?

Not "real" public safety agencies? I'm not sure what you are saying.

Not "smart" public safety agencies? Yes.
 

mkoronka

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I guess I can count my lucky stars living up here in Northern Michigan we don't have that OpenSky issue to deal with. Crisp clear audio with the occasional talk group that is not in the clear on the MPSCS system. Life is good!
 

radioron231

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Just to clerify a couple things about scanning. When Opensky was originally developed it did not scan. Oakland County told Macom that they needed a system that does scan, so they wrote new software and the system has scanning, has now for over 3 years. Each dept decides what talk groups they want their people to be able to scan. All radios can contact any agency in Oakland County. All radios can talk to the state police. Very soon all the radios will be able to listen/talk to Detroit pd/fd, Redford pd/fd, Livonia pd/fd, Warren, Sterling Heights pd/fd, Shelby Twp pd/fd, Utica pd/fd and Macomb County Sheriff.

As an extra note, the Opensky radio can be programmed to work directly on the MPSCS but MPSCS can not be programmed to work on Opensky.
 

rdale

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Thanks Ron - guess we're back to the original point ;)
 
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N_Jay

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Not "real" public safety agencies? I'm not sure what you are saying.

Not "smart" public safety agencies? Yes.

Well, you had better call APCO and get a speaker slot for the Houston conference, because there are lots of agencies that need your wisdom.
 
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