Oakland County M/A-COM OpenSky TRS

[bigbluemsp]

Bug the scanner manufacturers all you want, but there won't be a MA/COM capable scanner. Open Sky is propriatery as opposed to APCO-25 which is an open standard. Uniden, RS, and GRE would all be in court just for thinking about it. My city (Akron, OH) was one of the first in the country to go digital with APCO-16. A propriatery Motorola system. Everyone here was saying to bug the manufacturers, simulcats and all the rest. Didn't happen. When they went to APCO-25 it was again possible to listen to the police and fire. Oakland County, MI will not be monitorable unless MA/COM decides to use an open standard...which they won't. They "sell" the fact no one can monitor. Adios scanning. Adios LLoyd Carr.

Well the Lloyd Carr comment we could do with out. Nice way to sneak a childish comment in there.

Oakland isn't doing this to not be heard they are doing it to butt heads with the State becuase they can and they will. They have been the lone no play nice county govt in the state and they always will.

They have unlimited resources because of the tax base but they won't share with outside counties becuase they are a island or their own concentration cap with in the walls of a run down metropolitian area.

 

[RayAir]

Bug the scanner manufacturers all you want, but there won't be a MA/COM capable scanner. Open Sky is propriatery as opposed to APCO-25 which is an open standard. Uniden, RS, and GRE would all be in court just for thinking about it. My city (Akron, OH) was one of the first in the country to go digital with APCO-16. A propriatery Motorola system. Everyone here was saying to bug the manufacturers, simulcats and all the rest. Didn't happen. When they went to APCO-25 it was again possible to listen to the police and fire. Oakland County, MI will not be monitorable unless MA/COM decides to use an open standard...which they won't. They "sell" the fact no one can monitor. Adios scanning. Adios LLoyd Carr.

Well I can still listen to Southfield PD. Thats the only PD around here with any interesting communications to monitor. I will miss my local PD, but not much happens around here and fire will still be on VHF as they always have been. I am thinking about getting a digital scanner and just listen to MSP up in the Holly/Groveland area when I am bored.

 

[RayAir]

It could be worse, all public safety agencies could be required to use DES or AES per a paranoid government mandate.

 

[Universaldecoder]

Hello Ray,

Your right about Southfield. A lot of interesting things go on there. The MSP is also just as informative, and I think more so if you travel by car/truck quite a bit during your weekly routine.

I've been hearing traffic on the MEPSS (155.865) lately. Maybe it's part of Royal Oak's perparation in their transition over to Opensky.

 

[kd8ati]

Oakland County Open Sky

I think the Open Sky system is one of the biggest mistakes that Oakland County has made in a long time. They claim it will make it easier for interoperability. I find that quite amusing. First off, a majority of the cities in Southeast Oakland County have a freq set aside for just that reason. Don't believe me? lookup I think it is 155.010. You will notice that most of the cities have that freq registered to them in one way or another. To bad they hardly ever used it. I heard Ferndale / Hazel park / and Royal Oak coordinate on it once a long time ago. The same will happen with this system, the reason it is installed will never be used.

Lets not forget that the most populated part of Oakland County is the southeast part. Surrounded by Macomb & Wayne Counties, both on MPSCS. I have heard just Ferndale / Hazel Park alone go into Macomb or Wayne County usually about once a month, mostly chases. If Oakland County had gone MPSCS, maybe they would have that interoperability that is never used they want so badly with the surrounding Counties and Cities to the south and east, AND also have it among them selfs too. Wow, but that would be just to simple for a government to comprehend.

Lets also not forget about all those nice shiny new towers. I forget how many, but I know there are a lot. If those had been put toward MPSCS use then Oakland County would not have to worry much about coverage issues now would it?

Last on my run down is all this nice money that Oakland County likes to spend. The money for all those nice towers, prep units, mobile units, and the labor for having to outfit all the vehicles. Don't forget its not just the police vehicles. It is snow plows, jail transport vehicles, Air1, and all those other municipal vehicles. Thats just the county vehicles. Lets not forget to multiply that by the number of cities / townships switching over. Who is paying that bill? is it the cities or the county.

But Opensky does have its advantages. Different cities can talk to each other!!! Well thats all I can think of for this section right now.

As far as scanners go? I doubt there will be an opensky scanner anytime in the near future. However, if enough cities switch to this system, especially large cities like Las Vegas, I have a feeling a scanner will be made. Better start saving up now though. You think Digital trunking scanners are expensive? Wait until an opensky scanner comes out.

Shannon
______________

Amateur Radio Operator KD8ATI
Oakland County A.R.P.S.C.
Michigan R.A.C.E.S.

 

[rdale]

Shannon - to make it clear - there will never be an OpenSky scanner. Ever. Regardless of any big cities switching.

 

[Skud]

I thought this was funny to read:

Coates suggests individuals and news agencies interested in keeping tabs on police and fire runs contact scanner suppliers.

"Start bugging them now," she said. "If there's enough demand, I'm sure Bearcat or some company will come out with something. I think it will eventually happen when there's a market. This is the same system Pennsylvania uses. New York and Milwaukee also are going to it."


ROFL

 

[toydriver_det]

155.01

I...First off, a majority of the cities in Southeast Oakland County have a freq set aside for just that reason. Don't believe me? lookup I think it is 155.010. You will notice that most of the cities have that freq registered to them in one way or another. To bad they hardly ever used it. I heard Ferndale / Hazel park / and Royal Oak coordinate on it once a long time ago....


Shannon
______________

Amateur Radio Operator KD8ATI
Oakland County A.R.P.S.C.
Michigan R.A.C.E.S.

Shannon,
155.01 is THE dispatch freq for Royal Oak/Madison Heights and is used all day every day.
At one time Hazel Park and Ferndale also used this as their primary dispatch but when traffic starting getting too heavy (in the 1970's) they moved their dispatching to 154.74.

The common freg I think you were talking about is 155.865. It gets used but not a lot.

 

[bigbluemsp]

Shannon,
155.01 is THE dispatch freq for Royal Oak/Madison Heights and is used all day every day.
At one time Hazel Park and Ferndale also used this as their primary dispatch but when traffic starting getting too heavy (in the 1970's) they moved their dispatching to 154.74.

The common freg I think you were talking about is 155.865. It gets used but not a lot.

155.856 is the old M.E.P.S.S.

It's a emergency statewide freq that at one time all Pd's had.

 

[toydriver_det]

155.856 is the old M.E.P.S.S.

It's a emergency statewide freq that at one time all Pd's had.

Yep. With very few exceptions it was supposed to be a mobile freq as all cities had, and still have, INTERCITY at 155.37. Still hear stuff on this once in awhile.

 

[RayAir]

Waterford FD October 5th 2008

Well I took the family to Hess Hathaway Park this weekend and Waterford FD had some vehicles there. I saw new black antennas on the roofs with coils in the middle (800mhz) so I looked inside and to my horror I saw a new radio and a nice new speaker with M/A-Com in white letters scrawled across the front. They still had their VHF radios also, for now? Hopefully Waterford PD take a while to switch. I think fire will still tone-out on VHF-HI even with Open Sky.

 

[RayAir]

Shannon - to make it clear - there will never be an OpenSky scanner. Ever. Regardless of any big cities switching.

No, but if there's a will there's a way. It's not like it is 100% encrypted. To my knowledge Open Sky uses TDMA and up to 4 calls can occur on one channel at the same time. There exists on the open market TDMA service monitors. It may be a little more harder to try to listen to Open Sky, but someone can do.

 

[1960]

where can you buy one of tdma service monitors and cost.

 

[RayAir]

where can you buy one of tdma service monitors and cost.

TDMA service monitors are not a proven way to monitor open sky. Even if you could listen to Open Sky conversations on a frequency you wouldn't get any TGID's. I see one TDMA service monitor right now on Ebay. It will cost you about $2000. http://cgi.ebay.com/HP-8935-Agilent...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14
Someone with access to a TDMA service monitor needs to see if it would work on Open Sky.
Open Sky really sucks for scanner listeners because some of the other digital voice "hacks" (ProVoice), will not work for Open Sky because the radio needs to be connected and authenticated to the system. One things for sure, if someone on our level was to be able to listen on Open Sky it would have to be done with commercial gear like service monitors, maybe even M/A-Com gear. This may be futile, but it needs to be investigated.

 

[Thunderbolt]

I just received word that Madison Heights PD, has made the switchover to the OpenSky TRS. Apparently, they are not happy about their new horrible sounding radios. I wonder if they will go back to their VHF-High band system?

73s

Ron

 

[Thunderbolt]

Oakland County OpenSky Discussion

Please use this thread for all discussions related to Oakland County's OpenSky trunked radio system.

 

[RadioRaull]

I just received word that Madison Heights PD, has made the switchover to the OpenSky TRS. Apparently, they are not happy about their new horrible sounding radios. I wonder if they will go back to their VHF-High band system?

I would be difficult to switch back to a system they never switched off of.

 

[Mark01]

would be difficult to switch back to a system they never switched off of

Yes ,it sounds like MH PD is still on there analog frequencie,however I did hear Milford PD doing some Opensky testing on there UHF frequency last friday.One person was coordinating testing on different talkgroups that were not patched through via there analog channel.

 

[RayAir]

I just received word that Madison Heights PD, has made the switchover to the OpenSky TRS. Apparently, they are not happy about their new horrible sounding radios. I wonder if they will go back to their VHF-High band system?

73s

Ron

I heard them on VHF (155.010) just the other day. They used their radio call of the car number then "Madison".

 

[mikey60]

I heard them on VHF (155.010) just the other day. They used their radio call of the car number then "Madison".

I heard them this morning, so they're still on VHF at the moment (and it doesn't sound like it's patched.)

Mike