fmulder13
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Is that supposed to happen anytime soon? All of their voice channels, save for one, are in the "no-no" zone.
OKC Site rebanding?
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I have no idea when, but I remember a few weeks ago hearing a number of OHP troopers telling dispatch they were going in to the radio shop so their radios could be reprogrammed "for rebanding".
I guess they'd have to do it kind of like OKC did? Get everyone programmed with two sets of site frequencies, then start switching, then reprogram everyone again with just the new stuff.
I imagine it would take a while to get all in-use radios reprogrammed before they can proceed with the site, especially with all the different municipalities / departments that are on it. (Does everyone on the system go through the same radio shop, or do some municipalities handle their own radio programming?)
I guess they'd have to do it kind of like OKC did? Get everyone programmed with two sets of site frequencies, then start switching, then reprogram everyone again with just the new stuff.
I imagine it would take a while to get all in-use radios reprogrammed before they can proceed with the site, especially with all the different municipalities / departments that are on it. (Does everyone on the system go through the same radio shop, or do some municipalities handle their own radio programming?)
I think the OKWIN rebanding will be quite a bit different than the OKC EDACS rebanding. The motorola/EF johnson radios being used need to have a firmware update applied. So long as the programming includes the new control channels, or a "spectrum search", no further programming on the actual subscriber radios is needed.
On a Motorola smartzone system, the control channel actually tells the radios what frequency to go to, not just what LCN to listen to (like EDACS).
(***technically, the Moto SZ does tell the radios an LCN, but in Moto talk, that translates into a frequency, unlike the EDACS LCN, which the frequency can't be calculated from.***)
Because of this, the radio techs doing the rebanding can just "disable" old channels and "enable" new repeater frequencies as the rebanding goes on.
On a Motorola smartzone system, the control channel actually tells the radios what frequency to go to, not just what LCN to listen to (like EDACS).
(***technically, the Moto SZ does tell the radios an LCN, but in Moto talk, that translates into a frequency, unlike the EDACS LCN, which the frequency can't be calculated from.***)
Because of this, the radio techs doing the rebanding can just "disable" old channels and "enable" new repeater frequencies as the rebanding goes on.
From an admin's perspective does this mean touching every radio twice? The radio has the new profile and the old profile side-by side to make the switch easy for the troops. But can they then lockout or delete that old profile OTA? Or does everyone come in again to have that done?
Maybe I didn't explain enough in the last post...
Any radio purchased after ~2008 should have a "rebandable" firmware installed. Any radio older than that will be the only ones that should need a firmware upgrade.
Next: Depending on how the radio tech have the system set up...they might not even have to set up a new "personality" or system in the radio. There is an option in some radios to do a "spectrum search" over the band to find a new control channel (for the specific SysID). Older radios don't always have that, so may need a new list of channels that are possible control channels. Since the OKC control channel is legal (as far as I know) in the rebanding, little should need to be done.
When the system techs are ready to reband (all the subscriber radios have "rebandable" firmware), all they have to do is log into the system admin control and disable one of the >860 frequencies. Once disabled, the system will not try to send voice calls to that channel. They can replace/reprogram the site equipment (at all five sites) and tune it. Once they are happy with the reprogrammed/new equipment, they can "enable" it, and the system will start sending voice/data calls to the new repeater channel. They can do one or more channels at a time like this. The subscribers would have no idea this is going on (probably). The only downside is that one or more voice channels would be taken off-line, and the system could be busy. Another way around that would be to have separate (or new) equipment at the site, get it all ready, "enable" it, then disable the old equipment.
Basically, the firmware upgrade is the main things that the radio techs should have to perform on the subscriber radios. Other than that, they are like your scanner (in control-channel only mode) and will follow the voice channels where the system tells them to go.
Of course, I'm not a radio tech, but I would like to think I know a lot about how these system work (like other people on this board!).
Me neither, and I try not to play one on the internets. It's certainly a lot more interesting than a VHF analog repeater. I don't know if it's better, but it's certainly interesting.
Thanks for the info.
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