Ongoing Changes: Marion Co. MECA System

[SCPD]

Instead of going with the latest and greatest witch is not so great MECA should have went with a system like Safe T that way fire could be on analog and PD could go Digital Voice the only way Analog works with this new system is they patch it say if Hamilton County uses it the patch takes the analog and puts it through on MECA as Digital and Meca patches the digital back to Analog for Hamilton County. But No MECA had to waist Money on a True Digital System and I know some one will say there is no such thing as True Digital but you know what I mean. You Know no one has said anything about Police they would have the same noise issue when in lets say a chase with sirens going full telt and the roar of the car and if they have the window down you have the air noise fire tested that and it did not sound so great. As I said before they had covrage issues they just should have added those new sites and inbuilding repeaters and they would have been could to go.

 

[kg9qm]

Having just received a bcd396t yesterday, I'm playing catchup. It's hard to tell from this thread's twist and turns whether there is anything BUT test and 'bus' comms on the P25 side at this time. That's all I'm hearing, but would appreciate knowing if that's correct. Some posts mention simulcasts, and I expected to hear much the same as I hear on the old MECA I analog.

I don't have full confidence in what I have programmed being 'everything' - I put in the so-called 101 and 102 sites' frequencies shown in a recent post and that's all I get; obvious testing last night and lots of Metro bus chatter today.

Also, it's not clear to me if the talkgroup text ids have to be entered into the radio by me or if they are extracted from the data recieved. I see them all documented but is that gleaned from the radio or are inputs from people who deduce which numeric ids are what text ids? There's further muddying of this in the Uniden UASD tool which mentions 'recording ids to a csv file'.

thanks in advance.

 

[jerk]

Having just received a bcd396t yesterday, I'm playing catchup. It's hard to tell from this thread's twist and turns whether there is anything BUT test and 'bus' comms on the P25 side at this time. That's all I'm hearing, but would appreciate knowing if that's correct. Some posts mention simulcasts, and I expected to hear much the same as I hear on the old MECA I analog.

Yes this thread can be confusing… The system is slowly being phased in. The important thing to remember is there are two different systems, and they are in the database as two sites. They MUST be programmed separately as two “systems” and as a P25 system.

I don't have full confidence in what I have programmed being 'everything' - I put in the so-called 101 and 102 sites' frequencies shown in a recent post and that's all I get; obvious testing last night and lots of Metro bus chatter today.

See the above, and you may want to check the Uniden site for an article written by Upman about programming the BCD396 and other dynamic memory scanners. It will be very helpful to your understanding.

Also, it's not clear to me if the talkgroup text ids have to be entered into the radio by me or if they are extracted from the data recieved. I see them all documented but is that gleaned from the radio or are inputs from people who deduce which numeric ids are what text ids?

The talk group ID’s are programmed by you, on RR they are generally limited to 12 characters, the BCD396 allow 16, so I change some to my own preferences. And what is in RR as ID’s are “deduced” or supplied by people who have a radio programming template from a radio used on the system. Right now it’s a combination of both.

There's further muddying of this in the Uniden UASD tool which mentions 'recording ids to a csv file'.

CSV, stands for comma separated value, which can be imported into UASD or a spreadsheet. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by recording…

thanks in advance.

Hope this helps

 

[kg9qm]

OK, that helps fill in some gaps. Is there actually ormal IMPD traffic simulcasting on either of those sites right now? I don't hear any. Maybe it does but only part-time at the moment?

I understood the CSV part, but not what was being logged:

In the Uniden program's help it says this:

TGID Logging
Click on ID Logging to work with the ID logging option. ID Logging lets you log talk group ID's you find on a trunked radio system and save them to a file.

To log talk group ID's, start scanning, select the bank or banks you want to log, and then click Start. When the scanner detects activity on a talk group, it logs the talk group's ID number, the bank number, and the trunk type.

Click on Save to save the talk group ID's. The software saves the talk group ID's in a file called BCD396T_IDLOG.csv. Click on Stop to stop logging talk group ID's. Click on Clear to erase logged talk group ID's and continue logging.

... which I'd hoped would grab and save things like "S1-T01" so I didn't have to input them all. At this time I'm not hearing much traffic so haven't used this feature - yet. So I guess that's just going to be the '10012' or '271c' numeric ID.

I'd written a Visual Basic app a few years back that let me program my AOR 8000 & 8200 from an Excel spreadsheet. I was contemplating updating that with this new csv info, but guess I wouldn't be gaining much over what USAD does already.

I must say, Uniden has out-obfuscated AOR this time with their button-pushing combos on the radio. but the menus are nice.

 

[jerk]

OK, that helps fill in some gaps. Is there actually ormal IMPD traffic simulcasting on either of those sites right now? I don't hear any. Maybe it does but only part-time at the moment?

I understood the CSV part, but not what was being logged:

In the Uniden program's help it says this:


... which I'd hoped would grab and save things like "S1-T01" so I didn't have to input them all. At this time I'm not hearing much traffic so haven't used this feature - yet. So I guess that's just going to be the '10012' or '271c' numeric ID.

I'd written a Visual Basic app a few years back that let me program my AOR 8000 & 8200 from an Excel spreadsheet. I was contemplating updating that with this new csv info, but guess I wouldn't be gaining much over what USAD does already.

I must say, Uniden has out-obfuscated AOR this time with their button-pushing combos on the radio. but the menus are nice.

It logs talk groups by ID and alpha if you have those programmed. To reach that, click on online control, then right click on scanner, click on extended, the a new window will pop up, then click on start. I'm not at home but I believe that is how the sequence goes, if not it is really close.

Then it will begin logging, and if you want to save them in a file, click save and it save them as CSV files, which you have to import into UASD

 

[KC9NEG]

WISH-TV Video/Article: MECA P25 System

Found the WISH-TV article and video about the new MECA P25 system:

Video:

http://www.wishtv.com/global/video/...chPageAdTag=News&activePane=info&rnd=93555885

Article:

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?s=8362896

Ouch! Pretty rough stuff for MECA.

Todd/Indy
KC9NEG

 

[chv979]

Last e-mail (Friday at 530pm) from MECA indicated that Motorola and Tiburon were "testing" the CAD interface. Once that was completed a new cut over schedule would be published.

 

[afdscan]

P25 Auto or Manual?

I'm in the process of programming a PSR-500 and I need to know if MECA digital should be programmed as a P25 Auto or Manual? Or is it like SAFE-T and should be programmed Motorola 800/900?

 

[KC9NEG]

P25 Auto.

Todd/Indy
KC9NEG

 

[afdscan]

One more queston

Thanks for the info. I have one more question; On the RR MECA (Analog) page it shows Avon and Plainfield as having switched to SAFE-T... Is the data listed there for the SAFE-T system or is it their old data from MECA's analog system? The reason I ask is because I can't find either one listed under SAFE-T.

Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[delallen]

I am confused about this myself.

In Johnson Co., Whiteland is dispatched through the Sheriff's dept. tg.

I'm guessing this is true in Hendricks Co. for Plainfield and Avon?

 

[FD_1226]

Plainfield & Avon are on Safe-t. http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=933 & look under Hendricks County Talkgroups. All FD's are on one dispatch. The County dispatch is at the Plainfield PD HQ.

 

[delallen]

Plainfield & Avon are on Safe-t. http://www.radioreference.com/apps/db/?sid=933 & look under Hendricks County Talkgroups. All FD's are on one dispatch. The County dispatch is at the Plainfield PD HQ.

Please be patient with me...

I think I understand that Hendricks Co Sheriff, Plainfield PD and Avon PD are all dispatched on one tg (7312)???

So do they assign a tg for a run like the fd's?

 

[W9NES]

All Law Enforcement agencies are dispatched on talkgroup 7312,When Hendricks County has a Fire Run and they need a talk group they will assign a talk group like Ops 1 etc for the run.Understand that you are new to this and you are trying to understand.Please feel free to pm me anytime and I will try to help you out anytime I can."My door is always open" Tim DeLong W9NES Marion County Northwest Side of Indianapolis

 

[FD_1226]

Please be patient with me...

I think I understand that Hendricks Co Sheriff, Plainfield PD and Avon PD are all dispatched on one tg (7312)???

So do they assign a tg for a run like the fd's?

Marion County is the same too. With the exception of the City of Lawrence which does there own thing.

 

[Dispatch2323]

So tomorrow is supposed to be cutover day for Meca...has anyone heard if a new delayed cutover date has been set? June 27th?

 

[kg9qm]

So tomorrow is supposed to be cutover day for Meca...has anyone heard if a new delayed cutover date has been set? June 27th?

Well, I was expecting to hear almost non-stop final testing over the weekend in preparation for a cutover.

Instead, it's been silent since some minimal testing late Friday evening.

Seems like a bad omen to me.

 

[SCPD]

I would not look forward to much being cutover on the 27th

 

[trido]

Unknow 10402,10403 Keyed UP

At 7:20 AM two unkown groups are being KEYED UP with no voice.
10402,10403,

 

[SCPD]

At 7:20 AM two unkown groups are being KEYED UP with no voice.
10402,10403,

Those are Lawrence Township there has been Fire traffic on those about a week ago.