OPP Zone 3 Main Talkgroups Down

[SCPD]

I have a question I am curious about to see if anyone on here might know the answer to.

Here in Zone 3, all of the OPP main Talkgroups (3OPS25, 24, 22, etc) all went down early this morning and they all have been on the TAC Talkgroups all day and still are right at this moment and looks like still for all night. Even the Ambulance switched over to there old VHF Channel and the MTO Maintenance was on there DISPATCH talkgroup instead of their main talkgroup.

So I am just wondering if anyone on here knows what happend as to why the OPP main Talkgroups are still down. Was it because of the lightning storm last night and did it hit or do damanage to something right in North Bay at the Comm Centre or somewhere else to cause the Main Talkgroups to go down and still be down at this moment.

Because a friend of mine told me that around 6:00 AM this morn he heard a OPP officer say the main Talkgroups are down due to a fire in North Bay but after watching the news I never heard of anything about a fire in North Bay or anything like that.

So I am just curious to see what happened as to why the main OPP Talkgroups are still down.

So I will be waiting for any replies from anyone on here to this post.

Thanks

Coolguy

 

[uncleblackie]

I never heard anything about a fire on the news either but yeah tac02 appears to be in use by North Bay (3ops20) and tac03 appears to be Sudbury (ops21).

Even if there was a fire or a lightning strike somewhere it would still make no sense. Either the system works or it doesn't, not just individual tg's unless the tg in question was affiliated with only one tower that got hit which is not the case here.

If there was a problem with the system they would simply revert back to prolly sim11.

Why they are on the tac though makes no sense either. I know the tacs are zone wide affiliations so that may be the reason, but if their regular ops tg wasn't available for some reason you would think they would just use one of the wide area tg's and not the tac.

The only other thing I can think of is maybe there was a fire or a lightning strike at the comm centre that caused damage to some of the consoles and instead of trying to patch together a bunch of talk groups they just decided to put everyone on a tac?

I just heard the dispatcher say when one of the units logged on that they did not have the capability to see status, and no banner display on their end either so maybe there was a fire or lightning. Still don't understand why they are tying up the tacs though?

Testing has started now on 3ops20 so we shall see.

Haven't heard anything from the techs about it yet either.

 

[EJB]

IIRC every spring in Zone 1 there is testing done and we get all the talkgroups for a certain area dispatched on certain Tac channels. Maybe this is one of the same?

 

[bglatour001]

I've seen a few BMR vehicles in the New Liskeard area. Maybe this problem is more wide spread than just the comm centre.

 

[EJB]

I've seen a few BMR vehicles in the New Liskeard area. Maybe this problem is more wide spread than just the comm centre.

Maybe the comm centre needs to be updated, maybe there needs to be correctioms, maybe it is a winter issue because in as long as I can remember for a few evenings Orillia and London ask OPP units to switch off their talkgroups and go to SIM 11 or a tac talkgroup and MOH units sometimes are asked to go Prov Common.

Last yr Norfolk, Haldimand-Ist Nations, Oxford, Wellington were patched while that nite or the next day P.Credit, Downsview,Cambridge, Whitby, Aurora, all were on one.

 

[rc1990]

It's now been 2 days that they have switch,

 

[davidmc36]

It's now been 2 days that they have switch,

They switched on and off here in Zone 2 for two days last week. Just some upgrade/maintenance stuff I figured since the Tech TG's were lit up a bit the day or two before.

 

[SCPD]

Well it's been 2 days here now since the OPP has been on 3TAC04 and the MTO Maintenance are still on the DISPATCH Talkgroup but they did switch back to the main talkgroups this morning for a little bit but then switched back again to the DISPATCH Talkgroup and stayed on there and so they can do their road reports since dispatch still can't do patches yet with the main talkgroups. And today our ambulances along with the other ones are on the main talkgroup that is used here which is ( SSM ALGOMA E ) and our crew had a call and when they were going to do a report to the hospital they usually switch over to TAC 2 but when they did Sault Dispatch paged them to tell them to go back to SSM ALGOMA E since dispatch doesn't have access to that talkgroup yet while the system is still not back to normal yet. And it was either our crew or another ambulance crew asked when they will be back to normal and dispatch said they have no idea yet when they will have normal FLEETNET talkgroups and capability (like to do patches and all that and access to the TAC Talkgroups) back.

So it looks like for everyone in ZONE 3 here, what ever the problem is everything will be staying the way it is now (like on the TAC Talkgroups for OPP) for the time being until they get the problem fixed with the system after that storm the other night.

So if anyone might of heard by now what the problem is as to why the system is the way it is now in ZONE 3, let me and everyone else know.

Thanks

 

[Northerner71]

I heard today that zone 4 will be down for maintenance starting tomorrow and that MTO will be on Dispatch and police on their tac channels. MTO was very upset because of all the highway flooding we are having and they need their crews to be able to report in. I will let you know tomorrow what happens.

 

[bglatour001]

Just heard that zone 3 will be down for 2 hours starting at 8pm tonight.

 

[uncleblackie]

Well as of now they are still on the tacs with testing going on on the reg 3ops20 TG and they just announced that bell was taking the entire system offline including the tacs for about a half hour somewhere between 2000 and 2100.

I'm beginning to think more and more that it's a maintenance or upgrade issue rather than a problem.

If I listen to the South River tower (zone 2), all comms are normal and on their regular 2ops48.
They are also dispatched by North Bay so it must be maintenance as opposed to a problem with the comm centre and they are doing it zone by zone.

 

[uncleblackie]

The one bonus is that while on the tacs, being a zone wide talkgroup, we are getting to hear traffic that might normally be out of our listening range, so enjoy it while you can!

 

[VE3JSO]

any idea when zone 1 would be down?

 

[martyjess]

That's true. I hear OPP I never heard before, it's nice for a change.

 

[Jay911]

Can someone explain to me how a set of "talkgroups" goes down, since it's just a software function in a radio and a controller? I know that TGs can be configured to work in only analog or only digital or mixed modes, and can be slaved to only function on certain tower sites, etc., but I've never heard of a situation where a "set" of talkgroups could fail or be taken offline. To me that's kind of like saying CTCSS 146.2 is "down".

 

[EJB]

Can someone explain to me how a set of "talkgroups" goes down, since it's just a software function in a radio and a controller? I know that TGs can be configured to work in only analog or only digital or mixed modes, and can be slaved to only function on certain tower sites, etc., but I've never heard of a situation where a "set" of talkgroups could fail or be taken offline. To me that's kind of like saying CTCSS 146.2 is "down".

Its more along the lines of a figure of speech than saying that a talkgroup can go down no?

Maybe the consoles need to be replaced or worked on and while these are going on the dispatchers have to use different radio equipment?

 

[Northerner71]

Up here in Zone 4 Fleetnet went down for a few hours. Mto was still using their fleetnet but on Dispatch only and only in emergencies. OPP were not on fleetnet but were using their SIM11 channel and the CO were out of luck. Never did hear the EMT's.

 

[uncleblackie]

Well here's my uneducated guess and I agree with EJB.
I don't think it's a case of the talkgroup actually going down, as I said earlier the system either works or it doesn't, but I think what may be happening here is software and/or console upgrades which probably meant that some consoles in the comm centre would be out of service.

So since there would be fewer consoles handling the same traffic load, and the software to do TG patches would probably be offline as well, that would explain why they put everybody on the tacs as the tac tg's already have zone wide tower affiliations with no manual patching through the console needed.

There is also constant testing going on on the regular ops channels, too much testing in fact to be a problem isloated to a single radio unit or console, so the regular ops tg was never down, they would just be testing each console as they are upgrading it.

 

[uncleblackie]

Well I guess my uneducated guess was wrong. Apparently there was a lightning strike at the North Bay comm centre. Smith Falls comm centre is now covering 2ops48 instead of North Bay.

A unit coming through Burks Falls that had just switched over to 2ops48 from the Bracebridge TG was suprised to hear Smith Falls instead of North Bay.

When the officer asked if they were covering 2ops48 now the dispatcher replied replied yes for the time being due to a lightning strike in North Bay.

So there's the end of the speculation, and as I type this they are in the process of switching back over to their reg tg's.

 

[mikewazowski]

It's a case of the consoles or the links to the consoles being down.

The Comm Centre operates on the fixed mobile bases so they lose the ability to patch and see status messages.

They have to switch to the TAC channels since they're available in the vicinity of the Comm Centre and the units in the field.