Rowan County Update

[KM4WLV]

Hey folks,

I know I have promised to keep everyone up to date on whats going on with our system. Wish I had a lot of good news, but there isn't much right now. Here are some things that are in the process :

1 - A lot of the departments are moving away from the old Bramco decoders & such for activating their sirens (for the stations that still have them). They will still be using the basic 1+1 tones for pager activating, but the sirens will be activated by DTMF tones instead of the current 2+2 format we have now. (For those not familiar with 1+1 and the 2+2 formats I can get into detail if you'll let me know). A timetable hasn't been laid out as of yet. This is still in the infant stages right now and the only department I know of that is testing this right now is Gold Hill (Station 46).

2 - All of the XTS2500 radios that were purchased by Sprint for our system rebanding have been issued out to the departments they were bought for. We are still waiting to get our MTS & MCS2000's reprogrammed to match the new fleetmaps in the 2500's. We have lots of new OPS TG's that the county wants to impliment, but they are way behind on programming of the older radios. This was supposed to be done by December 31, 2009 and we aren't quite sure what the hold up is. We do know that the programming files for the MTS & MCS radios are complete & the radios just need to be zapped.

3 - There will be more digital TG's coming online on our system though I'm not at liberty to say to which departments, and what their use will be. Our XTS radios will be reprogrammed eventually for some of these new TG's and when they are it is rumored that certain radios will have capability to access the VIPER site on Faith Mtn here is Rowan County. Again that is only a rumor at this point & when I can confirm it I'll let everyone know.

4 - Just wanted to touch on this again. I know in the last thread about Rowan people were curious as to what the "noises" heard on certain TG's were. This in fact SCADA for the Water/Sewer system. Soem thought it was MOSCAD, however MOSSCAD has not been used in Rowan County for years. The only agency that used MOSCAD was Salisbury Fire & that was for Rowan 911 to be able to open the bay doors & turn lights on & off at their stations. The only way for you guys not to hear the SCADA stuff on your scanners is to just lock out the TG's. Refer to the earlier thread for the ID's.

Wish I had more to give at this point but I just wanted to update everyone of what is to come. I am sure you noticed that it seems to take things forever to happen around here. I don't stress on it to much because it seems to be the norm in this county. If they got stuff done on time it would be scary, LOL. I'm sure Shannon will chime in on that.

More to come..............

 

[yardbird]

Daniel

Please check your Pm's

David

 

[KE4ZNR]

As always thank you for your input and info Daniel!
Happy Monitoring
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[CFP387]

I'm sure Shannon will chime in...

You're right, and he's about to just that!

I know I have promised to keep everyone up to date on whats going on with our system. Wish I had a lot of good news, but there isn't much right now.

I appreciate your checking in and reporting on some of the things going down. I was aware that they've blew by the "deadline" that they had implemented for the rebanding project. That's usually how it is: set a deadline and then never intend on keeping it. I'm afraid there's not going to be much good news anymore.

A lot of the departments are moving away from the old Bramco decoders & such for activating their sirens... They will still be using the basic 1+1 tones for pager activating, but the sirens will be activated by DTMF tones instead of the current 2+2 format we have now. A timetable hasn't been laid out as of yet. This is still in the infant stages right now and the only department I know of that is testing this right now is Gold Hill (Station 46).

As I had reported in the other thread, the old Bramco technology is finally biting the dust. I hate to see it go, personally, because I enjoy hearing those Motorola Quick Call tones. I still say that they didn't dig deep enough to find another source for decoding. In my opinion, I'd rather have the 2+2 than DTMF for siren activation. It doesn't surprise me that there's been no timetable laid out yet. Think about it; why should they even set a deadline they never intend on keeping. I have a feeling that this is going to be a much bigger project than it appears to be on the surface. They are still testing with Gold Hill (46), and now have started testing with South Salisbury (74). Gold Hill's DTMF tone has 5 digits while South Salisbury's has 4 digits.

All of the XTS2500 radios that were purchased by Sprint for our system rebanding have been issued out to the departments they were bought for. We are still waiting to get our MTS & MCS2000's reprogrammed to match the new fleetmaps in the 2500's. We have lots of new OPS TG's that the county wants to impliment, but they are way behind on programming of the older radios. This was supposed to be done by December 31, 2009 and we aren't quite sure what the hold up is. We do know that the programming files for the MTS & MCS radios are complete & the radios just need to be zapped.

The XTX2500 is a pretty slick radio and it has a lot more features than the older MTS models but they are still good units too. It will take a while to get all the fleetmaps in all the radios the same and I understand that issue. What I think is taking more time and holding things up is simple: politics. The officers in each department will probably have access to talkgroups that the other personnel will not. They are more than likely trying to figure out who gets liberties to what talkgroup and so forth. It's just a guess, but knowing this county's track record, it's not a far-fecthed notion to say the least. Don't be surprised.

There will be more digital TG's coming online on our system though I'm not at liberty to say to which departments, and what their use will be. Our XTS radios will be reprogrammed eventually for some of these new TG's and when they are it is rumored that certain radios will have capability to access the VIPER site on Faith Mtn here is Rowan County. Again that is only a rumor at this point & when I can confirm it I'll let everyone know.

I didn't need to look for the writing on the wall to see this one coming. Why are they adding more digital talkgroups instead of just switching the entire system over the digital and being done with it? Why are they dragging their feet and taking their time toying with an idea anyone with any sense at all knows is what they want anyway? Our system will soon be half digital and half analog. Why not go ahead and switch while the radios are waiting to be flashed?

Of course only certain radios will have access to the VIPER system. That's not a real surprise. And why in the world is it such a secret? We all have digital scanners anyway, so it doesn't matter to us board members what fireman has access to what talkgroup and who can talk to who. When this is all said and done, all we'll need is an entire county fleepmap of TG codes and users and we'll leave them alone. And just to make it clear, it doesn't matter how many fireground or OPS channels you have, you still have to have sense enough to use them and to use them properly. All the emergency preparedness training in the world can never fully prepare you for the real thing.

Just wanted to touch on this again. I know in the last thread about Rowan people were curious as to what the "noises" heard on certain TG's were. This in fact SCADA for the Water/Sewer system. Soem thought it was MOSCAD, however MOSSCAD has not been used in Rowan County for years. The only agency that used MOSCAD was Salisbury Fire & that was for Rowan 911 to be able to open the bay doors & turn lights on & off at their stations. The only way for you guys not to hear the SCADA stuff on your scanners is to just lock out the TG's. Refer to the earlier thread for the ID's.

I remember seeing the old MOSCAD computer sitting at the former 911 center. I always wondered that if it was so important for Rowan to be able to control the doors and lights then, why isn't that the case today? You can hear SCADA data bursts on the Rowan TRS on TG's like 6416 and 6448.

 

[yardbird]

Rowan Counties Telecommunications Director done the same thing in Stanly County as well.

All Stanly County sirens are activated by DTMF as well.

The biggest question here is, WHY? If something that has worked for years and is still working great then why waste valuable money. If it is not broke then don't try and fix it.

I guess it is not for me to understand.

David

 

[CFP387]

Just after he was hired, I had heard about some of the things he had done down in Stanly County and I wasn't all that impressed. You must remember too that to any government entity, time, money, and just plain common sense doesn't really matter. They're not concerned on how well something is working nor are they concerened about the cost. If it's something they want to do, they're just going to go ahead and do it.

 

[KM4WLV]

Thats the way it has always been in this county, and I'm sure it will continue. Found out last night that they will be at our station Friday morning to reprogram our MTS & MCS radios, and they are also activating the "Caller ID" function on the XTS's.

Why they are doing that is beyond me...... I could care less to see the radio ID of the person that is talking on a paticular TG.

And I forgot about South Salisbury testing out the DTMF stuff. I heard them on Sunday night during all the bad weather. I've got to agree with Yardbird on this stuff though........ If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Kinda like putting a square wheel on a car....... Then again, this is Rowan County Gov't we're talking about, lol.

 

[yardbird]

The New XTS-5000 Model II 800 Mhz portables that are being bought for the Federally funded Highway Patrol Motor Carries are programmed the same way.

They display the Troopers Id and then dispalys the Id number of the radio transmitting.

SHP carries a mix of XTS-5000 and XTS-3000 Portables and XTL-5000 Mobiles. However most of the Mobiles were bought with Federal money for the Federally funded Troopers.

I don't understand the reason with it. It might have to do with something with people abusing the radio and playing around.

Daniel, you probably remember the time that an Ems radio was stolen or somebody got of 155.715 and started to use profane language and disrupting dispatch.

I would like to find the person that was causing all the trouble, because I would like to go after him/her myself.

That is probably one reason for the Id's being transmitted to see who keeps playing with the radios.

I will tell you this Rowan has one of the best coordinated systems I have seen so far.

What I mean is that all radios are programmed the same. There is none of this well if you are not associated with a particular agency then you are not allowed to have there talkgroups.

Just my thoughts

David

 

[KE4ZNR]

The New XTS-5000 Model II 800 Mhz portables that are being bought for the Federally funded Highway Patrol Motor Carries are programmed the same way.

They display the Troopers Id and then dispalys the Id number of the radio transmitting.

Yep. Its a option that Moto calls "Enhanced Digital ID Display" that can be flashed into the XTS. In its simplest terms it is an Alphatag for a RID. And yes, the main reason to have it is to prevent system abuse or the always annoying "someone sitting on their mic".
Funny story: here in Wake Co, back when they were on UHF many moons ago Raleigh PD used to have an issue with "Officers Clicking the radio".
Example: Officer starts to get in vehicle pursuit. Supervisor on duty radios the officer to quit the pursuit. Then many repeater "Clicks" or kerchunks would take place to let the Supervisor know that the rank & file were not happy that the pursuit got canceled. The line officers way of "anonymously" "voicing" their displeasure.
Of course now with ID/RID Display that no longer happens. You know exactly who is keyed up.
Marshall KE4ZNR

 

[CFP387]

Daniel, you probably remember the time that an Ems radio was stolen or somebody got of 155.715 and started to use profane language and disrupting dispatch...I would like to find the person that was causing all the trouble, because I would like to go after him/her myself.

David, I heard the guy several times on fire dispatch in the early hours of the mornings but never heard him on EMS dispatch, although that's not to say he didn't tx on that frequency.

 

[KM4WLV]

Update

Well city radio service came by the FD this morning & flashed all our MTS & MCS radios with the new fleetmap & firmware. They even have these nifty little stickers from Motorola with the FlashPort "symbol" that they put behind the battery that says " I've been Flashed".

David, in response to what you said about our system being well coordinated. We are fortunate here in Rowan to have all the TG's we have in our radios. The big thing is here is if you need to talk to someone they just want you to switch over, instead of having to bother communications with relaying. And if someone starts abusing the privledge they will just inhibit the radio & notify the department head that the radio belongs to.

AND.......... I was informed by the powers to be this morning that the Rowan/Salisbury system will be ALL digital by 2013. The only thing you will hear in the clear (analog) will be County Fire & EMS Dispatch, and thats just because of paging on VHF. I did ask about the current MTS & MCS radios being replaced & was informed that the cost would not fall on the individual departments but that it would fall on the city & the county because it was a "system upgrade". We'll see when the time comes I guess.....

Thats all I have for now. If anyone wants a copy of the new fleetmaps for the XTS & MTS/MCS radios on the Rowan system let me know & I'll get one for you.

Thanks guys !!!!!

 

[CFP387]

AND.......... I was informed by the powers to be this morning that the Rowan/Salisbury system will be ALL digital by 2013.

Of course, I knew it would be a matter of time before we went entirely digital. No surprise there. Just like I had said originally: what's the big secret about who gets what digital trunk capability becuase they want the whole system to be digital anyway.

Thats all I have for now. If anyone wants a copy of the new fleetmaps for the XTS & MTS/MCS radios on the Rowan system let me know & I'll get one for you.

I appreciate all your information and new news, Daniel. Kindly send me a copy of the new fleetmap if you would. Either fax it to me (I think you still have the number from last time) or PM it to me. I greatly appreciate it!

 

[KM4WLV]

Hey Shannon,

If you want me to fax it I can, or I can just bring it by your office sometime this week. Just let me know. Talk to ya soon !!

 

[CFP387]

If you want me to fax it I can, or I can just bring it by your office sometime this week. Just let me know. Talk to ya soon !!

Whatever suits you best. Check you PM for a Nextel direct number.