Severe Inconsistency with TRBO Capacity Plus

[mmckenna]

We have about 100 GPS subscribers all sending packets once every 60 seconds. Now that I say it out loud, that is most certainly one of our problems.

There ya' go. I don't have a DMR system, but my NexEdge system is similar. It'll clog up if you have too many radios running GPS location. Question would be, how many users really need to beacon out GPS? I get the ski patrol and maintenance workers, but would someone taking tickets or running concessions really need GPS location data?

That's the conclusion that I've come to. Wish our vendor thought of that before setting up our system- because now I have to go around and reprogram all 220 units before winter. Thank god for OTAP (which I had to set up of course, our vendor didn't think of that, either)

Ah, yes, OTAP, saved me a time or two.

 

[Firebuff880]

Its almost never an OOR bonk, rather a bonk that occurs when the subscriber cannot reach the repeater after a couple of tries. Now looking back at the logs, I can see that we have a load of collisions happening because of ARS and GPS data. I'm starting to think that not having a data revert channel is screwing up our ability to talk in.

Couple of questions with regards your GPS -

Are you Persistent or are you constantly refreshing every time the subscriber sends an ARS.
What Frequency and Window Sizing are you using.
How many subscribers do you have on the system verses how many slots ?
If you are "current" enough in Firmware consider moving some of your GPS to In band on PTT verses Periodic.
Depending on the scope of the system and if you have Radio Management deployed, moving a Repeater to Data Revert as a trial should take minimal effort. Remember though Data from the Site to Subscribers is ALWAYS on the Voice Slots, only Subscriber to Host utilizes the Revert channels based on configurations. Also, don't do GPS Data with out Wireline (MNIS) support regardless of your Data Revert status.

 

[sjaltavilla]

If the system is not too active, turn two of the repeaters off and test. If everything works great, try the same with the other repeaters, one at a time. It may take a while if the interference is occasional. You may find one repeater is giving you the OOR. Leave that one off for a day or two and let the system operate with the other two. If it works fine, you found the repeater being interfered with. Your new antenna MAY help attenuate that. If not, a little testing with a couple HT's can help you determine what RSSI level you should program into the repeater.

Someone mentioned using a 0db gain antenna. This could also be contributing by receiving the distant signals. I have an amateur repeater with a 10db station master. It will not cover areas of the town it is in but it covers 20 miles away great. Not the ideal situation. I've been setting up TRBO systems for 13 years and this should not be too hard to troubleshoot for an experienced tech. This is really not a difficult or uncommon issue with TRBO systems.

We have one frequency which may be affected by another user south of Albany, NY. As such, I will give this a try to see if there is any interference. Maybe our antenna is too sensitive to weak signals due to it's location at the summit of the mountain.

 

[sjaltavilla]

how many users really need to beacon out GPS? I get the ski patrol and maintenance workers, but would someone taking tickets or running concessions really need GPS location data?

Nope, which is why those folks you described in your latter example do not have GPS-capable radios. Only people with GPS are ski patrol, lift maintenance, snowmaking, grooming, and admin/management. Everyone else has an XPR3550e.

 

[sjaltavilla]

Are you Persistent or are you constantly refreshing every time the subscriber sends an ARS.

Not sure what you mean by this. Subscribers only send ARS data on power-up and power-down.

What Frequency and Window Sizing are you using.

60 second interval for GPS, with a window size of 8.

How many subscribers do you have on the system verses how many slots ?

About 220 subscribers, with 6 slots total.

Depending on the scope of the system and if you have Radio Management deployed, moving a Repeater to Data Revert as a trial should take minimal effort. Remember though Data from the Site to Subscribers is ALWAYS on the Voice Slots, only Subscriber to Host utilizes the Revert channels based on configurations. Also, don't do GPS Data with out Wireline (MNIS) support regardless of your Data Revert status.

Good to know. I am going to run a trial this weekend and move our tertiary repeater to Data Revert with Enhanced GPS. MNIS is already set up and working fine which shouldn't be an issue.

 

[Firebuff880]

That's the conclusion that I've come to. Wish our vendor thought of that before setting up our system- because now I have to go around and reprogram all 220 units before winter. Thank god for OTAP (which I had to set up of course, our vendor didn't think of that, either)

If you hardware is new enough, and it sounds like it is. Setup an Access Point in the Ski Patrol Office, near your charger bank and a few other places so that you can WiFi program these. As busy as the system may be OTAP will be slow and tedious.

 

[KevinC]

A 60 second cadence is a lot of data going on. I don’t know if Cap+ offers this or not, but location on PTT and maybe a 5 minute cadence may work out better.

 

[Firebuff880]

A 60 second cadence is a lot of data going on. I don’t know if Cap+ offers this or not, but location on PTT and maybe a 5 minute cadence may work out better.

Yes, it does with the Firmware Version M2021.02.n and above.

 

[sjaltavilla]

If you hardware is new enough, and it sounds like it is. Setup an Access Point in the Ski Patrol Office, near your charger bank and a few other places so that you can WiFi program these. As busy as the system may be OTAP will be slow and tedious.

I would love to do this - but we were cheap and of course our radios are not WiFi enabled...

Believe me - knowing what I know now, I would have done this whole system differently from the get-go. We keep encountering problems left and right because nothing was set up correctly in the first place.

 

[Firebuff880]

You should double check, but I think you can simply add the EID and they will be WiFi enabled -- Maybe due to all the issues you have your dealer will discount the part -- But you can save many, many man hours (AKA $$s) by getting WiFi enabled -

Part Number:	HKVN4381A
Description:	NA MOTOTRBO WIFI

 

[N5XPM]

I would love to do this - but we were cheap and of course our radios are not WiFi enabled...

Believe me - knowing what I know now, I would have done this whole system differently from the get-go. We keep encountering problems left and right because nothing was set up correctly in the first place.

It is hard to design the system after the components have arrived, but you have provided lots of relevant information so the RR folks can help out and seem to be pulling it off well.

 

[wa8pyr]

We keep encountering problems left and right because nothing was set up correctly in the first place.

The joys of dealing with Bearcom.....

 

[12dbsinad]

My advise would be first PM the system before touching anything with proper equipment. Has anyone done a desense check? Is the combiner operating properly? There could be something stupid going on like a bad connector/cable, or what I should say is one that's not installed properly. I've seen it happen many times. You'll need the right equipment to do this but it'll keep you from chasing ghosts, throwing money/parts at it and will give you a baseline. I'm sorry you're dealing with Bearcom, sometimes they can be "plug-n-play" guys and that's it. I always suggest dealing with a more local good reputable shop.

 

[Firebuff880]

Not sure what you mean by this. Subscribers only send ARS data on power-up and power-down.

No, depending on a number of factors ARS transactions are sent at other times as well, but on Capacity Plus Single site you are mostly correct. For example the Sign On / Sign Off feature uses ARS transport. An depending on your software you may be sending an LRRP instruction every time the radio sends an ARS or you may be Persistent which means it sends the instructions, knows it sent them, and does not send them again unless asked to. If you set Persistent Save and Persistent Delete you will need to resend the instructions after any write. BUT I DO NOT KNOW YOUR SOFTWARE so not sure how they have this implemented.

60 second interval for GPS, with a window size of 8.

A windows Size of 8 is very large set up the Data Revert and the Subscribers to use a size of 6 if you can, you should get everything you need and then some.

About 220 subscribers, with 6 slots total.

I am just finishing a similar size system with six voice and two Data Reverts. Ski Patrol and some other key people are on scheduled to be 30 Seconds and on PTT. (On PTT uses a Window Size of 1) While some others are 480 Seconds and on PTT or just on PTT. Snow Cats with Mobiles and Snow Makers with portables at night are at 7.5 seconds with Enhanced CSBSK LRRP (Window Size of 2). We will adjust on the fly as the system comes up but it's based on another system with eight voice and four data repeaters for some 750 subscribers and similar reporting settings.

Good to know. I am going to run a trial this weekend and move our tertiary repeater to Data Revert with Enhanced GPS. MNIS is already set up and working fine which shouldn't be an issue.

You need to set the Repeater UP and then the Subscribers as well. But use RM so you have a Configuration to Apply and then can easily back off to your original configurations if / when needed.

Also in the repeaters check the timers are set properly - SIT, Group Call, Private Call & Emergency Hang Times. Note the SIT timer should be one second higher than the highest call hang time.

Also check the - RSSI Threshold settings which governs how (if) interference is detected on the TX and when it is it will inhibit the transmitter.

 

[jjimenez01]

We just deployed a Trbo system with 300 subscribers with ARS set to system change only. We had a ton of users complaining about getting "bonked" although they were well within RF range of the repeaters. Long story short we disabled ARS on all the subscribers and every single complaint went away. From the Motorola system planner it mentions, if there is not a device/PC to acknowledge all the ARS transmissions, subscribers will continuously resend their ARS causing a data storm. Just a thought. Good luck!

 

[jeepsandradios]

Yup - and we only went with them because they bought out our old vendor, Wells Communications.

I would give Pittsfield a call. They do a lot of public safety in that area and are a much better place than Wells was.

 

[sjaltavilla]

My advise would be first PM the system before touching anything with proper equipment. Has anyone done a desense check? Is the combiner operating properly? There could be something stupid going on like a bad connector/cable, or what I should say is one that's not installed properly.

I have yet to do a thorough desense check as the combiner is something I know little about. I'm going to have the guys from Bearcom take a look at it since they were the ones who installed/tuned it.

 

[sjaltavilla]

if there is not a device/PC to acknowledge all the ARS transmissions, subscribers will continuously resend their ARS causing a data storm.

Our ARS works like a charm since I have SmartPTT set up to do the handshakes with all of the sign-on ARS packets. It seems that GPS is the only thing that floods us out.

 

[sjaltavilla]

Snow Cats with Mobiles and Snow Makers with portables at night are at 7.5 seconds with Enhanced CSBSK LRRP (Window Size of 2).

Is enhanced CSBK supported by the SLR5700 series repeaters? I looked into it because reducing our window size to 1 or 2 will greatly improve our current packet capacity. I know that SmartPTT (the dispatch program we use to send out location requests) supports CSBK, but I can't seem to find any settings for the repeater within CPS.

 

[Firebuff880]

We just deployed a Trbo system with 300 subscribers with ARS set to system change only. We had a ton of users complaining about getting "bonked" although they were well within RF range of the repeaters. Long story short we disabled ARS on all the subscribers and every single complaint went away. From the Motorola system planner it mentions, if there is not a device/PC to acknowledge all the ARS transmissions, subscribers will continuously resend their ARS causing a data storm. Just a thought. Good luck!

Yep - That is the reality of ARS . DDMS handles the ARS as passed through MNIS, Wireline or Control Station. Some ADP solutions have there own built in Solution. But ARS is necessary to know what subscribers are active an where they are on a system if you are doing OTAP or any data application.