Severely out of date UK info in the database.

[paulears]

I tried to find a contact, but can't so figured I'd post this here in case any of the admin type people read it?

England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - the 'United Kingdom' still have emergency service information in the database for frequencies in the 70MHz spectrum. We did indeed have these frequencies in use, up to just after the year 2000. In 2000 a new company was formed to handle ALL emergency service radio traffic - Airwave was the generic name for the system, although Airwave is actually the company, now owned by Motorola - and is a TETRA network. With the exception of the Ambulance Service in Northern Ireland, all TETRA traffic is encrypted, so public monitoring effectively ceased by the end of 2001 once the system was functional. Northern Ireland have now added encryption to the ambulance service. The analogue system was switched off - leaving a few fire service vehicles with FM radios for firefighter communications on UHF. The old county wide VHF schemes, listed in the RadioReference database have all been discontinued for years, and the smaller UHF local systems went at the same time - previously they were in the 451-452MHz band. Links between the radio sites were VHF in the 146-148 and 154-156MHz bands. These are now empty of Government radio traffic. Realistically, as the only frequency entries seem to be for Police and Fire services, they should be removed as they're only of historic interest now - and are extremely out of date.

 

[ka3jjz]

Data is provided by the members- in the US, some information is also pulled from our FCC, but it's the members who provide the data to the database.

Bottom line - if you have validated information, please submit it. Keep in mind that this is a US based operation and, as such, good Euro information is often hard to come by

Mike

 

[paulears]

There is a facility to add information, but I can't find an error reporting mechanism? It's actually detailed in the wiki page with the dates the new system started, and it's history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwave_Solutions
Ironically, Airwave is due to be replaced shortly with a new system, based on an extension of the EE mobile cellular system. We haven't had the system listed in the database for twenty years, so it's just a weeny bit unusual to see it still listed.

 

[KC3ECJ]

mrblogger and Ringway Manchester on YouTube have examples of analog being used for some ambulance and fire service in the last 5 years or less.

I'm not in the UK so I wouldn't be able to confirm the current state.

 

[paulears]

Yes - St Johns still use a VHF system (due to be replaced with NXDN shortly, and as I mentioned we still have a few fireground FM systems still going, but the Government coordinated emergency radio system detailed in the database was switched off 20 years ago. My back garden backed onto the fire station here and had a 50m tower. I fitted some of the antennas in the 90s. The tower was demolished when Airwave took over and now there are houses on the site. We have no national or local Police, Fire or Ambulance services using the old 70MHz allocation. Low band is still used by a few taxis, a bit of motor sport and radio hams who still have a UK only allocation there. Ambulance services were not coordinated by the Government using their radio sites, but used High Band VHF in the 166MHz band around here, and they were added to the Airwave system a few years after it started. It's never been that popular with the emergency services - coverage being a bit flaky.

I suggest that there's little point replacing the out of date data, as Airwave cannot be listened to, but it does need references to specific frequencies removing if the quality of the data is to be retained.

Oddly, the UHF frequencies listed go back to 1993, and they're still in use, with that 1MHz band missing from the business radio band plan. So this page here still has at least one channel reported as still in use, and I suspect the radios have the other channels too, but can't confirm that. The page linking to the counties here is the one that points to the shut down system.

 

[mikewazowski]

You could always apply to be a DB Admin. Looks like you've got a good handle on things over there.

 

[paulears]

Thanks, but OFCOM here have a pretty good and current database, the WTR (wireless telegraphy register) which has the vast majority of unique licences. If you Google WTR browser you get a useful search facility that’s popular over here. on RadioReference there is a list of UK business light channels which are online licences shared across the UK. These are not listed in the WTR as they’re not controlled or protected. No need for anyone to edit it, as the Government update it a couple of times a year normally. For the scanner user here, sticking in my home town, for example, throws up everything you would want to know. It included marine band, but not air. It also lists licencees of simple business licences, but not their frequencies which are listed in their licence and up to them to select, unrestricted. If anyone is interested in how our OFCOM systems differ from your FCC ones, it’s worth a look. It has a few oddities. My licences, for instance, are in my name, not my business name because I choose to be a sole-trader, not a Ltd company. The reason is that any transgressions would be directed at me personally, not at the business.

 

[jbella]

What he's saying is no one uses 70 mhz. The info is wrong. It should be removed.

 

[wa8pyr]

What he's saying is no one uses 70 mhz. The info is wrong. It should be removed.

Then the OP should make a submission to that effect using the "submit" button on the database page in question, as @ka3jjz noted earlier. RR tracks this stuff so a proper submission is important.

 

[paulears]

Thee is NO error reporting I can find, you can submit new frequencies. Let’s be honest here. The forum have the status that manufacturers use their data. I simply provided information that a number of pages are factually wrong. The information is so simple to validate that I thought somebody would simply say thanks for the info, we’ll remove the pages that are wrong. I didn’t expect it to become my responsibility to do this. A moderator has read it. A moderator now wants me to submit multiple tickets for multiple pages using a system that does not have a report wrong info feature. Frankly, I’m amazed I am beng ticked off for not doing it. People who download your data for out of the US kind of expect it to be at least accurate in the general area. It doesn’t need editing, it needs deleting, bar the short range UHF. I’m not trying to be rude or awkward, but I thought radio reference was a clue it was meant to be accurate? I will see if I can use your system, so you can read it there. Sigh.

 

[paulears]

I have made a new submission. There are 158 in front of mine. Funny how there is no system to allow people to keep the database accurate. surely adding a button to allow better accuracy must be a sensible thing. Ka3jjz probably assumes thee is a reporting errors system. If moderators read a topic pointing out a big chunk of obsolete data, I’m amazed the onus is on ME to make a submission of new frequencies to report errors. Can I point out that my submission is for the first county, Avon. I’m not going to make the same report for every single county. If the lead database admin doesn’t take errors seriously, and hasn’t had an error reporting function added, how many other errors go unreported because people can’t figure out how to submit them. I know Tom is probably a volunteer, and does this in his spare time, but don't blame the reporter for not using a system that does not exist. The senior database admin is aware of a large chunk of data that is wrong, but of the two of us, one has a delete button, and it’s not me. I started this topic because I could not work out how to report errors. I’ve been treated pretty poorly by people who have been pretty dismissive. If finding accurate UK data is so difficult to do and to keep it relevant then maybe don’t do it at all? I downloaded a database for my uniden, built into the software.
we do have low band radio still licenced here, radio hams use 70MHz, radio sport is there alongside some taxicab services, and a few legacy businesses, like a cement truck operation near me.

 

[GTR8000]

You're misinterpreting the "submission" system. That is the one and only mechanism for not just adding info to the database, but also for reporting out of date or incorrect info. It really is that simple.

RadioReference is, and has always been, crowd sourced. The data comes from regular members such as yourself, who use the submission system to contribute to the database. As noted above, that could mean to have something added, or have something removed if it's outdated or in error.

You are making entirely too much of a non-issue here, and frankly, no one is treating your poorly or rudely. Several other members attempted to point out how to report errors, and up until now you've largely been dismissive of those suggestions.

Bottom line is that no one here is getting paid to keep the database up to date, regardless of which side of the pond we're talking about. It's all done on a purely voluntary basis, whether that's regular members contributing info, or database admins processing the submissions from the membership.

 

[paulears]

I wish I'd not bothered. Tell you what delete the topic all together and we'll just pretend it's accurate. I tried. It's all my fault because I didn't understand that submissions in American English means edits and deletions. I appreciate you're all volunteers and can I point out that nowhere did I say anyone had been rude - just dismissive. I should have known that I needed to submit this, but I was not talking about just one database typo, but pages of incorrect info. I now understand that clearly the data from outside the US has a low priority but I do find it odd that once knowing there is a big section full of 20 yr old data, the two admin folk require me to then go off and report it - which I have done.

Maybe I should not have expected anything else? On the forum I moderate, if somebody tells me we've made an error, and we have, I would not dream of moaning at them for not using the report system (and we have an error reporting button) but be pleased they had taken the trouble to let us know. Clearly not so with RR. I get the impression my topic here was received badly.

Keep the faulty data or delete it, it doesn't matter, but I have done as much as I feel appropriate. If that's not enough for you, so be it!

 

[morfis]

Paul, you have in the past (and maybe still do) created your own spreadsheet of edited data from the WTR. The RR database really isn't set up for useful UK usage. That's not a criticism...it's a US system . Years ago there were a few UK users who tried to add/update UK data but it was always a battle (with the system not the people).
It seems to me that people like you and I know what is used in the UK but most UK scanner users don't...but they don't really use RR anyway. It becomes a case of two or three people again trying to keep things up to date but for whom?

I note someone in the UK has set up a radioreferenceUK website to make use of the 'standing' which Lindsay's platform has. Based around a direct pay for access model I think though. Apart from the freely available WTR data I wonder if that is any more accurate? I suspect not based on the aviation data someone showed me which was sourced from it!

 

[paulears]

I totally understand - and the current WTRBrowser works really well. I just noticed that UK data was held on the RR database and thought it a service to let people know it was wrong. I just assumed somebody would be grateful and in a few minutes of spare time, sometime just delete it all. I wasn't my intention to criticise but that's how it was taken. They will remove it, or they won't. The trouble is Google sees the data and presents it to UK people as genuine, and the US origin of UK data might not be that obvious.

 

[mikewazowski]

Since the OP has made a submission asking for the data to be corrected, no need for this to continue.

And just a clarification, Moderators moderate the forums, DB Admins administer the database.