Telus Mike (iDEN)

[fredburgess]

What type of radio system is the TelusMike (iDEN), and why cannot it be monitored?
Also are the Calgary Transit Peace Officers (formally protective services), on the system?
Thanks
Fred Burgess

 

[Grog]

You answered it yourself, it is an iDEN system like what nextel and southern linc uses.

To make it short and sweet, there is not a scanner that can monitor the traffic as they (motorola) have not released the protocol to be licensed. As you can guess, that is also why there are no other companies making subscriber equipment besides motorola.

 

[kayn1n32008]

All Calgary Transit operations are on the Telus MiKE system, including the Protective/Pease officers use it as well. they probably are on protected talk groups, meaning that if a mike phone that is not owned by cal transit hand set cannot talk to a non cal transit handset even in private mode.

 

[Jay911]

Known Alberta users of the TELUS iDEN system (which is nationwide) include...

Alberta Sheriffs (Highway Patrol and other divisions)
Calgary Transit
Alberta Sustainable Resources Development (various Fish & Wildlife/Conservation Officer/Transport Officers in varying and limited functions)
and reportedly, Prairie EMS of Minburn County.

I seem to recall something said - besides what Grog mentioned about licensing - that scanners would need to make a leap in technology to handle the way multiple conversations are carried on a single frequency. Like cell phones, iDEN (as far as I know) uses such a system.

 

[mobile1]

iDEN or MIKE in Canada is an FDMA =frequency division multiple access digital trunking system .GSM cell phones( ROGERS) is TDMA = time division multiple access and is not a trunked system . Bell Mobility cell is CDMA =code division multiple access and is also not a trunking system. MIKE or iDEN is very much like TETRA the standard used in Europe developed by Motorola . MIKE is in the 815 mhz TX and 860 mhz RX areas in most of Canada but not in Saskatchewan because Sask-Tel FLEET-NET 800 already had those frequencies in that province . We can listen in on APCO 25 systems and they are FDMA digital because it is an open standard but iDEN is not .But who knows what the future is maybe it will be opened to scanner listeners . The architecture of CDMA (also that of TDMA) is so complex that it will never be possible to listen in on with a scanner .

 

[Josh]

Some information is not completely accurate in the last post. iDEN, and GSM are TDMA.... Time-Division Multiple Access, where multiple conversations occur on the same frequency in different time slots, and because control channels are used, both are trunking formats.

FDMA is what regular trunking that we normally associate with police comms (EDACS, APCO16 [SmartNet, SmartZone, etc, and APCO25 phase 1) as a control channel is used to divide the frequencies used among users and only one conversation can fit on a frequency.

But that's not really the point. iDEN is an ancient Motorola proprietary standard (like the SmartNet control channel) nearing the end of its life. the voice-coder was originally VSELP (also motorola proprietary) but has more recently been using AMBE. The frequencies are coded using AM as well. Batlabs.com, while it hasn't been proven, states that if you cram an IMBE codeplug into a VSELP Astro radio (because the IMBE allows for "digital carrier squelch" operation, meaning any digital audio will be decoded) will allow for the decoding of iDEN frequencies- of course how it would handle the time-slotted audio makes it hard to believe.

Aside from that, NexTel here, and probably Telus MIKE up there is setup like any regular cellular type system with antennas mounted in a triangular pattern for 360* coverage. Each "side" of the cell station is in itself its own trunking system. So when traveling around it even in a circle during a call could cause the phone to hand-off three times as it goes around... This makes making a scanner that could follow all the handshakes impossible to build, especially since towers are so close together and such low power. Public safety systems are almost completely opposite with fewer towers using higher power and coverage large areas with omnidirectional patterns.

 

[YYCcanuck]

Sorry for digging up an old post, but I was updating my scanner and was curious why I couldn't find anything on Calgary transit. So I did what every person is suppose to do (grin) and searched the forums and came upon this thread.

Since it is a bit old and the last reply mentioned that iDEN and MIKE in general is becoming obsolete, just curious if there are any rumours or rumblings about Calgary transit navigating away from this radio setup and using something similar or compatible to the Police and other tri-services (APCO 25 digital)?

I ride the C-train every day to work and it would sure be handy to have the ability to listen in and hear what is going on.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Sorry for digging up an old post, but I was updating my scanner and was curious why I couldn't find anything on Calgary transit. So I did what every person is suppose to do (grin) and searched the forums and came upon this thread.

Since it is a bit old and the last reply mentioned that iDEN and MIKE in general is becoming obsolete, just curious if there are any rumours or rumblings about Calgary transit navigating away from this radio setup and using something similar or compatible to the Police and other tri-services (APCO 25 digital)?

I ride the C-train every day to work and it would sure be handy to have the ability to listen in and hear what is going on.

Although i have not heard anything about Calgary Transit moving away from iDEN, i would be suprised if they are planning to. As for being obsolete you get no argument from me, but it works well, and in Alberta iDEN coverage is more than adequete. i still have over a year left on my iDEN contract, and have not recieved anything from Telus saying they are ending their iDEN service any soon.