Threaded
Marshall, thank you for your always spot-on response. Would you consider Wake County a secondary user of VIPER also?
I am sure Wake would indeed consider themselves a secondary VIPER user. Like Durham, They have their own radio system for Primary day to day comms and only use VIPER for Interop and Mutual Aid situations.
Since I have multiple scanners, I can monitor at least 2 Wake Co. VIPER sites. Sometimes the traffic on both is the same and some time not.
That would indeed be the system resource management of the Smartzone side of VIPER. No need to carry talkgroup audio of there are no radios affiliated to the site that would use said talkgroup.
While we are at it, why does RDU use both its own trunked system for some functions and Wake Simulcast for others? Their own trunked system is not very active.
A variety of reasons why KRDU uses the mixture of the Wake System and their own system....a few right off the top of my head:
--The KRDU/Wake configuration makes sense from a public safety perspective. In the terribly unfortunate situation of a downed aircraft most mutual aid would first come from Wake County. Hence provide said mutual aid response with a robust system that can accommodate the flood of radio traffic that would need to take place.
--Remember that the KRDU radio system has only 6 frequencies and a limited coverage pattern. Again in a mass casualty situation you need to a have a radio system that has more capacity and a large reception footprint as some of the mutual aid agencies could be coming from various parts of Wake & Durham Counties.
--Using the Wake System for Public Safety frees up the 6 channel KRDU system to be used by other airport groups such as buses, security, maintenance, etc. It also gives the airport more capacity within their coverage pattern for future use.
--Just because we realize that KRDU uses both the Wake Radio System and the Airport system does not mean the end user does. With the radios in use today switching between radio systems can be transparent to the end user with them being non the wiser.
Another one, I get 3-4 bars of signal strength for Durham City, but I don't hear much radio traffic. Do they use MDTs or some other communications tool that keeps radio traffic very light?
While Durham PD does have MDT access in their vehicles I can tell you that their is no lack of radio traffic on the Durham system. I know because I monitor and talk on the radio system 8+ hours a day at work and also monitor system activity from home 24/7 being that I am on call for the city. You are probably experiencing the dreaded simulcast distortion and need to have a directional beam pointed in the direction of the closest of the 4 towers that make up the Durham System. Simulcast reception from outside the intended coverage pattern is always a roll of the dice as the system was probably not designed to be received from where you are located. The Durham system has great reach into the NW Raleigh area and into Brier Creek but any further east is a crapshoot at best.
No worries.
Happy Monitoring!
Marshall KE4ZNR
