e911god, you know I know that you know the answer to this...don't give yourself up!
sc8 said:
Was anyone monitoring last night at about 8PM with the fight in Warwick.
I heard the incident.
sc8 said:
Also, this showed the problem with how some radios are set up.
There is no problem with how
some radios are set up.
sc8 said:
Apparently Warwick's frequency is primary instead of the polling channel.
As it should be.
sc8 said:
The radios should have polling channel as primary/priority
No, it shouldn't
8,
First off, let me define polling for those readers that may not be familiar with concept as used in Orange. Those who enjoy monitoring any of the Citywide channels of the NYCPD's radio system may be familair with a portion of concept after hearing 10-11 Shots fired, 10-11 Bank Alarms, 10-13s, and other such calls transmitted over CW1, CW2, CW3, Traffic, etc., etc. While the concept as used by the NYCPD is flawed (encourages freelancing by any of the units monitoing the channel to head toward - or away - from the incident without telling anybody) and annoying (I stood next to and listened to a cop's radio at an event during the recent papal visit...how is he going to respond to a 10-30 in Staten Island from Manhattan?), it's understood that there is no expectation that a unit is to answer the call going over citywide - because it will be announced
and a unit will be directly assigned over the appropriate zone channel. In Orange, the idea is that a potentially significant incident (i.e. violent domestic disturbance) will be announced over a VHF channel / 800 MHz talkgroup with the hope that the closest car available will answer up and respond to it. The concept of Polling, as used in the County of Orange, has been and will continue to be an absolute failure. I don't even know where to start with the listing as to why - but I'll give it a shot...
1) It isn't implemented countywide.
sc8, since you have Polling as priority, you should already be aware that there are only nine jurisdications that are polled (Town of Blooming Grove, Town of Chester, Town of Cornwall (sometimes), Town of Crawford, Town of Goshen, Town of Montgomery, Town of Mount Hope, Town of Wallkill, and Town of Warwick PDs). In other words, the other 23+ police agencies have done the right thing and determined that when they are in service they are to be notified directly when a potentially significant incident within their jursidication has been phoned in (either via 9-1-1 or direct dial/7 digit) and not waste time with polling a call.
2) Dispatch-type traffis is passed on Polling.
The high band version of the channel is used by Central to dispatch the Town of Deepark Police. Both versions are also used by some agencies to run datas when their primary dispatcher is busy and some units sign on and off duty on it. Thanks to the all-to-common practice of two-way radios in the County being programmed with the answer-back scan feature activated - some transmissions over Polling aren't even intended to be on that channel/talkgroup. In other words, not all traffic coming over Polling is a poll. So what happens? The channel gets nuisence mode deleted (locked out) of the scan sequence.
3) Too much infrastructure is in the way.
Since the County only offers polls on VHF High band and 800 MHz, those agencies above that are polled that use UHF (Wallkill and Crawford) had to construct cross band links to answer these calls. Speaking of bands...
4) Not enough infracture is in place.
What? The VHF and 800 sides are not multicast. So a car passing traffic on the VHF channel won't be heard by a car on the 800 side, and vice versa. A car passing traffic on one 800 MHz tower isn't heard on any of the others. The same may be true - depending on how far away from each other they are - of cars using different VHF towers. Meanwhile "Central" could be heard on both sides (maybe) - thus requiring a lot of intervention on the part of whoever is sitting it that position. Note that this specific issue is but one sign of how screwed up the entire countywide radio system is.
Let me bottom line this for you....How you opt to set up your scanner for recreational listening and how a public safety agency's two-way radio should be set up are two vastly different things. Polling forces the nine listed departments to scan with their primary radios. Having a scanner (or, as some of the better off departments do - two mobile two-way radios) in a police car is one thing. Forcing your primary link to the officers around you (your back-up when the feces hits the fan) and your lifeline (the dispatcher) to scan is insane. In the best case the response will only be delayed when you, as an officer at a car stop that's gone bad, puts over a request for assitance and the car nearest you has his radio tied up listening to Deerpark getting sent to a 9-1-1 hang-up call. Some officers in the field, I'm sure, have worked around this by using the cumbersome method of having their mobile set to their primary dispatch channel (be it MRD or their local channel) and the portable on their hip set to monitor Polling (which means a lot of dial manipulating when getting in and out of the car). I am left asking this... why are the agencies listed above allowing the County to take some of their heaviest jobs (robbery in progress, assault in progress, etc, etc.), throw them out over the air, and, with only their fingers crossed, hope that someone will hear Central?
SCANdal