Will Rogers VHF repeater down?
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oSutrooper
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d_stew said:
Yea I did it was really bad on our side. Traffic was mumbled and sounded like they were in a big box
oSutrooper
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d_stew said:
I was on WR radio maybe it was my slightly used headset I was using lol....
Sparky_one
Member
sporatic maintenance?
I'm just guessing here. I think that the vhf systems are last on the list for maintenance. I've noticed a lot of break downs in the system. Then the other night I heard, "headquarters I would like 10-33 if you can hear me." It looks like the Provoice are giving them the run for their money. I mean, with the analogue vhf system, you have a few things that can go wrong. But with the digital system you have a thousand things that can bum of the works.
I'm just guessing here. I think that the vhf systems are last on the list for maintenance. I've noticed a lot of break downs in the system. Then the other night I heard, "headquarters I would like 10-33 if you can hear me." It looks like the Provoice are giving them the run for their money. I mean, with the analogue vhf system, you have a few things that can go wrong. But with the digital system you have a thousand things that can bum of the works.
I don't have much confidence in a system espically if officers lives are on the line when they ask you to 10-33 the air. It has been my experience when they ask this they feel as if they are in some kind of danger and if you have a radio system that you have to question if they can hear you or not then this is unaccepable. I think we will see or I already do the mistake OKC made in purchasing this system to begin with.
fireant
fireant
Patio_RF
Member
d_stew said:
There is only ONE repeater per channel operating on the old VHF side, it has a lot of bandaids on it just to keep them on the air. The Will Rogers repeater is on a water tank about NW 6th and Penn which is why you had good signal strength at 23/Penn. All City departments are now operating on the 800 system totally. The old VHF repeaters will go away as soon as OHP puts the four primary OCPD channels on their trunking system.
Or as I noted back in April of last year: "My best estimate of when the VHF repeaters will cease to operate is based on a monetary event. In other words when on of them breaks down and goes silent, whereupon it will cost a lot of money to keep it on the air; is the time when someone will say leave it off."
Patio_RF said:
This license allows emissions from two locations on 158.79 MHz:
Location 5 - NW 5TH & PENNSYLVANIA
Location 7 - 100 YARDS E OF INT NW 53 & COLFAX PL
I never said I had a good signal at NW 23rd and Penn. I said I had a very weak signal in my first post, and that it was slightly better the next day. After looking at antenna locations and ERP, I'm wondering if ERP has dropped in addition to one of the sites being down.
Patio_RF said:
While I think many of us believe this is the case, I haven't heard anything official. Your statement makes it sound like you know something for sure. Did I miss some official announcement?
Patio_RF
Member
Yes, there are two repeater sites, but only one is transmitting at any point in time. It was never a simulcast system. I was tying to clarify that for you, Dave. The one on Pennsylvania is the primary location for Will Rogers Division, with the Colfax location as a back-up.
An interesting note, if the primary repeater went down, there was only the one back-up repeater. If the back-up went down, too, then that channel was totally off the air. Whereas, the new 800 system has multi-site simulcasting. If two transmitters went down now, the system would still be on the air. The new 800 system with multi-site and two layers has been discussed here frequently. But to understand how the old VHF system worked and how there was little redundancy makes one wonder why there weren't more catastrophic failures. I would say that is kudos to hard working radio shop personnel with lots of late night callouts.
An interesting note, if the primary repeater went down, there was only the one back-up repeater. If the back-up went down, too, then that channel was totally off the air. Whereas, the new 800 system has multi-site simulcasting. If two transmitters went down now, the system would still be on the air. The new 800 system with multi-site and two layers has been discussed here frequently. But to understand how the old VHF system worked and how there was little redundancy makes one wonder why there weren't more catastrophic failures. I would say that is kudos to hard working radio shop personnel with lots of late night callouts.
Patio_RF said:
Simplex could have been used as a last resort. It's certainly better than nothing. Also, the range you would find between two 110 watt VHF Motorola Maratracs on simplex would almost certainly better than that of two 800 MHz mobiles. However, the way OKC's VHF system was designed, dispatch accessed the repeaters via landline. So, they would have had no way to communicate with officers who had switched to simplex because of repeater failure.
Sparky_one
Member
They should at least keep them going and let other departments use them for other purposes. How about converting them to Dstar? I don't have any Dstar gear but if they had a few more digipeaters going it would convince me to invest when I am able.
Patio_RF said:
The Colfax location is working, and the Penn location is not. The Colfax location is definitely NOT at 300 watts though. With my mobile and dual band antenna, the signal is full quieting at NW 50th & Portland. As I move towards NW 50th & May, the signal strength quickly drops. Moving south to NW 23rd & Penn, the signal is barely making it into my radio.
freqscout
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RandyB said:
We've been there and done that!
RandyB said:
Done that too!
The dispatchers moved out to the divisions and dispatched at the division offices on maxtracs (the station radio) with the antenna that was on the roof (a 1/4 wave ground plane I believe). This worked very well with the mobiles all the way out to the Yukon area for Hefner. Once you got on scene you would go to your handheld and hope to God that someone heard you. Which you really had a pretty good chance of actually.
The order was for everyone to move in pairs also so that there was always someone close in the event you had to jump out of the car. Cell phones worked, too. We were running tags with other agencies.
The only repeater that did not fail that day was the Springlake repeater because the primary receiver and transmitter were in the same building. When the crash occurred all of the divisions initially moved to SPLAKE only to find that 100 officers on one channel was just not possible. It was funny to listen to the dispatchers too. They seemed to be out of their element and their "Oh this is typical, we'll make it work" attitude made the frustration a little more bearable.
That was a fun night to be at work. Seems those days are gone now with the changeover.
KK5FM
Member
Sparky_one said:
Soooo.... You want them to convert public safety frequencies to DStar, and then let (Hams? CB'ers? Bricktown canal boats?) use them?
You mentioned the old VHF's will go away when the 4 primary channels get on the OHP system. Are you talking of the OK DPS TRS system? And if so, will is still be encrypted?
canders2 said:
Nobody in an official capacity has EVER said that the old VHF repeaters will go away when the dispatch channels are simulcast on the DPS system. That is simply what most people THINK will happen.
The dispatch transmissions are not encrypted right now. They are simply being transmitted using ProVoice modulation. The result may be the same (that you can't listen with your scanner), but they are not now encrypted. There is nothing that would lead me to believe that OCPD dispatch transmissions will be encrypted, even when they are simulcast on the DPS system.
freqscout said:
Was this in September of 2004? I remember it well, if so. In fact, there was a discussion on this forum about it. I did some digging and found it:
http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4132
I guess this particular failure was a result of a phone line being cut. Was this the only time that you can remember that the whole system crashed? I only lived in Oklahoma for a short time (wish it could have been longer), from late 2003 through early 2005, and the September 2004 system failure was the only one I remember.
P
PolarBear25
Guest
Will Rogers going by the way side
I learned yesterday that Will Rogers will be going by the way side and that a new Santa Fe police briefing station will be put up in the same in the same location as the old Santa Fe police briefing and there will be a new Southwest division too, The names I heard for the New Northwest divison will be the Piedmont division and the Southwest division will be the mustang division..
Has anyone hear of this FS, fast2okc, D_stew??
I learned yesterday that Will Rogers will be going by the way side and that a new Santa Fe police briefing station will be put up in the same in the same location as the old Santa Fe police briefing and there will be a new Southwest division too, The names I heard for the New Northwest divison will be the Piedmont division and the Southwest division will be the mustang division..
Has anyone hear of this FS, fast2okc, D_stew??
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