XTS 2500 group Paging

[Dusty22884]

Hello,
We currently use A25 UHF in WV. My agency is wanting to alert groups of mobiles and portables over our trunking system. I am currently able to page individual radios using astro25 from an XTS2500 Model III using the keypad to enter the target radio's "Call List ID" number. This works, however we want to make groups of radios to alert, for example: Alert a station radio, The trucks assigned to it, and the portables of the trucks.
This would eliminate the need for redundant UHF house monitors with traditional two-tone alerting.

Any Help?

 

[RKG]

You need to talk to a radio shop that has a tech knowledgeable about the Motorola MDC1200 system, especially including "wildcards" and "group" paging. I don't have time to write a prrimer (though I did one a year or so ago, if you can find it by searching). But what you want to do is doable with careful planning.

 

[krokus]

MDC-1200 will work over a P25 sysyem?

 

[mikewazowski]

No, it won't.

I think the OP is looking for a Group Page on a P25 trunking system.

There are ways to do wildcard paging on conventional but I don't know if the same applies to P25 trunking.

You could always set up an Announcement Group for each group of radios. However, I'm not sure you could do any sort of alerting other then console sent alert tones.

 

[RKG]

I overlooked the Astro aspect of this.

 

[krokus]

That was my understanding, too. If group alerts were an option, it would make our lives easier on MPSCS.

 

[Dusty22884]

Wow, I never received any notification, so I appreciate the replys!
I have since learned a bit more about what is going here and what I am doing, however have not figured this out. Yes, this is over a trunked system, the page works great, but is user to user. I think perhaps there may be dispatch consoles capable of utilizing this feature: paging multiple radios over a trunked sytem. I really don't see why not? Everyone I know that is slightly familiar with this simply uses it as a novelty, but we want to use it for station alerting, etc.
Ive attached a screen shot of the tab in CPS I am using to turn this feature on.

 

[krokus]

Wow, I never received any notification, so I appreciate the replys!
I have since learned a bit more about what is going here and what I am doing, however have not figured this out. Yes, this is over a trunked system, the page works great, but is user to user. I think perhaps there may be dispatch consoles capable of utilizing this feature: paging multiple radios over a trunked sytem. I really don't see why not? Everyone I know that is slightly familiar with this simply uses it as a novelty, but we want to use it for station alerting, etc.

This is termed as "Private Call" by Motorola, which is not really private. It connects two radios together, and they will not receive other traffic. Other users are not able to monitor the conversation, but they can be heard by those monitoring with a scanner.

Any radio on the system can call another radio on the system, a dispatch console is not required.

As for station alerting, you could alert one station at a time, I do not believe there is an option for triggering the house bells. Someone else might have better info on that aspect.

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[W0JJK]

Make a group call talkgroup and put it in the radios. Then dispatch can alert that group.

Also put that group call in a radio for station paging and replace your uhf radio with it.

 

[krokus]

Make a group call talkgroup and put it in the radios. Then dispatch can alert that group.

While this is correct, there will not be any alert sounded by the radio. (Beyond the beep provided, while in scan, when traffic is received on the primary talkgroup.)

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[W0JJK]

Disregard

 

[Dusty22884]

Thanks for the replies!, Krokus, I believe the private call and "page" functions are different, from what I've played with, the page is more for a single alert, and response (just by keying the radio). (if they were the same, why would they differentiate on the radio?)
has anyone programmed a Motorola dispatch console? perhaps there are more options in cps for dispatch consoles. - even if it paged a list of radio Id's sequentially, it would take minimal time, since its a digital "trigger" vs using traditional types of alerting on a conventional channel.

 

[John]

You can Call Alert a group of radios on P25 using a radio console. We have ours setup with Paging Groups in the Alias Database Manager (ADM). Then you add the Page Group to your console screen. All you have to do is click on the icon for the group and it will send a Call Alert to all the radios in that group.

You can also wire up something to the Horns/Lights output of the station radios to cause lights or alarms to sound in the station when they are alerted.

We do something similar as a backup to our alerting system or to make general announcements. Our group contains about 14 station radio IDs for Call Alert. Our horns and lights output goes to our alerting system box which sounds an alert tone in the station.

We have never found anyone at Motorola to officially confirm this but we have noticed that we sometimes get failures indicated on the console when we do a group but when we ask the station they say it alerted fine.

We tried doing something similar to alert our transit buses. We have about 65 bus radios and I was able to create a group page for all of them but it always seems to fail somewhere about 20 or so IDs into the list. I think this may be caused by people keying up with a group call (talk request) on the same talkgroup identified on the console as the call alert resource.

In short, I think what you want can be done but it will require assistance from those that configure your system consoles. And it can only be done for a group of radios using a console. You could individually alert a single station using another radio such as a portable just not a group.

John

 

[Dusty22884]

Awesome! John, thanks for finally giving me hope after years of people telling me its impossible (Good enough isn't okay with me haha!) I really appreciate it.

 

[Dusty22884]

Do you happen to know what consoles support this function? (Motorola)