WuLabsWuTecH
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So here's my question:
We are setting up a new "station" in a system that is on 800mHz Motorola Smartnet II. I understand that we cannot use quickcall and pagers/pager tones on an 800 system, but is there anyway to program some other set of selective calling?
Here's the setup (which is open to change should anyone have a better idea):
There are two dispatching agencies that we will be dispatched through. The first is a high volume metropolitan dispatching system and the second is a low volume college campus dispatcher. The original plan was to have station tones play on the two frequencies and set up a Minitor V to monitor that, and then have a radio programmed to be able to talk to both dispatching agencies and their respective talkgroups. Then we discovered that pager tones are not possible on an 800mHz system.
The problem with setting up the station alerting is that these units will be special duty only, and where they stay when they are in service on a nightly basis changes based upon their duty assignment. During the day this is not an issue since everyone is awake and can monitor the radios, but at night, there are situations where we will need a crew on duty, but the anticipated call volume will be so low that we will allow them to take a nap between calls. Monitoring the metro dispatch is out of the question since they average at least 10 dispatches per hour even at night. Monitoring the campus dispatch is not as problematic since they have spare event talkgroups that can be used for this purpose so monitoring those TGs we'd only hear relevant calls.
The only workaround I can see is at night only to monitor the campus dispatch and have the dispatchers who are awake monitor the city talkgroup to listen for our numbers, but this puts more work on the dispatchers and I feel is also a very convoluted way to go about this. Unfortunately, my knowledge of radio systems is limited and I have not done much work with Digital systems to think of other solutions. Is there a way that anyone can see to make this easier?
Also, what I described is still not idea as there are certain events that we would cover where excess noise needs to be avoided so even during the day a pager like system where you only produce noise when absolutely necessary (or get a vibration so you can remove yourself from the quiet situation to hear the dispatch) is still more desirable.
To answer what I think will be a solution posed: yes we have looked at alphanumeric pagers, and no they are not a viable option at this time.
This isn't something that needs to be implemented tomorrow, we're still a few months away from becoming operational, but I figured since this is something that no one on my team here knows how to fix, it might be a good idea to get a head start on this while we're still working on solving other logistical issues.
Thank you for any thought you are willing to offer. There are not solutions that are too silly or non-conventional and I will appreciate anything you can come up with because we here are all out of ideas!
P.S.: Someone on another forum offered up using a private call as an option. The dispatches coming from the metro dispatching agency are automated. They are sent out by locution. I don't think there is a way to do that...
We are setting up a new "station" in a system that is on 800mHz Motorola Smartnet II. I understand that we cannot use quickcall and pagers/pager tones on an 800 system, but is there anyway to program some other set of selective calling?
Here's the setup (which is open to change should anyone have a better idea):
There are two dispatching agencies that we will be dispatched through. The first is a high volume metropolitan dispatching system and the second is a low volume college campus dispatcher. The original plan was to have station tones play on the two frequencies and set up a Minitor V to monitor that, and then have a radio programmed to be able to talk to both dispatching agencies and their respective talkgroups. Then we discovered that pager tones are not possible on an 800mHz system.
The problem with setting up the station alerting is that these units will be special duty only, and where they stay when they are in service on a nightly basis changes based upon their duty assignment. During the day this is not an issue since everyone is awake and can monitor the radios, but at night, there are situations where we will need a crew on duty, but the anticipated call volume will be so low that we will allow them to take a nap between calls. Monitoring the metro dispatch is out of the question since they average at least 10 dispatches per hour even at night. Monitoring the campus dispatch is not as problematic since they have spare event talkgroups that can be used for this purpose so monitoring those TGs we'd only hear relevant calls.
The only workaround I can see is at night only to monitor the campus dispatch and have the dispatchers who are awake monitor the city talkgroup to listen for our numbers, but this puts more work on the dispatchers and I feel is also a very convoluted way to go about this. Unfortunately, my knowledge of radio systems is limited and I have not done much work with Digital systems to think of other solutions. Is there a way that anyone can see to make this easier?
Also, what I described is still not idea as there are certain events that we would cover where excess noise needs to be avoided so even during the day a pager like system where you only produce noise when absolutely necessary (or get a vibration so you can remove yourself from the quiet situation to hear the dispatch) is still more desirable.
To answer what I think will be a solution posed: yes we have looked at alphanumeric pagers, and no they are not a viable option at this time.
This isn't something that needs to be implemented tomorrow, we're still a few months away from becoming operational, but I figured since this is something that no one on my team here knows how to fix, it might be a good idea to get a head start on this while we're still working on solving other logistical issues.
Thank you for any thought you are willing to offer. There are not solutions that are too silly or non-conventional and I will appreciate anything you can come up with because we here are all out of ideas!
P.S.: Someone on another forum offered up using a private call as an option. The dispatches coming from the metro dispatching agency are automated. They are sent out by locution. I don't think there is a way to do that...
