yes your not only one carrying 2 sets BTP in london LUL division also carry
one vhf set and an AIRWAVE as yet no AIRWAVE is working underground

also i have heard one recent incindent of many no doubt

4 officers went into a public toilet down some stairs on a station,a railway
workers analgoue radio worked ok,the AIRWAVE lost it,thats no good if an
offcier gets called to a location qand cant call for urgent assistance.

as for Metro lima TOCU units yes the system uses all the old traffic
talkgroups and also some other talkgrpoups in METRADIO trunking network plus
as you say AIRWAVE.

but very few in Met use AIRWAVE as yet and its been delayed time and time
again and now delayed yet again,specialist squads are better off using there
Cougarnet military style secure radios[which can go analogue if needed] they
have proved relaible for many years now.

Firearms teams across UK certainly dont like using AIRWAVE on actual
operations or siege situations and are preferring to use there old analogue
channels,where there single freq back to back is more reliable.

ok speaking as a scanner user ok will be sad to lose my Met police
scanning,currently trunk tracking scanners do the job real well,but i also
aknowledge some security in both terms of data protection act and doing
persons checks and so on,which i have always felt wong to be done on an open
channel,and also officer safety there has to be a secure system in use but
switchable would be better,go secure if needed,this is perfectly possible

go to an amercian airbase,one minute you hear on there base coms analgouge
speeach,then one says "go green" and press of a button coversation is now
secure.

thats whats needed,some stuff for public domain as the original post
said,some of us scannerists in UK but more so in USA have heleped police in
past,full digital then thats all gone.

regards,Paul

encyprtion also proved a problem for the customs on there digital system
intorduced couple of years back,yes happy with it digitsied but encrytpion
led to more problems

regards,Paul

"harrogate2" wrote:

Sorry, the air interface IS encrypted, just as mobile phones are, but
from BTS to control is not.

Encryption is a feature that has to be enabled in Tetra networks, it
is not active from default, and it requires a key management.



regards - Ralph

--

Want to get in touch? http://www.radio-link.net/whereisralph.txt

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 19:07:56 +0000, chas wrote:

As another police airwave user I have to say it is an utterly ****e system.

Officer safety IS being compromised.

Airwave drops out completely on a regular basis in the control rooms, the
'hang time' to transmit is as long as EIGHT seconds sometimes - utterly
useless during a pursuit or something. The BUSY message is almost
permantently on and it is just NOT designed for busy areas on a Fri/Sat
night with lots of officers using it.

Do they expect us to f**ing run down the street texting on the damn thing to
get updates?

I'm not being rude, but I find difficult to believe that people are
seriously considering using texting as a communications system. It's all
right if you want to send HOW U DUDE but it's not really useful beyond
that.

IMO in the mobile world it's more of an expensive gimmick than anything
else.

Are you Cops just being given cheap modified mobile phones ?

Paul Robson wrote:

Are you Cops just being given cheap modified mobile phones ?

Sounds like the lower end Motorola Tetra handhelds, really more a
phone than a real, tough radio :(




regards - Ralph

--

Want to get in touch? http://www.radio-link.net/whereisralph.txt

Brian wrote:
snip
Has your control room also mentioned that the radios have GPS built
in, so
they can see EXACTLY where each patrol is on a map on the PC? That's
why
pushing the emergency button shows them which patrol is calling and
where
they are! So each PC is being watched.

Indeed, the new Nokia GPS-enabled terminals
(http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,62313,00.html) are slowly replacing our
'old' 880's but they have yet to fix in the system that will show us on
the map. Assuming the emergency button works, it will merely display
the co-ordinates on the screen and the controller will then need to
transpose those details onto the mapping system to bring up a
location... yet more room for errors to creep in. But as I say, that's
assuming the button works at all.

Adam.

Ken Ward wrote:
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message
ups.com...


What a waste of a "Gmail" account!

KW

Sorry! I do have plenty more to give out if you want one. ;-) Just
email and I will furnish you with one.
Obviously I wish to keep my identity somewhat hard to identify, just in
case.

Adam.

chas wrote:
As another police airwave user I have to say it is an utterly ****e
system.

Officer safety IS being compromised.

Airwave drops out completely on a regular basis in the control rooms,
the
'hang time' to transmit is as long as EIGHT seconds sometimes -
utterly
useless during a pursuit or something. The BUSY message is almost
permantently on and it is just NOT designed for busy areas on a
Fri/Sat
night with lots of officers using it.

Chas thanks for bringing that up, I knew I had forgotten something. The
hang time for us can, as you say, creep up towards the 10 second area
on busy nights. This is not simply waiting for someone else to get off
the air, but purely the time it takes for the system to stop faffing
around and give you permission to speak. Of course, whilst waiting for
this 'hang' to clear, if comms speak you start the whole damn process
all over again. I have actually given up trying to pass a relatively
urgent update before now and typed it out on the MDT instead.

Do they expect us to f**ing run down the street texting on the damn
thing to
get updates?

I can't get my head around the texting process sitting down let alone
running after someone and trying to do it! The process is just too
complicated... and I'm no luddite.. I easily get through 300 text
messages a month on my private mobile.

The sooner the Federation and Unison or whoever the lazy arse reps
are, get
together and thrash it out with the Chief Constables - the sooner
officers
can start seeing improvements and have confidence in the system.

Call me a cynic but I cannot see the Federation or Unison or whoever
actually making any difference. Forces have committed so much time and
money on the project that it will be an admission that they cocked up
to back down now. It's a similar story with SAP.. if your force uses
that poor excuse for a system for time management then you know what I
mean...

Adam.

Paul Robson wrote:
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 19:07:56 +0000, chas wrote:

snip
Are you Cops just being given cheap modified mobile phones ?

See for yourself: http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,,62313,00.html

Adam.

SAP?

Don't get me started on f***** SAP.

Airwave is Son of SAP!

And just as ****e! And Airwave is integrated with our SAP. Meanwhile -
despite having SAP for nearly THREE years - we are still keeping paper
records and only people retiring or resigning have their quota pots made
correct.

But back to Airwave - or ****ewave as it is known (amongst other more
affectionate terms) our handsets do not have the GPS built into them. Just
as well really. From what I understand it makes the sets even bigger and
more cumbersome.

Just what you need when trying to press the red button in the midst of a
chavvy brawl.

chas