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Airwave - Cutting Through the Propoganda
How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave.
An Insider Evaluation of the Propoganda. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I am posting this in a few choice UK newsgroups who have some interest in the police radio system. If you take offence to this then I apologise, but I think you will find what this post contains interesting. At least I hope you do! Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. They have sold off frequencies we have been using for years with no major problems. Do not blame your local police force for buying into duff technology, they had little choice in the matter. And for those of you who might read the items below and say 'purely teething problems', then let me say this: We are something like the 38th Force to go live with Airwave. o2 have had 37 previous installations to make their cock ups and learn by them. Our Force has also been using Airwave (in a testing capacity) for well over a year, and live for 6 months in some areas. NONE of the technical problems raised time and time and time again have been fixed during any of this. Our communication equipment provider for control rooms also appears to be totally inept when it comes to getting the data-display side of things working. The 'last officer calling' function, whereby their callsign and warrant number is displayed in the talk-group button on the system is wiped out and replaced with either a blank space or gibberish the moment the controller transmits. The 'subscriber' screen - a utility on the control system that shows which officers are on a particular talkgroup, also fails to function correctly. Those who are off duty do not 'fall off' the display, meaning that there is around 50 pages of 'subscribers' on any talkgroup, most of them off duty. Very useful! There are hundreds of other minor problems as well, but the discussion of them is not the purpose of this post. It is merely to cut through the propoganda being issued by the Government, O2 and probably your local force about how peachy everything is. It isn't. "What are the benefits of Airwave?" o) Greatly improved coverage throughout force This is a mixed bag. I have personally witnessed communications being crystal clear in the depths of town x (read: middle of nowhere where previously neither UHF or VHF could penetrate), yet o2 appears completely unable to give us a clear signal outside Major University, just yards from the major county motorway for which force Police, along with all other major A roads in the county, have contracted for 100% coverage. Reception is also **** poor in major City centre, major city centre, major city centre, major city centre and major city centre. If by 'coverage' they mean the ability to transmit something - anything! - then yes it has improved. I thought the point of 'communication' was being able to be understood when trying to transmit though. o) voice clarity and an end to background noise This partly goes hand in hand with the last entry. Voice is anything but clear. When in the control room I have my headset volume up to 120% on the touch-screen control equipment, and also have the built-in headset volume control set to 3 (max), and I still struggle to hear what anyone is saying the majority of the time. There appears to be a total lack of bandwidth available for clear voice communications, compounded by the effects of lack of coverage. It is essentially like the early days of Internet telephones, were 2 people across the world were attempting to communicate via 2400baud modems. It simply didn't work. The noise cancelling was sold to us to also be a major advantage. Why is it then that as soon as the officer turns on the sirens, I can't hear a bloody thing they are saying? The moment they step into a busy pub/club, all I can hear is music and background chatter. This feature doesn't work either. And for the cynics, regarding the volume - no I am not deaf. Switching back to UHF I car hear them fine. o) secure encrypted comms that prevent scanning of police transmissions Granted, the system is secure and encrypted. It also works quite fast. Most of the time. However this does mean that while the criminals can't listen in to transmissions, neither can anyone else. I know that in the past I have assisted the police when off duty by phoning in seeing a 'suspicious male' hanging around or hiding somewhere based purely on the description given out over the air by controllers a few moments earlier. We as a police service have now automatically excluded this unauthorised - but none the less appreciated - help. In an even more indirect fashion listening to 'force' transmissions on VHF, I have avoided accidents that have just happened, reducing the burden on the service either trying to attend, or who end up dealing with the resulting backlog of traffic. The same accident then appeared on my FM car radio via Traffic Announce about 20 minutes later. The end result was I also managed to get to work on time. o) digital comms that will enable staff to communicate by radio by phone or by text I won't discuss the radio element (radio as we mostly know it, e.g. broadcast or All Informed transmissions) as I think it covered well above. However the telephone element is fine, except that officers can only phone OUT from the handsets. For a maximum of 10 minutes. They cannot receive incoming *telephone* calls from anywhere, except Superintendants and control room staff. Useful. Text? Don't make me laugh.. if you saw how complicated it was to actually COMMUNICATE via text message, you wouldn't bother either. It isn't as simple as just write and send. If you want to send it to someone in the control room it is even worse. It is a system that will never be used, despite us being in the 'text generation' due to its complexity and high failure rate. Point to Point communications, e.g. using the radio as a radio, but for a private call between only two individuals works well providing there is no one transmitting on the main talkgroup. In a busy division like say busy division, there is rarely any point during the day where there isn't traffic on the main talkgroup, thereby rendering this otherwise useful service, totally useless. It is made even worse by controllers being told that they MUST NOT authorise talkthru on the main talkgroup. Great... so how do we communicate then? Oh.. I know.. back to personal mobiles it is then. o) access to local and national databases Oh? Where? I do not have access to PNC, local intelligence, or any other kind of database from my handset. My 'access to local and national databases' is as it ever was. Ask comms, go back to the car and use the MDT, or waste even more time and go back to the station. o) introduction of emergency button that will improve officer safety Yes.. when it works. Numerous times officers have pressed their emergency button only to be told 'call failed', or 'no coverage' or on pressing it for the required two seconds, find it doesn't fire because someone in comms happens to be talking at the time (Yes comms staff have a higher transmission priority than the emergency button!). How is it then that this will improve officer safety? I can't even hit people with my radio anymore if needs be, as the thing will shatter in to a million pieces. In UHF/VHF days I could scream 'HELP!' even if someone was talking. The controller would have a hard time trying to hear me over the other person when I gave details, but at least it was possible. With Airwave I just get 'BUSY' if I try and transmit, and end up in a queueing system. But of course, this improves officer safety. As a side note, when you are getting your head kicked in, have you any idea how long 2 seconds is...? The button is also extremely hard to push in and keep pushed in, all while trying to defend yourself. o) Improved communications will mean officers can be deployed to calls more speedily. If anything I have described above can be seen as 'improved', then you need to seek help immediately. There was never a problem deploying officers the old way. The majority of the time VHF/UHF worked fine, or as a last resort sending the job to the car MDT. o) Staff will be able to access information regarding incidents, people or vehicles directly through their Airwave radios. Yes, we can retrieve some information regarding incidents, but it is via text message, which we need to send first to request. It is a convoluted process and by the time we have finished typing out the request text message (which contains a lot of special characters like #), we'll probably be there. I cannot access any information regarding people or vehicles directly via by handset. I suspect when we are finally able to it will be via the same method, e.g. text, and will be quicker to call the PNC desk and ask. Text messages are also limited to 120 characters. Not very useful at all. The last two sentences consisted of 73 characters... o) Improved communications will mean less time in the police station and more time on the streets. Pure propoganda and an attempt to justify the 2.3 billion pound price tag for the system. How improving communication will result in me spending less time in the police station is a mystery. Is there a feature of Airwave that automatically completes my paperwork for me? Please tell me! I will gladly use it no matter how complex. o) The ability to communicate directly with other forces and other emergency services. Neither my county's fire or ambulance services subscribe to airwave. I can chat to neighbouring forces if I want to, but the only force I personally border with the majority of the time is a big expanse of water.. so no advantage there. o) "Our colleagues in other forces are already catching more criminals as a result of using Airwaves digital technology." One word. Tripe! Airwave offers nothing in effect - due to the technical problems - that MASC or similar technologies doesn't offer already. Pure propoganda again. Yes this is a humerous, but none-the-less serious look at the state of play in todays police radio service. Don't flame me for my comments and points of view. I'm sure if you speak to other officers of any number of forces, you will get a similar view point. If you got this far, congratulations and thanks for reading. The next time someone in authority mentions airwave to you, perhaps you'll remember this post and be able to raise a few points with them. It should be an interesting conversation... that is, if they decide they want to continue to talk to you at all... Yours, PC 5029 Concerned Officer. Some Station, Some Force, Some Where. |
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:
Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. They have sold off frequencies we have been using for years with no major problems. Do not blame your local police force for buying into duff technology, they had little choice in the matter. And for those of you who might read the items below and say 'purely teething problems', then let me say this: We are something like the 38th Force to go live with Airwave. o2 have had 37 previous installations to make their cock ups and learn by them. Our Force has also been using Airwave (in a testing capacity) for well over a year, and live for 6 months in some areas. NONE of the technical problems raised time and time and time again have been fixed during any of this. Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project. You didn't really think it would work did you ??? |
Paul Robson wrote: On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. snip Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project. Of course, why should it be. But on the flip side of this, some Government-sponsored systems work wonderfully. Radio and mobile telephone technology is nothing new, and all airwave has done, really, is throw encryption into the mix and make minor changes to the mobile telephone model. What is so hard here? You didn't really think it would work did you ??? Considering they spent =A32.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really. Cheers, PC A.N. Other. |
Concerned Officer wrote:
How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave. An Insider Evaluation of the Propaganda. ---------------------------------------------------------------- I am posting this in a few choice UK newsgroups who have some interest in the police radio system. If you take offence to this then I apologise, but I think you will find what this post contains interesting. At least I hope you do! Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. They have sold off frequencies we have been using for years with no major problems. Do not blame your local police force for buying into duff technology, they had little choice in the matter. And for those of you who might read the items below and say 'purely teething problems', then let me say this: We are something like the 38th Force to go live with Airwave. o2 have had 37 previous installations to make their cock ups and learn by them. Our Force has also been using Airwave (in a testing capacity) for well over a year, and live for 6 months in some areas. NONE of the technical problems raised time and time and time again have been fixed during any of this. Our communication equipment provider for control rooms also appears to be totally inept when it comes to getting the data-display side of things working. The 'last officer calling' function, whereby their callsign and warrant number is displayed in the talk-group button on the system is wiped out and replaced with either a blank space or gibberish the moment the controller transmits. The 'subscriber' screen - a utility on the control system that shows which officers are on a particular talkgroup, also fails to function correctly. Those who are off duty do not 'fall off' the display, meaning that there is around 50 pages of 'subscribers' on any talkgroup, most of them off duty. Very useful! There are hundreds of other minor problems as well, but the discussion of them is not the purpose of this post. It is merely to cut through the propaganda being issued by the Government, O2 and probably your local force about how peachy everything is. It isn't. "What are the benefits of Airwave?" o) Greatly improved coverage throughout force This is a mixed bag. I have personally witnessed communications being crystal clear in the depths of town x (read: middle of nowhere where previously neither UHF or VHF could penetrate), yet o2 appears completely unable to give us a clear signal outside Major University, just yards from the major county motorway for which force Police, along with all other major A roads in the county, have contracted for 100% coverage. Reception is also **** poor in major City centre, major city centre, major city centre, major city centre and major city centre. If by 'coverage' they mean the ability to transmit something - anything! - then yes it has improved. I thought the point of 'communication' was being able to be understood when trying to transmit though. o) voice clarity and an end to background noise This partly goes hand in hand with the last entry. Voice is anything but clear. When in the control room I have my headset volume up to 120% on the touch-screen control equipment, and also have the built-in headset volume control set to 3 (max), and I still struggle to hear what anyone is saying the majority of the time. There appears to be a total lack of bandwidth available for clear voice communications, compounded by the effects of lack of coverage. It is essentially like the early days of Internet telephones, were 2 people across the world were attempting to communicate via 2400baud modems. It simply didn't work. The noise canceling was sold to us to also be a major advantage. Why is it then that as soon as the officer turns on the sirens, I can't hear a bloody thing they are saying? The moment they step into a busy pub/club, all I can hear is music and background chatter. This feature doesn't work either. And for the cynics, regarding the volume - no I am not deaf. Switching back to UHF I car hear them fine. o) secure encrypted comms that prevent scanning of police transmissions Granted, the system is secure and encrypted. It also works quite fast. Most of the time. However this does mean that while the criminals can't listen in to transmissions, neither can anyone else. I know that in the past I have assisted the police when off duty by phoning in seeing a 'suspicious male' hanging around or hiding somewhere based purely on the description given out over the air by controllers a few moments earlier. We as a police service have now automatically excluded this unauthorised - but none the less appreciated - help. In an even more indirect fashion listening to 'force' transmissions on VHF, I have avoided accidents that have just happened, reducing the burden on the service either trying to attend, or who end up dealing with the resulting backlog of traffic. The same accident then appeared on my FM car radio via Traffic Announce about 20 minutes later. The end result was I also managed to get to work on time. o) digital comms that will enable staff to communicate by radio by phone or by text I won't discuss the radio element (radio as we mostly know it, e.g. broadcast or All Informed transmissions) as I think it covered well above. However the telephone element is fine, except that officers can only phone OUT from the handsets. For a maximum of 10 minutes. They cannot receive incoming *telephone* calls from anywhere, except Superintendants and control room staff. Useful. Text? Don't make me laugh.. if you saw how complicated it was to actually COMMUNICATE via text message, you wouldn't bother either. It isn't as simple as just write and send. If you want to send it to someone in the control room it is even worse. It is a system that will never be used, despite us being in the 'text generation' due to its complexity and high failure rate. Point to Point communications, e.g. using the radio as a radio, but for a private call between only two individuals works well providing there is no one transmitting on the main talkgroup. In a busy division like say busy division, there is rarely any point during the day where there isn't traffic on the main talkgroup, thereby rendering this otherwise useful service, totally useless. It is made even worse by controllers being told that they MUST NOT authorise talkthru on the main talkgroup. Great... so how do we communicate then? Oh.. I know.. back to personal mobiles it is then. o) access to local and national databases Oh? Where? I do not have access to PNC, local intelligence, or any other kind of database from my handset. My 'access to local and national databases' is as it ever was. Ask comms, go back to the car and use the MDT, or waste even more time and go back to the station. o) introduction of emergency button that will improve officer safety Yes.. when it works. Numerous times officers have pressed their emergency button only to be told 'call failed', or 'no coverage' or on pressing it for the required two seconds, find it doesn't fire because someone in comms happens to be talking at the time (Yes comms staff have a higher transmission priority than the emergency button!). How is it then that this will improve officer safety? I can't even hit people with my radio anymore if needs be, as the thing will shatter in to a million pieces. In UHF/VHF days I could scream 'HELP!' even if someone was talking. The controller would have a hard time trying to hear me over the other person when I gave details, but at least it was possible. With Airwave I just get 'BUSY' if I try and transmit, and end up in a queuing system. But of course, this improves officer safety. As a side note, when you are getting your head kicked in, have you any idea how long 2 seconds is...? The button is also extremely hard to push in and keep pushed in, all while trying to defend yourself. o) Improved communications will mean officers can be deployed to calls more speedily. If anything I have described above can be seen as 'improved', then you need to seek help immediately. There was never a problem deploying officers the old way. The majority of the time VHF/UHF worked fine, or as a last resort sending the job to the car MDT. o) Staff will be able to access information regarding incidents, people or vehicles directly through their Airwave radios. Yes, we can retrieve some information regarding incidents, but it is via text message, which we need to send first to request. It is a convoluted process and by the time we have finished typing out the request text message (which contains a lot of special characters like #), we'll probably be there. I cannot access any information regarding people or vehicles directly via by handset. I suspect when we are finally able to it will be via the same method, e.g. text, and will be quicker to call the PNC desk and ask. Text messages are also limited to 120 characters. Not very useful at all. The last two sentences consisted of 73 characters... o) Improved communications will mean less time in the police station and more time on the streets. Pure propaganda and an attempt to justify the 2.3 billion pound price tag for the system. How improving communication will result in me spending less time in the police station is a mystery. Is there a feature of Airwave that automatically completes my paperwork for me? Please tell me! I will gladly use it no matter how complex. o) The ability to communicate directly with other forces and other emergency services. Neither my county's fire or ambulance services subscribe to airwave. I can chat to neighbouring forces if I want to, but the only force I personally border with the majority of the time is a big expanse of water.. so no advantage there. o) "Our colleagues in other forces are already catching more criminals as a result of using Airwaves digital technology." One word. Tripe! Airwave offers nothing in effect - due to the technical problems - that MASC or similar technologies doesn't offer already. Pure propaganda again. Yes this is a humerous, but none-the-less serious look at the state of play in todays police radio service. Don't flame me for my comments and points of view. I'm sure if you speak to other officers of any number of forces, you will get a similar view point. If you got this far, congratulations and thanks for reading. The next time someone in authority mentions airwave to you, perhaps you'll remember this post and be able to raise a few points with them. It should be an interesting conversation... that is, if they decide they want to continue to talk to you at all... Yours, PC 5029 Concerned Officer. Some Station, Some Force, Some Where. I suppose that this reads rather like an episode of Fawlty Towers only without the funny side. Having said that, it's great that someone is honest. The mention of the emergency button is perhaps the most revealing point - yes two seconds is far too long to wait and is not exactly instant! And three guesses as to why the fire and ambulance services have not subscribed - and probably won't. So much for interoperability. And trying to give out an assurance of 100% coverage countrywide is about as convincing as the assurance that the Titanic was unsinkable. No fancy digital technology can change the laws of physics, making RF able to penetrate a Faraday cage (aliases include steel framed buildings, lifts, underground carparks, basements and the occasional remote valley out of 'line of sight' from whereever the nearest base station may be). DN |
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message ups.com... What a waste of a "Gmail" account! KW |
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message ups.com... How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave. An Insider Evaluation of the Propoganda. Neither my county's fire or ambulance services subscribe to airwave. I can chat to neighbouring forces if I want to, but the only force I personally border with the majority of the time is a big expanse of water.. so no advantage there. o) "Our colleagues in other forces are already catching more criminals as a result of using Airwaves digital technology." One word. Tripe! Airwave offers nothing in effect - due to the technical problems - that MASC or similar technologies doesn't offer already. Pure propoganda again. I work in the Ambulance service where we have been told TETRA is on the way. Professionally I know a number of emergency services staff at all levels and in a variety of services - police, fire, ambulance - both operational staff and Control Staff. Clearly experiences and opinions are swapped. I am only too aware of the hype which has been generated by Airwave and the vastly inflated claims being made for it. There is a LOT of dissatisfaction and much concern that it was and is being hastily foisted on us when no proper chance was given to other technologies. One day there will hopefully be - at the very least - a National Audit Office enquiry into how Airwave came to be implemented/forced on emergency services. I feel sure that there will be serious questions to answer. In the meantime I hope the problems (for problems there certainly are, but being kept quiet) are just teething problems and that they can be sorted. Simes |
Brilliant post
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"Paul Robson" wrote in message ucks.freeserve.co.uk... On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. They have sold off frequencies we have been using for years with no major problems. Do not blame your local police force for buying into duff technology, they had little choice in the matter. And for those of you who might read the items below and say 'purely teething problems', then let me say this: We are something like the 38th Force to go live with Airwave. o2 have had 37 previous installations to make their cock ups and learn by them. Our Force has also been using Airwave (in a testing capacity) for well over a year, and live for 6 months in some areas. NONE of the technical problems raised time and time and time again have been fixed during any of this. Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project. You didn't really think it would work did you ??? Hello, It's crap compared to the old wide area encrypted network I used. Everyone could hear each other clearly and it didn't break up. It had the occasional UHF fluttering effect if in a difficult area, but nothing mad. o2-AIRWAVE was over budget and you should see the contract! The data side of it doesn't work, so no sending in reports. The pictures do not work, so no pictures of suspects, the fingerprint scanning doesn't work and people are told not to use it to speak privately or for "phone" because it slows the system down. It was a great idea on paper, but put it in the hands of people with a degree (worthless piece of paper) with NO practical experience or common sense and it falls apart. All o2-Airwave is good for is voice comms, but only in the areas contracted and agreed will have coverage. In a way planning permission was obtained almost by force to provide comms in some areas as the project was already agreed to. So it was another way of getting unrelated base stations and aerials onto the same sites. In Merseyside and Cheshire the system is worse than normal radios. |
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message oups.com... Paul Robson wrote: On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. snip Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project. Of course, why should it be. But on the flip side of this, some Government-sponsored systems work wonderfully. Radio and mobile telephone technology is nothing new, and all airwave has done, really, is throw encryption into the mix and make minor changes to the mobile telephone model. What is so hard here? You didn't really think it would work did you ??? Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really. Cheers, PC A.N. Other. Hello, Cheshire already had encryption for years, it was the MASC system from Marconi and it worked VERY well. It was a repeater system covering the entire area so everyone was on "talkthrough". No silly pips all the time, people could hear every other person. Last time I looked it was on £2.9billion for Airwave. Cheshire never suffered the same as Merseyside - they were never blocked out on channels, even 22VHF that the patrols used as a chat channel between them when they should have been monitoring CH2. No one could listen in either, so why spend all that money on a system that is reinventing old ideas - was not fully tested and doesn't work correctly. 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. |
"the saint" wrote in message ... "Concerned Officer" wrote in message ups.com... How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave. An Insider Evaluation of the Propoganda. Neither my county's fire or ambulance services subscribe to airwave. I can chat to neighbouring forces if I want to, but the only force I personally border with the majority of the time is a big expanse of water.. so no advantage there. o) "Our colleagues in other forces are already catching more criminals as a result of using Airwaves digital technology." One word. Tripe! Airwave offers nothing in effect - due to the technical problems - that MASC or similar technologies doesn't offer already. Pure propoganda again. I work in the Ambulance service where we have been told TETRA is on the way. Professionally I know a number of emergency services staff at all levels and in a variety of services - police, fire, ambulance - both operational staff and Control Staff. Clearly experiences and opinions are swapped. I am only too aware of the hype which has been generated by Airwave and the vastly inflated claims being made for it. There is a LOT of dissatisfaction and much concern that it was and is being hastily foisted on us when no proper chance was given to other technologies. One day there will hopefully be - at the very least - a National Audit Office enquiry into how Airwave came to be implemented/forced on emergency services. I feel sure that there will be serious questions to answer. In the meantime I hope the problems (for problems there certainly are, but being kept quiet) are just teething problems and that they can be sorted. Simes Hello, In Merseyside and Cheshire there is NO encryption on Airwave, the fact it is "digital" is thought to be enough to put people off having a go at listening! A lot of the Motorola handsets had difficulty with the encryption. |
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 17:53:41 +0000, Brian wrote:
t's crap compared to the old wide area encrypted network I used. Everyone could hear each other clearly and it didn't break up. It had the occasional UHF fluttering effect if in a difficult area, but nothing mad. o2-AIRWAVE was over budget and you should see the contract! The data side of it doesn't work, so no sending in reports. The pictures do not work, so no pictures of suspects, the fingerprint scanning doesn't work and people are told not to use it to speak privately or for "phone" because it slows the system down. It was a great idea on paper, but put it in the hands of people with a degree (worthless piece of paper) with NO practical experience or common sense and it falls apart. All o2-Airwave is good for is voice comms, but only in the areas contracted and agreed will have coverage. In a way planning permission was obtained almost by force to provide comms in some areas as the project was already agreed to. So it was another way of getting unrelated base stations and aerials onto the same sites. In Merseyside and Cheshire the system is worse than normal radios. Doesn't surprise me. Though one error on your part. IME these systems are designed by consultants, not technical people. Good technical people are well aware that new tech. is , shall we say, unreliable. There is a phrase KISS, keep it simple, stupid. The latest one is these ID cards. Whatever the rights & wrongs, they are making huge claims for the tech. which no-one I know of thinks will work ! Consultants and Bureaucrats like it because it's new snazzy and expensive, and they can make flashy PR announcements. As a cop equivalent ; one half expects our BiB to be given Palm Pilots or something to write their notes up on, simply because it's a flashy gadget. Simple things, like in this case a notebook, work. |
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On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:08:30 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote:
Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project. Of course, why should it be. But on the flip side of this, some Government-sponsored systems work wonderfully. Radio and mobile telephone technology is nothing new, and all airwave has done, really, is throw encryption into the mix and make minor changes to the mobile telephone model. What is so hard here? You didn't really think it would work did you ??? Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really. Well, why *doesn't* it work ? Why can't the police hang on to the mobile networks ? I don't know, no-one does. If all it is is encrypted mobile phone stuff (?) then you should be able to do it with a reprogrammed cheapie handset. There is no reason why it shouldn't work ; there isn't, (relative to say moiles) that much traffic ! |
On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 17:59:41 +0000, Brian wrote:
Cheshire already had encryption for years, it was the MASC system from Marconi and it worked VERY well. It was a repeater system covering the entire area so everyone was on "talkthrough". No silly pips all the time, people could hear every other person. Last time I looked it was on £2.9billion for Airwave. Cheshire never suffered the same as Merseyside - they were never blocked out on channels, even 22VHF that the patrols used as a chat channel between them when they should have been monitoring CH2. No one could listen in either, so why spend all that money on a system that is reinventing old ideas - was not fully tested and doesn't work correctly. 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. If it works ... according to the OP (whom I presume is a copper), it doesn't work. What use is an emergency system if you can't call for help..... |
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? 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. |
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message ups.com... How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave. An Insider Evaluation of the Propoganda. Greetings, I'm a PC in the Met, and a few months ago went from Borough to the Transport Operational Command Unit (TOCU), a Pan London unit of the Metropolitan Police Service. The standard radio for the TOCU is the airwave system, and I was issued a new Motorola handset accordingly. However, all BOCUs (Borough Operation Command Units, the new jobspeak for divisions) operate on the old Metradio system, which is 100% incompatible with Airwave. As such, I currently have to carry 2 radios: an Airwave to talk to my pan-London TOCU control room; and a Metradio to talk to local stations in order to respond to divisional shouts, request cell space etc. I have a number of issues with the new Airwave, beyond the weight issue of carrying 2 radios, which I acknowledge is a consequence of the transitional period: 1) The flimsy design. The Motorola actually rattles when it's shaken, and is about as robust as an old mobile phone. A sergeant at my base recently had his old Metradio run over by a car and the carrier (a long wheel base Mercedes Sprinter van), and apart from scratches, it works as well as before. Considering the back falls of my radio regularly, and the battery unclips with a jolt (such as running!), I doubt the new radio will be anything like as solid as the old system. 2) Attachment. The Airwave system used attaches to a clip on the fabric loop of my outer clothing, and doesn't have a remote mike (in the old days known as a PSM, public safety microphone). What this means is that there is only a couple of grams of cotton thread between me and the loss of my radio. Even the old Storno was securely clipped to my belt with a remote microphone, and in a tussle I could rely on it staying on my belt, albeit with the microphone dangling loose. With very little effort my new radio could be sent into the yonder. 3) Microphone quality/position. The microphone of the airwave radio is badly positioned. If pressing the PTT (Press To Talk Button) of the new Airwave whilst it is attached to uniform, it is basically impossible not to cover the speaker with your hand whilst talking. The PTT is at top right, and the microphone is bottom left, and holding down effectively occludes the microphone with your palm. It is almost impossible to talk into the radio with it clipped to clothing, and most officers have to remove it and chat into it like a mobile phone. This means that one swipe would send the radio flying. OST (Officer Safety Training) dictates that radios should never be held loose in the hand; with the new Airwave, it is the only way to talk. 4) Radiation. This is a subject I am talking on based on canteen gossip rather then personal experience, and I apologise in advance for any inaccuracies. Rumour has it that the handset releases far more radition then a mobile phone, with the widely reported brain frying consequences. Beyond the above problems, reception is poor, the microphone seems to pick up background noise better then direct speech, and it is a wasted oppurtunity. The trial was advertised as having the ability to send photo messages with wanted pictures, but the handset issued is a low resolution black and white LCD screen, with no such facility. All in all, the technology that the Home Office is investing billions in seems outdated before it is introduced. I would like to think that the problems listed will be ironed out, but I doubt it. The Met has not fully installed MDTs (Mobile Data Terminals) in patrol vehicles, about 20 years after America (watch The Blues Brothers, the SCHMARDS system they illustrated was fully operational in the mid 80's), and in terms of directional guidance is several generations behind those of the RSPCA (about 6 months ago I went in an RSPCA van for an arrest, and was amazed how in advance of the Met they were). The new radio system seems to be a throw back to early 90's mobile phone technology, and misses the chance to bring police communications into the 21st century. I can only hope that the system being trialled is rejected, and something approaching modern technology is introduced. T.T.F.N. SPENNY PC, TOCU - MPS. |
"spencer bullen" wrote in message . .. "Concerned Officer" wrote in message ups.com... How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave. An Insider Evaluation of the Propoganda. Greetings, I'm a PC in the Met, and a few months ago went from Borough to the Transport Operational Command Unit (TOCU), a Pan London unit of the Metropolitan Police Service. The standard radio for the TOCU is the airwave system, and I was issued a new Motorola handset accordingly. However, all BOCUs (Borough Operation Command Units, the new jobspeak for divisions) operate on the old Metradio system, which is 100% incompatible with Airwave. As such, I currently have to carry 2 radios: an Airwave to talk to my pan-London TOCU control room; and a Metradio to talk to local stations in order to respond to divisional shouts, request cell space etc. I have a number of issues with the new Airwave, beyond the weight issue of carrying 2 radios, which I acknowledge is a consequence of the transitional period: 1) The flimsy design. The Motorola actually rattles when it's shaken, and is about as robust as an old mobile phone. A sergeant at my base recently had his old Metradio run over by a car and the carrier (a long wheel base Mercedes Sprinter van), and apart from scratches, it works as well as before. Considering the back falls of my radio regularly, and the battery unclips with a jolt (such as running!), I doubt the new radio will be anything like as solid as the old system. 2) Attachment. The Airwave system used attaches to a clip on the fabric loop of my outer clothing, and doesn't have a remote mike (in the old days known as a PSM, public safety microphone). What this means is that there is only a couple of grams of cotton thread between me and the loss of my radio. Even the old Storno was securely clipped to my belt with a remote microphone, and in a tussle I could rely on it staying on my belt, albeit with the microphone dangling loose. With very little effort my new radio could be sent into the yonder. 3) Microphone quality/position. The microphone of the airwave radio is badly positioned. If pressing the PTT (Press To Talk Button) of the new Airwave whilst it is attached to uniform, it is basically impossible not to cover the speaker with your hand whilst talking. The PTT is at top right, and the microphone is bottom left, and holding down effectively occludes the microphone with your palm. It is almost impossible to talk into the radio with it clipped to clothing, and most officers have to remove it and chat into it like a mobile phone. This means that one swipe would send the radio flying. OST (Officer Safety Training) dictates that radios should never be held loose in the hand; with the new Airwave, it is the only way to talk. 4) Radiation. This is a subject I am talking on based on canteen gossip rather then personal experience, and I apologise in advance for any inaccuracies. Rumour has it that the handset releases far more radition then a mobile phone, with the widely reported brain frying consequences. Beyond the above problems, reception is poor, the microphone seems to pick up background noise better then direct speech, and it is a wasted oppurtunity. The trial was advertised as having the ability to send photo messages with wanted pictures, but the handset issued is a low resolution black and white LCD screen, with no such facility. All in all, the technology that the Home Office is investing billions in seems outdated before it is introduced. I would like to think that the problems listed will be ironed out, but I doubt it. The Met has not fully installed MDTs (Mobile Data Terminals) in patrol vehicles, about 20 years after America (watch The Blues Brothers, the SCHMARDS system they illustrated was fully operational in the mid 80's), and in terms of directional guidance is several generations behind those of the RSPCA (about 6 months ago I went in an RSPCA van for an arrest, and was amazed how in advance of the Met they were). The new radio system seems to be a throw back to early 90's mobile phone technology, and misses the chance to bring police communications into the 21st century. I can only hope that the system being trialled is rejected, and something approaching modern technology is introduced. T.T.F.N. SPENNY PC, TOCU - MPS. I'm in East Anglia and Airwaves is constantly down, crashing out of reach etc. Due to being a rural area the shortage of masts causes a constant switching of airwaves back to VK. There is no data facility as far as I am aware and the only time Airwaves is actually used is in localised incident scenarios. Regards, Malef. |
"Brian" wrote in message ... "the saint" wrote in message ... "Concerned Officer" wrote in message ups.com... How the Police, and the Public, are being mislead about Airwave. An Insider Evaluation of the Propoganda. Neither my county's fire or ambulance services subscribe to airwave. I can chat to neighbouring forces if I want to, but the only force I personally border with the majority of the time is a big expanse of water.. so no advantage there. o) "Our colleagues in other forces are already catching more criminals as a result of using Airwaves digital technology." One word. Tripe! Airwave offers nothing in effect - due to the technical problems - that MASC or similar technologies doesn't offer already. Pure propoganda again. I work in the Ambulance service where we have been told TETRA is on the way. Professionally I know a number of emergency services staff at all levels and in a variety of services - police, fire, ambulance - both operational staff and Control Staff. Clearly experiences and opinions are swapped. I am only too aware of the hype which has been generated by Airwave and the vastly inflated claims being made for it. There is a LOT of dissatisfaction and much concern that it was and is being hastily foisted on us when no proper chance was given to other technologies. One day there will hopefully be - at the very least - a National Audit Office enquiry into how Airwave came to be implemented/forced on emergency services. I feel sure that there will be serious questions to answer. In the meantime I hope the problems (for problems there certainly are, but being kept quiet) are just teething problems and that they can be sorted. Simes Hello, In Merseyside and Cheshire there is NO encryption on Airwave, the fact it is "digital" is thought to be enough to put people off having a go at listening! A lot of the Motorola handsets had difficulty with the encryption. Sorry, the air interface IS encrypted, just as mobile phones are, but from BTS to control is not. |
Sorry, the air interface IS encrypted, just as mobile phones are, but from BTS to control is not. Which class air interface encryption are they using then? No key, static or dynamic ? |
for peter who had a go at me and then changed the adress so i could not
reply to him bottom posting **** **** off and mind your own business just having a go at me,who for once rarely did not snip,i usually do but iso what if sometimes one does not,looking at this thread i keep seeing most who also have not snipped either why is it such sad ****s like you exist,we talk about something seriious and lame brains like you have to get in top posting means i dont have to scrawl down to the bottom to read an answer which icant beleive so many still do regards,Paul |
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 |
"Paul Robson" wrote in message ucks.freeserve.co.uk... On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. snip Be fair ! Why should it be different from any other government project. You didn't really think it would work did you ??? What like the Armys new BOWMAN system? Acronym for (Better Off With a Nokia And a Map) ;-) Steve Terry |
"Concerned Officer" wrote in message
oups.com... Paul Robson wrote: On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 02:43:47 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: Let me be quite clear about a few things first of all. It is the government's fault that police forces have had to switch to Airwave. snip You didn't really think it would work did you ??? Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really. Cheers, PC A.N. Other. and all because the Gov didn't want to share a network. For at least the last 5 years, Scandinavian countries use GSM Pro, which has secure Push To Talk closed network groups on the existing 900MHz GSM phone networks, using cheap rugged GSM Pro PTT phones like the Ericsson R250, which now sell for under 100 quid. Used with Sims that have high network priority allocated to them, so if a cell is full, it kicks off lower priority users to force a connection. and as we all know UK 900MHz GSM coverage is extensive and reliable. The cost of the whole upgrade to GSM Pro instead of Tetra airwave could have been measured in thousands rather than billions of pounds. So of course the Blairites had to reinvent the wheel and make it of gold, why not, they aren't paying for it Steve Terry |
"Paul Robson" wrote in message ichucks.freeserve.co.uk... On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:08:30 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: snip Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really. Well, why *doesn't* it work ? Why can't the police hang on to the mobile networks ? I don't know, no-one does. It was a political decision after Tony was deeply embarrassed by his police security talking about their location when he was out with Dubbya, completely compromising Dubbyas accompanying security. (the US secret service have used encoded radios since the 1960s) When Tony found out all and sundry were listening in to his security, he ordered a new secure system be implemented ASAP, cost no object. O2 rubbed their hands with glee, and muttered the infamous word "Tetra" Steve Terry |
In article , Steve Terry
writes "Paul Robson" wrote in message lichucks.freeserve.co.uk... On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 05:08:30 -0700, Concerned Officer wrote: snip Considering they spent £2.3bn (and counting!) on the system, I would have hoped it to work slightly better than the quality I can get out of two tin cans and a piece of string. Sad, really. Well, why *doesn't* it work ? Why can't the police hang on to the mobile networks ? I don't know, no-one does. It was a political decision after Tony was deeply embarrassed by his police security talking about their location when he was out with Dubbya, completely compromising Dubbyas accompanying security. (the US secret service have used encoded radios since the 1960s) When Tony found out all and sundry were listening in to his security, he ordered a new secure system be implemented ASAP, cost no object. O2 rubbed their hands with glee, and muttered the infamous word "Tetra" Steve Terry Where an analogue trunked system would do about all thats needed and is proven and costs less, but hey!, its got to be digital like that pox known as DAB which sounds worse than FM;((.... -- Tony Sayer |
tony sayer wrote:
proven and costs less, but hey!, its got to be digital like that pox known as DAB which sounds worse than FM;((.... Then you or the broadcaster does something wrong - DAB ist just great here in germany. regards - Ralph -- Want to get in touch? http://www.radio-link.net/whereisralph.txt |
Whenever I have been in town and an officer has been using an airwave radio
he/she always appears to be struggling to hear what is being said. With the old analogue motorolas they always were belting out the audio so everyone could hear. Is this another fault of airwave? BTW Sepura radios are what they are using round here. Melv "Concerned Officer" wrote in message oups.com... 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. |
"Ralph A. Schmid, DK5RAS" wrote in message ... tony sayer wrote: proven and costs less, but hey!, its got to be digital like that pox known as DAB which sounds worse than FM;((.... Then you or the broadcaster does something wrong - DAB ist just great here in germany. regards - Ralph -- Want to get in touch? http://www.radio-link.net/whereisralph.txt There is a simple reason for it. I believe in Germany the data rate used is 256Kb/s? In the UK the regulatory body, Ofcom (or it may have been its predecessor the Radiocommunications Agency) issued an advice to broadcasters that the lowest acceptable data rate should be 128Kb/s, so what happened? Correct, they all moved to 128Kb/s (or less in mono.) Before this many were at 160Kb and several were at 192Kb. Now there is only one, BBC R3 (the classical station) that transmits at 192Kb (or 160Kb during busy periods) and Classic FM (the commercial classical station) that uses 160Kb at all times. There are rumours around that Ofcom are to change their guidance to 'not lower than 112Kb/s' sometime soon. Heaven helps us if they do! In the UK it's all about quantity - quality doesn't even get a look in. -- Woody harrogate2 at ntlworld dot com |
"harrogate2" wrote:
There is a simple reason for it. I believe in Germany the data rate used is 256Kb/s? In the UK the regulatory body, Ofcom (or it may have been its predecessor the Radiocommunications Agency) issued an advice to broadcasters that the lowest acceptable data rate should be 128Kb/s, so what happened? Correct, they all moved to 128Kb/s (or less We have here 160 or more, just the traffic announcement program uses 64 kbit/sec, sounding like AM. There are rumours around that Ofcom are to change their guidance to 'not lower than 112Kb/s' sometime soon. Heaven helps us if they do! In the UK it's all about quantity - quality doesn't even get a look in. This is bad, really bad :( regards - Ralph -- Want to get in touch? http://www.radio-link.net/whereisralph.txt |
In article , Ralph A.
Schmid, DK5RAS writes "harrogate2" wrote: There is a simple reason for it. I believe in Germany the data rate used is 256Kb/s? In the UK the regulatory body, Ofcom (or it may have been its predecessor the Radiocommunications Agency) issued an advice to broadcasters that the lowest acceptable data rate should be 128Kb/s, so what happened? Correct, they all moved to 128Kb/s (or less We have here 160 or more, just the traffic announcement program uses 64 kbit/sec, sounding like AM. There are rumours around that Ofcom are to change their guidance to 'not lower than 112Kb/s' sometime soon. Heaven helps us if they do! In the UK it's all about quantity - quality doesn't even get a look in. This is bad, really bad :( It'll happen over there. Just give it time:!. Plus the joys of tandem coding etc.. BTW is Bayern Klassik 4 still transmitting at 256 K on DAB it sounds super on satellite:)).... -- Tony Sayer |
Melv wrote: Whenever I have been in town and an officer has been using an airwave radio he/she always appears to be struggling to hear what is being said. With the old analogue motorolas they always were belting out the audio so everyone could hear. I have no experience with the Sepura you mention, but certainly the Nokia's are awful when it comes to clarity. That's clarity from the radio itself, rather than blaming poor signal/too much contention on the talkgroup/aerial site. The Nokia's have volume which goes from 0 (speakers off) to 10 (blown speaker). However the trouble is if the volume is set to 4, you can't hear it with even minor background noise, and if set to 5 or above which is ideally where it needs to be, then it is so distorted you can't make out what is being said anyway. The speaker size when compared to the old Motorola bricks (and no doubt the quality thereof), is **** poor. Nokia make good mobiles. That is what they should stick to; Their radios are crap. Headsets have been distributed to us, but they are *worse* than the ones you get free with your average Nokia cellphone. One knock and the microphone becomes disloged inside the casing and the end result when transmitting is it sounds like you have your head up your arse. A far better device would be an attachable parrot just like in the old days! Better quality speaker, better quality microphone, nice big PTT button and still the option of an in-ear piece. A. |
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