Pagers Work With Orbacom but Not MCC7500

[motofreak008]

We are in the process, and we have been there for almost six months, of transistioning to 800mhz. In the project, our dispatch center is changing consoles from Orbacom TDM150s to MCC7500s. One of the many problems it seems we are having now is that the MCC7500s won't trip any of the fire, EMS, or siren pagers. The tones and voice go out, but they sound weak. But they still work fine if we page over the Orbacom system. I'm not for sure how the Motorola techs have the system set up, if they have tied both systems to one radio or if each system still has their own radio.

But, when I went back and looked at the radios that I know are connected to the MCC7500, CDM1250s, I noticed they were on low power. If each system had their own radio I could see why the MCCs won't work. But if they are both somehow tied into the same radio, why would one console work and not the other? From what I could see, it appears that the CDMs are only connected to the MCC control racks. Is it possible to tie the Orbacom in to the MCC where it would bypass the racks and go to the radio instead of having two radios?

I would ask the Motorola techs more about this, but they haven't been here for a few weeks, and even when they were here, it didn't get fixed. Last week the one working on it was on vacation, and he won't come today because of the weather. Apparently bright shining sun is unsafe to drive in. Needless to say, this project has been dragging on. It was supposed to be done in June, but got pushed back to October. But yet we are stilll waiting for it to be completed. So you'll have to excuse me if I seem a bit irritated.

[motofreak008]

Just a quick note, I got a chance to go back and check it out. The Obracom system is linked into the rack of the MCC7500 under RJ45's that are labeled "Existing" for each different channel that we page on. The ideas that I have are that the Orbacom system is somehow causing interference, or the CCGWs need to readjusted. I don't have the authority to just go ahead and pull one of the cables and do a test page and see if works, also, I don't know what other problems that may cause.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

[GMC]

Tone timing the same? Are the levels set correctly?

[Jim202]

It looks like you need to have a service monitor available and look at the deviation level
of the radios connected to the MCC7500 system. If I am understanding what your trying
to imply that the paging tones on the output of the radios is low, then what ever radio
tech set up those radios, he didn't do his job correctly.

With that said, you still need to look at the radio transmit deviation. Is the normal voice
level correct or is it also low? If your using the rear accessory connector on the CDM
radio for the audio input from the MCC7500 console, you might have to go into the radio
software and adjust the audio gain in the external input settings. There is a gain setting
that you can adjust for analog, digital and secure. In the paging use, it would be the
analog setting gain. I normally set this up to maybe a +12 db setting. Again you need to
use a deviation monitor to get this setting correct. Remember that the paging tone levels
should be at about 3.5 KHz and no higher. The voice level should be about the 4.5 to 4.8
KHz.

My guess is that the Motorola connection is probably coming out of a CCGW router. You
get 4 analog ports on this device. Need more ports, you need to add another CCGW router.

Jim

Just a quick note, I got a chance to go back and check it out. The Obracom system is linked into the rack of the MCC7500 under RJ45's that are labeled "Existing" for each different channel that we page on. The ideas that I have are that the Orbacom system is somehow causing interference, or the CCGWs need to readjusted. I don't have the authority to just go ahead and pull one of the cables and do a test page and see if works, also, I don't know what other problems that may cause.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

[motofreak008]

When the MCCs were first installed, the techs checked and made sure they were paging fine, and they were. Pagers were being tripped up until a few weeks ago. We have one pager in communications because the fire dept apparently thought us dispatchers go in the back room and fix the console whenever we heard that the pagers weren't being tripped. With that pager, I have noticed that the transmissions are weak on the MCCs, but come through strong with the Orbacoms. Because both systems go through the same radio, I don't think it is the radio. Could the CCGWs be out of alignment somehow? I could see how they came out of alignment with us using two completely different systems, especially when one system is going through the other, how they could come out of alignment.

With this problem I have done some checking and was able to do a manual page over the 800mhz talkgroups at the same tones. I know it doesn't trip any pagers, but it would be a sound for the responders to listen for and will catch their attention. Is it possible to change the settings on the pager modules on the console to just go over the 800mhz talkgroups and is that legal to do? Honestly, with all the problems and simulcasting that we have to do to just page out EMS alone, we would rather just use the 800mhz to page on.