Dispatch redesign proposal

wb4bsd · Post by **wb4bsd** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 3:01 pm

Background: I am in the Navy. I work for the nuclear propulsion program. Our current dispatch has the following: A spectra and a remoted CMD 750, of course we have a boat load of cameras and a high dollar internal alarm system. we have about 10 channel of radio traffic. See the problem?

During drills and medical type emergencies we cant monitor all radio traffic because of only having 2 radio's.

i am curious if anyone has a proposal template that i can use to help pursuade my command to get with the program and purchase a CentraCom style system and bring this 1980 model dispatch room up to date.

We are VHF right now and will transistion to uhf astro trunk fairly soon, but that shouldnt make a difference. I am sure the new consoles are able to be upgraded to newer radio infrastructure.

anyone have any ideas for me??

thanks all!

nmfire10 · Post by **nmfire10** » Mon Jul 11, 2005 5:58 pm

You're going to need a lot more than a console to handle this.

Channels that have repeaters or a pre-existing fixed base will need to be integrated to the console. The simplicity of this is largely dependent on the model of the base. It might be plug-n-play or it might not support it at all.

Channels that are simplex without a fixed base will need control stations installed somewhere and integrated into the console. You'll need antennas for all of them unless you want to buy a combiner. Neither option is cheap or simple. It's a lot of engineering. You can have multi-channel control stations as well, and change channels with the console.

The Centracom Gold is a nice system, but don't assume it is the only option. There are other model /\/\ consoles and there is also Zetron.

You'll need to do this in order to decide what kind of console capacity you need:

How many total channels are there?
How many do you need to have their own dedicated spot on the console?
Can the others be on multi-channel control stations?

wb4bsd · Post by **wb4bsd** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 11:55 am

currently we have 9 channels that we have access to. 2 of which are repeater channels.

dispatch has one radio (a spectra) that we use for security dispatch and there is also a remote that we use to listen to the main base police on.

all other radio's are located in our EOC. the only way dispatch can monitor all other radio traffic is to put the spectra into scan mode, which isnt a very good option.

Being a former 911 dispatcher, i want to be able for dispatch to monitor all traffic just like we did when i was a dispatcher on the old centracom system with select and unselect audio.

I know there is a lot of engineering involved that i am not qualified to do. I just need help with a justification paper to pursuade the powers that be to bid something like this out.

My goal is for my dispatch to be fully integrated and up to speed....

thanks for your help.

Post by **alex** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 4:13 pm

If you can, and the radios are in the same building (e.g. repeaters, base stations, etc) and you can get in to the tone remote loop, then you could probably just buy cheaper MC2500 consoles and use those. They aren't horrible consoles, but they aren't great either. You would need 3 of them, they control 4 tone remotes at once.

That's a very poor mans solution.

However, you could easily spend 100,000 bucks on a Centracom or other solution without trying very hard. It could be cheaper to buy 9 CDM's and just put those in a rack, dual head them for two positions, or something like that.

The question comes down to how much money is economicly feisable. I think if you were to has that out, people could help guide you better.

It sounds like you'd love the Centracom style solution (Zetron was mentioned as well), but I'm not sure what your budget has to offer up.

-Alex

n1pfc · Post by **n1pfc** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:33 pm

Welp if you're gonna go trunked, motorola is currently recomending the centracom gold elites. Basically the electronics in the back room are the same (CEB's, BIM's, etc) while the operator positions are PC based.

Non-trunked they're pushing for MCC5500's. Completely different hardware from the traditional centracom series. Swapped out a CC II to one of these last month. a *LOT* less cabling in the console itself. Back-end electronics are much more compact. Around the same number of punch blocks though as before.

Kurt

Radiogeek97 · Post by **Radiogeek97** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 6:30 pm

I am in the process of looking to upgrade our infrastructure we have recieved 2 quotes 1 from zetron and one from moto. the zetron crt based system (4 channels) is around 69k the mcc5500 is just a bit over 102k. We are leaning toward the zetron for the price, and to be honest I have never had any complaints as far as their quality. I think the Mcc5500's are built by that canadian company CML, i am a bit leary on their support track record, but i would not turn down an mcc5500.

mastr · Post by **mastr** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 7:31 pm

Ditto on the concerns with CML. They aren't exactly quick to respond to "after the sale" issues, and often don't seem to take ownership of the problem. My experience has been that they just do the bare minimum required to get you "off their back" so to speak. It took us over six months to get a new monitor replaced (it was damaged in shipping and unpacked by a CML rep. on site) they wasted our time dealing with the shipper when CML should have taken care of us and addressed the shipping damage "on their own time". Our system still hasn't been configured the way it was specified, we simply got tired of fooling with them.

Radiogeek97 · Post by **Radiogeek97** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:52 pm

on a side note I have had some good experiences with zetron. I once called them with a bunch of questions on setting up a repeater controoler. The controoler was like 6 years old and the folks did not care. The spent the time with me and walked me through the fix. I can imagine Moto would say that it is out of warranty and want to charge for the tech support via a credit card !

wb4bsd · Post by **wb4bsd** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 4:26 am

Budget? well i cant say i have an unlimited budget, but for the most part as long as i plan for it i should be able to spend just about whatever i need to have our dispatch setup properly.

It's just frustrating when someone calls in on our main channl to report something and then switches back to their channel and cant be reached for more information.

We used Vision software after our two 911 centers merged years ago when i was a 911 dispatcher. They seemed to like it pretty well.

The only reason i am leaning towards a centracom is because Motorola has a GSA contract and we would probably get a good Federal Govt rate.

the only downfall is that our onsite engineers no NOTHING about radio's and if i turn this over to them to draw up paper work i am just shooting myself in the foot. They'll make it harder and less ergonomic than it is now. lol

thanks for the input.

Post by **wavetar** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 5:06 am

Lot's of good info to help you with your proposal can be found here:

http://www.comtechradio.com/centracom1.htm

As was mentioned previously though, I believe Motorola only offers the Centracom for trunking systems now, the conventional system replacement is the MCC5500, which I don't know much about. You can see some pictures of the CES equipment here:

http://www.designinterpretive.com/cml_motorola.html

The MCC5500 spec sheet is here:

http://www.texascom.com/downloads/motor ... tsheet.pdf

Todd

wb4bsd · Post by **wb4bsd** » Fri Jul 15, 2005 1:27 am

Does anyone have any pictures of thier 911 center? That i could use for my write up?

We are getting 7 pallets worth or radio equipment from another Naval Reactors Facility. So i should have enough junk to put together a fairly decent dispatch center.