Centracom Gold Elite Woes

[jmfirefighter20]

Hi All-

So I recently took over as the chief radio tech for a sheriff's office here in NH and have been slowly working through everything. i'm not too familliar with the Centracom Gold Elite system, but I'm learning as I go and know my way around.

So we have two issues I am trying to work out at the moment and would appreciate some input. Keep in mind this system is 15 years old and has been terribly hacked to bits by various vendors, etc over that time.....

1.) Paging. I recently had to change frequencies in one of our Quantars (good ol' 2-wire telco with tone remote control) to reflect one of the other PSAPs frequency change (we are back up should they go down). That went without issue, they can hear us, and I can hear them. I also had to change the QCII strapping to the new frequency on the remote Quantar. Got that all set up. Now on our screen we have the paging icons, which are safety protected. If we unlock them, then click on the icon nothing happens. If I go into the manual page list, and add it to the paging list, it will send no problem on that channel. Do I have to go into the Elite Admin and remove, then replace, the icons to make it work right from the paging icon? To me, that doesen't make sense. The other thing I found was that the paging button that was previously set up points to a paging group with only one member....no one seems to know, or can tell me, if the button worked before I made any changes. Should I remove the paging group and then replace the icon with a direct paging button?

2.) New channel. We added another frequency to another of our Quantars (was removed from the one in the above situation to to place it in a better located transmitter.) This quantar was set up to have two channels in it initially, so I added a new channel and access table per how it was set up in the old Quantar. I then went into the database manager and changed the resources to relfect that the Quantar now has three channels. It is set up as a T8R8 radio with T8 signaling. We can transmit on the channel, and they can hear us fine. We, however, cannot hear them. This radio is set up as a 4-wire tone remote. Recieve is set up as CSQ. All of our analog audio (this is an analog channel) goes through only one resource, which the volume is up. Everything else is still normal and operating ok. Any tips with what to look for?

Thanks!

[Bill_G]

I can't help you with the Gold Elite. Never touched them.

On item 2 Quantar - Verify the new third channel is actually received by the radio, and that receive audio is heading out to the phone line at the site.

[jmfirefighter20]

Good call on checking if the Quantar is receiving....

[jmfirefighter20]

Hi Bill, I confirmed that the Quantar is receiving, and that we are getting no audio out of that channel. All the other frequencies on that Quantar work fine though.

I managed to figure out why the tones were not working properly on that first issue. Ended up being that I needed to restart the OP positions in order for it to download the changes I made....rookie mistake that caused me two days of headaches. LOL oh well you make a mistake, realize it, fix it, and learn from it for next time!

[Bill_G]

So for clarification, you know the station is receiving the new F3 because you hear audio out of the front panel AND you see the receive indication on the front panel, but there is no receive audio on the phone block going to dispatch because you listened with a buttset and heard nothing. Something like that?

Did you have to press the PL/CSQ button on the front panel to hear the channel?

[jmfirefighter20]

Hi Bill,

I did not have a chance to plug into the punch block today, but when standing next to the remote Quantar, if I turn on the internal speaker with the CSQ/PL/OFF button I can hear the F3 audio clear as a bell, I can also see the Rx light on the front clicking on. We're just not getting audio at the console, but may not be at the block. It's set to CSQ Rx anyways.

What is strange is that with the way our system is set up all analog audio comes into our voter, then gets sent into our primary resource even though one it's one of the remotes receiving it. Our voter system then outputs a vote indication to show the dispatcher which site received the best so they can follow up and transmit any remaining messages from that site. According to some of the folks who have worked on this system it's "messed up" but works. The other two frequencies on this transceiver work fine with getting audio to the console, so I don't understand why the third frequency requires any more programming other than telling the Centracom that the radio now has three frequencies.

The other thing I noticed while poking around is that some of our other transceivers have the national Fire Mutual Aid frequency (154.280) programmed in, when Txing with a portable or our backup consolette none of the 280 transceivers are putting out audio either, similar to the issue with the new F3. We can talk all day long but are deaf on 280.

The most difficult part of working with this system is that over the last 15 years of it's life it's had so many different hands into it, no one seems to know exactly why one thing is this way, and why one thing is that way. Seems everyone has done something slightly different over the years which makes anything a project to get working. I spoke with the person who had this job before me and he didn't really have an explanation as to why this would be happening.

Lord I hope our grant goes through in the next few years so we can start over with a brand new console system!

Please, if you or anyone else has any suggestions where to look I would appreciate it. I have a message out to our Motorola Vendor who installed the system, and done most of the work to it over the last 15+ years, to see if they have any suggestions as well. But budgets are tight and we really don't want to spend or have tons of money to have the mothership come down to play around with it for who knows how long.

I will say that four weeks ago I wouldn't have even been able to tell you what CEB was, how to set up a Quantar, or how to program a Centracom console. I'm more of the building cruisers/programing mobiles/portables and general electronics repair type of tech. Infrastructure equipment is still a whole new beast I'm working at learning.

[Bill_G]

Joshua - If you had to push the PL/CSQ/OFF button to hear the receive, then that channel is programmed for PL in the radio. I guarantee it. Go back through the codeplug (hopefully you saved a copy), check to see which access table that channel rx is aimed at, and make it CSQ. If you are not certain, you can email it to me, and I'll look it over. PM me with your email addy and I'll answer back so you have mine.