Batboard

It is my understanding that when the orange button on top of an MTS2000 is programmed to be the emergency button, when pressed, dispatch(sys controller) will immediately know you are in trouble......but how do they know where you are? Or is the function based on the idea that they already know about where you are, just that you are in trouble. I am not familiar with radios at all, I guess my question is if you transmit an emergency, do they know where you are located? within a few hundred feet? Miles? I realize it is not like GPS, but in a trunking system with repeaters and control channels, can they somehow triangulate? Thanks for any feedback.

I would assume in a public safety situation, they go by either the avl and/or by the last position the officer told the dispatcher.

Using Emergency will transmit the MDCID that is programmed into the radio. The information the dispatcher will get is as follows:

Unit has MDCID programmed in (or I guess radio id for a trunked system) and they hit emergency.

They will see that unit 1234 pressed their emergency button. At that point, depending on the revision of trunked system (I think), and what is enabled in the radio, and the radios capability, they can send a remote monitor packet to hear what's going on around the person. This keys the radio on whatever talkgroup/channel it's set on (unless you can strap it to another personality, not sure... I haven't extensivly played with the feature). Usually, the dispatcher has some idea of who the person is, where they probably are. There is nothing like what they are selling cellphones with that transmitts GPS coordinates.

Depending on how long the radio signal lasts and how many voting recievers you have, you may be able to triangulate, but that takes time, and hoping that the battery on the handheld will last long enough to be found.

-Alex

What we get is the dispatcher saying "Radio to 2112, your emergency banner is showing on your walkie"..."AGAIN"...


They don't know where we are unless we've told them. As for triangulation, it really depends on the radio system. In the AMPS cellular days, I could tell you where someone was within a few hundred feet based on what the various scanning receivers were showing for your chan/sat-tone combo. Note: The SWITCH couldn't tell you but, I could. All the switch could tell you was "here are the scanning receivers that hear that phone and here is how well each of them hear it."

We had a sectorized system where each cell-site was divided into 60-deg sectors too. I don't know if any pub-safe systems do this or not.

John

The MDC emergency doesn’t do a lot more than indicating that a specific mobile or portable is in trouble.
Typically a dispatcher for either a public service or even a taxi company should know what their people are doing and what area they are located in. The dispatcher should definitely know when an officer enters a potential dangers situation, like confronting someone. For a taxi, the mobile’s open mic after the emergency foot switch is pressed can be very helpful in locating the vehicle provided that the mic actually is configured to pass audio.

Nand.

Emergency banner displayed at Taxi dispatchers console...

Audio heard:

Thug: Hey diaper boy, do you see this? It's a 357mag. I said to hand the money over!

Taxi driver: I am not understanding you?! You want to go to 357 magnolia street?

Thug: ^&#*!!! Give me the damned money or I'm going to blow your Allah-luvin brains all over the windshield!

Taxi driver: You will be putting your firearm away now, Sir. We have a strict company policy of no weapons. Did you not see the sticker on the window as you entered my taxi?

Thug: Oh for the love of God! I said give me the money!

Taxi driver: I am very sorry, Sir. I can not comply with your request.

Thug: [click! click!] [BANG!]

Taxi driver: Now you have pissed me off. This is the third time this week that someone has tried to shoot me in the back! You will be apologizing now or I will have no choice but to contact the authorities!

Thug: Damned lexan! Stop the car!

Taxi driver: I am very sorry, Sir. I can not be doing that. The signs say "emergency stopping only"... I will be driving you to 357 magnolia, as you requested. You will then be giving me a very handsome tip and surrendering your firearm.

Thug: [click! click!] [BANG!]

Taxi driver: Hello? Radio? I will be going to the car wash again to clean out the back seat. Why does this keep happening to me?

Thank you guys, this is very interesting. Until the other day I knew nothing about these radios, and now that I have been reading these boards, I'm finding they are quite a bit more complicated than I ever imagined. However, I am surprised that the emergency button only transmits a radio ID. Then again, I believe most the public safety units in this area have GPS in their vehicles.....so I guess it's safe to assume that the officer is not too far from his vehilce. I assume the orange emergency button basically transmits the same data as the PTT?? Meaning, besides the "I'm in trouble" message, the only data which is sent is the radio ID, which is programmed into the radio? What about serial Number or firmware version? And for you guys who use these radios as scanners, if you program the same radio ID as lets say a valid officers ID (probably by mistake), the radio would not only transmit, but the dispatch would not even be able the tell the difference. I understand you take great steps to making sure the radio cannot transmit, but I see where this method of scanning can be considered dangerous and highly illegal. I can't believe these systems don't compare seriel number or something else to prevent this from ever happening. Then they wouldn't have to "brick" the radio. I appologize if I am not making sense, like I said earlier, I knew nothing about radios prior to a few days ago.

In our service, the portable radios are 'assigned' to a unit ID in the dispatch software. The dispatch software tends to know where the rigs are (if AVL is working/installed - otherwise, it uses last known location from dispatching/responding details). So if 701451 (14 Pump portable 1) trips his alarm, the CAD will put 14 Pump on a "Still Alarm" at their last known location (if they are not already on a call).

This all relies on:

- them actually being at their last known location (if no AVL, then they could be shown at one location for an infinite amount of time, until they update their status or Dispatch does same)
- the portables being assigned to the right rig (too often radio #such-n-such breaks and spare radio #something-else gets swapped in, in its place)

[EDIT: Forgot to mention. When you trip emergency on our system, your radio keys open for 10 seconds whether the PTT is pressed or not (though I think that's a per-radio setting). So the dispatcher will hear anything and everything in and around the radio for the first 10 sec. (Usually sirens, roaring diesel engines, feedback, and "#%&# Bill your radio went off again")]

You can buy TETRA portables with GPS. It's only a matter of time until other flavours of radio end up with GPS modules, too.

Putting a GPS receiver in a portable radio would be an iffy proposition. GPS receivers need a clear view of a large chunk of the sky or they will not get a reliable fix -- if any fix at all. They will not work indoors and they will not work inside a vehicle. There are cellphones out there with embedded GPS receivers (e.g., Nextel i530s); take a look and see when your most recent fix is dated.

Because this wasn't addressed, I'll address it albeit it's late.

When the emergency button is pressed, the radio transmits a data packet containing the Radio ID (Trunking), or MDC-ID (Conventional), along with status bits that amount to "this is an emergency call".

Thats it. No serial numbers, ESN's, IMEI's, etc. That's it.

The orange button on an MTS2000 is not necessarily an emergency button, although that's its most common use. I have the orange button on my MT 2000 set up as the "Scan" button.

Just because you CAN program emergency on the orange button doesn't mean you have to. It's all in how the radios are programmed.

Anyone who programs an HT onto a system for monitor only is a blithering fool if they program any form of emergency button into the radio. It's not a requirement, it's an option.

Our city busses have the AVL/AOS/and voice all tied together. When our dang system works, which I have no control over the ludicrous software issues bestwowed upon us from a certain co., I will not mention their name, AVL works great. Then again, if the disp. goes out for a cigarette and leaves the console unattended, anything can happen in 5 minutes.
The avl gets updated every 27 seconds for 90 vehicles in our fleet including admin. and maint.
If it was my design of a system, I'd have it updated every second, but lord knows there's no system yet that can do that unless you have one vehicle in the fleet.
Jimmy

Does anyone know how to make it acually create a siren sound audioble over the speaker on the radio? I've noticed that some of the newer GP328 and HT's WARIS series when u hit the orange button on top it makes an audioable siren sound. Can the JEDI radios do this or not? If so how?

JEDI radios do not support this feature. That's something that was implemented in the Waris seris I believe. I'm not familiar with the Waris series, so I am not 100% sure on this. I can state without a doubt the JEDI series don't support the audible siren feature.

"I can't believe these systems don't compare seriel number or something else to prevent this from ever happening. Then they wouldn't have to "brick" the radio. I appologize if I am not making sense, like I said earlier, I knew nothing about radios prior to a few days ago."

Well, you've learned alot in a couple of days.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here yet is the ability to "remote kill/disable" a radio. in the event a radio is, as moto says, "lost or stolen" rendering it useless. (unless thats what you meant by them having to "brick" a radio)

Hello.

The JT1000 government model has a "Man down" option.
When programmed this way, it can make a noise, although I can not actually call it a siren.
Perhaps all JT1000s can do this? I do not know.

MOTOMAN,

the newer GP328's can be programmed to put out an audible siren, thats what mine used to be programmed to do.

XTS5000 radios now have a GPS remote microphone.
It can bring up coordinates on the radio screen as well as transmit them to a console.
If you go indoor they send the last known good coordinate.
Need 7.x firmware and if you want the information to go back to a dispatch centre you need Project 25 7.X