Batboard

Folks

Not too long ago the department I now work for upgraded their console from a ccII to a gold elite crt based system. The question i have is, when the console was put in our chief was told that to have the console "DO EMERGENCY" WOULD BE ALOT EXTRA. so apparently he said no thanks. My question is shouldnt the console have full mdc capability out of the box? I know certain parameters have to be set up in the software BUT should it not be just a programming issue and not a hardware issue? The console DOES decode PTT id but it does not alias it just reads 000012 instead of car 12 ect. I would think that if it decodes pttid then acknoledging and recieving emergency should not be that difficult?? Also (not as important) how would one set up the console to alias instead of just reading the numbers? Is that very difficult?

If the console has the capability of displaying MDC ID's, it must have the MDC modem card for that channel. Once that card is in place - the other MDC fuctions are just software settings in the configuration process.

You should contact your service provider for clarification of this issue.

Radiogeek97 wrote:Also (not as important) how would one set up the console to alias instead of just reading the numbers? Is that very difficult?

You say you have "Gold Elite" which indicates the consoles are networked together. If so, a program called "Alias Data Base Manager" needs to be installed on a computer in the network...usually the Centracom server or it can be one of the consoles. The Alias database is created with that program, cross-referencing the MDC ID's with the associated aliases. All consoles are pointed to this ADM database with the Centracom Gold Configuration program and bingo, you have aliases.

Folks
thanks for the information on both issues. I will contact the cheif's office and see how they want to procede. Atleast now I have some solid information to speak to the tech that set up the consoles.

Any idea time wise how long setting up the emergency decode should take? I just want to have a ballpark idea incase the company tryies to charge some outrageous figure for the tech's time. Same question for setting up the alias ability with the database software.



thank you soo much

john

The Gold Elite does not have MDC out of the box. However, all MDC functions come together as one bundle. Each BIM needs and MDC1200 modem.... in english, every channel card needs an MDC card. Once you have the MDC modem hooked up to the BIM you get all MDC1200 functions:

- ID Decode
- Selective call
- Call alert
- Radio check
- Emergency decode
- DOS muting
- And the list goes on

If you did not purchase the MDC1200 modems, then you will not have ANY MDC1200 functionality at all. If you did, than someone is lazy or incompetent and didn't bother setting any of it up. In the console database manager software, you do need to enable the functions for each BIM for it to work.

Radiogeek97 wrote:...The console DOES decode PTT id but it does not alias it just reads 000012 instead of car 12 ect. ...

He HAS to have the modems in order to do this, as XMO had stated.

tpg

NM/TPG

Thanks for the reply(s) and information! If i read it correctly we "should" have the full MDC capability Since we have the ability to decode ptt id's we Must have the MDC modems. Mabee some salesperson was trying to squeeze some more money out of the overall job, or it could have been the guy setting it up was lazy Not that we use these functions all the time but i mean really you sell a 100k plus job take the time to not miss the fine details. This all startetd when we took delivery of 20 new portables that did not have direct or emergency enabled Then I started snooping a bit and came up with all these other questions lol
Thanks to all! I feel that I have enough information to comfortably talk to the chief and tell him that there may have been a slight error/oversite regarding the consoles capabilities, and mabee we should have a vendor meet to find out what needs to be programmed ect.