Batboard

Earlier this year we investigated the need for an additional back for our communications system. Our primary system utilizes MTR2000 repeaters and a Motorola voter with a Motorola Centercom console. The back up dispatch site has a control station with a Zetron console. The is also a free standing control station at a firehouse with a tone encoder.

When we loose a phone line to the voter the the entire system is DOA. The control stations are unable to open up the repeater and need to be changed to a simplex/direct channel. This offers limited coverage.

We know have 2 free standing GR1225 repeaters on seperate frequencies. These repeaters are located at the same sites as our main repeaters. The Control staions operate well with these repeaters. Due to space limitations a control station is not feasable at the main dispatch center.

I would like to try ROIP and the JPS NXU-2a product looks like my best bet. I was told that the Motorola console is not capable of ROIP use. I would also like to integrate a voter on the 1225s at some point and have been told that this is not possible. Would a JPS PTG-10 pilot tone generator help me with these issues and allow use of the Motorola Console and adding a voter to the system?

The JPS Raytheon products have had good reviews by members of this fourm and are narrowband friendly. If there are any other products I should investigate I am open. I have spoken with the critical rf and Telex reps. They both informed me the voter was out because there was not a way to determain the best signal via an internet connection.

Move the voter to the MTR location so that line failures do not completely take you down. Unlike the Quantar, the MTR does not have a wildcard script you can write to in cabinet repeat if the line fails. So, you must keep the voter next to the repeater to maintain some coverage. You will only lose your satellite rcvrs during an outage.

You can permanently connect the console to a local base station and have it participate in the system like every other unit. No need for a dedicated phone line from dispatch to the repeater site.

JPS Raytheon SNV12 voter does not support voting through roip devices. However, I have done it many times. The NXU cuts quite a bit of the high freq content out of the encoded audio yielding little for the voter to work with. You get a similar problem using a RF link - the inherent noise from the rcvr is not adequately passed through the link - it is cut off by the low pass filter before being applied to the modulator. But, if you are familiar with changing the response curve, you can pass enough noise for the voter to work correctly. Same with the NXU. You must change the equalization curve so that plenty of the rcvr noise is sent to the voter through the NXU link, and you must roll off some noise from the local rcvr so that it is equal to the noise received through the roip links. That's why JPS doesn't support it. No noise, bad voting.

The voter is locatied with the console presently at the comm center request. We have 2 MTR200s and if 1 goes down the aux MTR2000 is selected. The primary site is in a commercial office building that requires prior notification of a visit. Weekends and nights could be a problem. Installing at the backup site, in a firehouse would be an easy option but would to Comms center be able to switch bases with the voter being 15 miles away

Replace the MTR with a repeater that supports in cabinet fallback repeat so the control stations will work thru the repeater even if the voter fails. I know the Quantar has the fallback option in the voter config. The Quantar is being discontinued and am not sure what the replacment for it is but hopefully it has the same options.

I requested an MTR3000 to replace a r1225 and that was not considered a priority. I would love to upgrade to MTR2000s and replaced the 1225s and upgrade to Quanters. The budget year ends in JUne and that's a capitol line item. I just had a pa replaced 2 months ago on the main repeater after 10 years of 0 issues. I wish the powers that be would let me shop on Ebay or buy used

Why isn't your local radio shop all over this like wet on water to provide some solutions?

Political mess. They have been great providing pricing the MTR3000, a control station back up and a number of items like mobles, portables.....

I have been chiping away one item at a time with some luck. I have been trying to eliminate phone lines and was offered a microwave link but the cost was high and signal poor. The communications center is a regional center and when the system was originally setup on lowband the center mandated the voter be at their location. We converted to UHF running 3 years on both VHF low and UHF. Now we have 1 UHF dispatch channel with 2 MTR2000s and 2 more voting recievers, 2 low power simplex channels and 2 free standing repeaters. The lowband module in the console is available and I want to utilize it for the free standing repeaters without having to rely on a phone line due to cost. A control station would be the answer but the tower at the center is loaded to the max and cable runs are next to impossible