Trunking locating

[Motoman]

For Search and Rescue purposes out department have trunking radios on the Government Radio Network. If we have a person who ie. injured themselves and can't operate their radio, is it possible to locate them in a certain area? In other words when their radio gives off it's ID so i can pick the best trunking site to use can we see which site it's using and then search and radius to find them? Cheers

[Zack08]

I think almost all of the trunking systems let you see which site a portable is transmitting on, but I don't know if you have to look at the voter panel or if it will come up on a console. (Edit: Doh! I'm thinking EDACS, I'm not sure what type of system you're talking about.)

I would like to point out that even if you can find which site the radio was last using, it still only narrows your search down to a very large area.

[Motoman]

Oh ok thanks sorry i'm talking about Smartzone.

[N4DES]

First off it depends on what version SZ you are using (e.g. 7x P25) and whether you have GPS mics. If so that answer would be yes. If not then the answer would be "maybe" as the query functions in the SZ system is very generic and unless the system has the optional high capacity HD it gets usually overwritten in 24 hours.

To perform queries like that I use the Genesis NetVista product loaded onto a server that gived me around 6 to 7 months of historical user information that includes the site information.

So to wrap it up, unless you know what the details of the system are it would be difficult to answer the question.

[mr.syntrx]

It's not a trivial exercise.

If the radio has Radio Trace/Remote Monitor enabled, you can get cooperation from the system operator to get the radio to key-up for a while and provide details of what site and traffic channel radio is on while it's transmitting, you have radio direction finding equipment and appropriately skilled people handy, you could locate it.