Batboard

Hi All,

Can someone please tell me what OTACR ( Over The Air Channel Reassignment) and OTACS ( Over The Air Channel-Steering) does in a Astro system ? What would happen if a Astro radio had those features disabled but the SYSTEM did use OTACR & OTACS ? Would the Astro radio still operate and communicate with other Astro's and or the dispatcher ?


Thanks

Dan....

There was a thread about this awhile back... But from what I recall, they are usually used together, and only in large are deps. Basically it allows any radio from one area of the city to be used in a different area without it going to the shop.

For instance, lets say that ABC PD has 15 radio channels, and 15 area's. We will assume that Area 1 uses channel 1, area 2 uses channel 2 etc. However, in each area, their channel would be assigened to the channel 1 position on the radio. (Did I lose you yet?)

So in theory, if you brought Area 15 radio into area 2, and sent a reprogram request, the channel 1 on the rotary dial (which is channel 15 for that area) now becomes channel 2 in the radio.

Its a little difficult to explain without a diagram, but that's sorta how it works. It remaps the radio channels on the rotary selector or channel line up. Channel stearing works in a similar way, but maybe someone else can give a better example.

Found this in an old Elroy post, hope this covers it:

The radios use the OTACS/OTACR system, which steers the sixteen most-used active channels in any given area to the sixteen positions on the channel selector switch. If a radio moves from, say, Hollywood to Burbank, the system reassigns the appropriate channels in the radio so that the local Burbank channels are available directly via the channel selector.

If the radio user needs to get to a channel that's not in the first 16 positions as assigned to the channel selector knob, he can
press the CHAN button and directly select the one he needs. The radio will stay on that channel until he moves the channel selector knob.

This information is applicable to the OLD LAPD codeplug. I don't know if the new version is the same or different in that respect but I'd guess that it's about the same in order to avoid having to retrain all ten thousand officers.