Sydney Water

[Mike Alpha]

They disapeared off the GRN a year or so ago, but does anyone know where Sydney Water comms have gone to? They were quite prolific users of the GRN and I'd say they would still be using radio comms of some sort. ACMA shows they have a fair few PMR frequencies, but the site locations indicate they are for localised use only.

I saw one of their utes today and noticed it had no antenna on it.

Mike

[centralcoastscanman]

Possibly they gone Mobile Phones Mike ?

[Bigfella237]

Sydney Water had 150+ voice talkgroups plus a few more for data (MDT) on the old 4.1 network... that's a lot of phone calls!

They originally had TGs (on the old 4.1 network) between 3216 and 5840 but back at the start of last year (Feb 2009) I noticed that a couple of their TGs were carrying NPWS traffic, I can only think there must have been some re-farming going on around that time?

They're still listed as a user on the Government Radio Services website but that doesn't mean much, their "Latest News" is dated 14/10/08!

Andrew

[cartman]

Check the old posts in the grn part of this forum - I posted on the same subject about july 2009 that they had disappeared by june 2009. I am using a blackberry to post this. Look under "sydney water" in the search. Grant

[Mike Alpha]

Check the old posts in the grn part of this forum - I posted on the same subject about july 2009 that they had disappeared by june 2009. I am using a blackberry to post this. Look under "sydney water" in the search. Grant

Grant, I did a search before I posted with no relevant results. Even a Google search didn't help.

Mike

[Bigfella237]

Mike, the search yielded this result for me...

http://www.scansydney.com/board/viewtop ... ter+#p1034

Andrew

[cartman]

Ok figured out I must have posted it in the nsw emergency service website forum that went belly up last year. Not sure if I kept a copy as I am away at the moment but will a look shortly. Grant

[Mike Alpha]

Possibly they gone Mobile Phones Mike ?

I think you might be right Andrew.

Mike

[cartman]

Found the NSW Emergency Scanning website post that i was looking for (copied and saved before the site sunk without trace)

"Sun Nov 16, 2008 3:18 am
Just updating some talkgroup tags on Unitrunker and noticed that the Sydney Water Data network has stopped using the GRN, sometime in early July 2008.
A check of the internet suggests that Sydney Water have implemented a new SCADA IT system
SCADA stands for Supevisory Control and Data Acquisition
Whatever system they are using now has superseded the GRN arrangements"

Grant

[cartman]

I done some more digging

" (in June 2008) Serck Controls has been awarded the prestigious upgrade of the Sydney Water Corporation IICATS ( Integrated Instrumentation Control, Automation & Telemetry System ) SCADA Master station ahead of many local and international vendors. The project is the largest and most prestigious SCADA system upgrade currently being undertaken in Australia and one of the leading projects in the water industry internationally. The new Serck SCX SCADA system will monitor and control over 1500 Water and Wastewater assets and integrate with an array of business systems, vital to the secure and efficient operation of Sydney Water. The ultimate system will monitor in excess of 500,000 telemetered data points from treatment Plant SCADA, PLC systems and RTU outstations. The project will be undertaken over a 2 year period followed by an extensive support program".

Around about the same time the field workers appear to have switched to using "Datalogic" retriever wireless technology

http://www.retrievercommunications.com/ ... &Itemid=29

The mobile application provides a mobile extension to the office system allowing the Field Workers to work with data remotely. It is specifically designed to work in disconnected mode allowing for imperfections in the mobile networks. The mobile application communicates with the WAG (Wireless Application Gateway) using the Retriever synchronization protocol.

So it appears that the field guys get their jobs on a specialised PDA and send the data/drawings etc back by same (ie no need for comms - except via mobile phone)


Grant