ACMA draft instructions for 400Mhz Trunking

[cartman]

Was trawling around in google and came across some interesting documents (drafts for discussion?) on the ACMA database re 400Mhz trunking - current and future

http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... ment_1.pdf
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... ment_2.pdf
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... ment_3.pdf
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... ment_4.pdf

Of particular interest was this one on government users
http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... ts_5-7.doc


Grant

[Scotty]

Hey Grant,

I've been keeping a close eye on these changes due to the changes it will make to UHF CB (increase to 78 channels in 12.5kHz steps).

A final decision was made in April this year regarding the 400MHz band. The info can be found at the link below (its a large pdf doc).

http://www.acma.gov.au/webwr/_assets/ma ... 400mhz.pdf

Associated docs (attachments) can be found at the link below:

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_312108

Scotty

[centralcoastscanman]

some government departments will not be liking changes being made, but ah well...

[cartman]

It's from the same file .... one is the draft the other is the final release


Grant
'

[ivahri]

Well one I think doesn't... but the rest I think support it.

Cheers,


Richard

[BerryV]

Considering its our $$ that they are spending, many of these govt groups need to wake up. I know of one JIRT that has 3 different radios in their cars. All govt should be on the one band. lock out 380-430mhz now instead of waiting until another 5 years. military have already agreed to change, why wait ?

[ivahri]

They never agreed to 380-400... that's news to me. But yep, I totally agree with you. I'm sick, as a tax payer, of seeing certain agencies squander millions of dollars on substandard incompatible networks all because they don't want to work with everyone else. OK, I can understand the plods to some extent but there are two agencies in particular that have been allowed to get away with proverbial murder. One of them in particular has massive problems with the ACMA rebanding... and straight away they put their hands out for some millions of dollars. That's millions of dollars that comes out of somewhere else, like hospitals & public transport. 400-430Mhz should be nationally allocated to government services, no 400-420 or 450-460Mhz links (except maybe in low density areas), move all fixed links up to 900MHz (possibly look at 700MHz for new low capacity <200khz bandwidth links) or above. Just my opinion, not that of my employer!

Cheers,

Richard

[BerryV]

They never agreed to 380-400... that's news to me.

There is a stop on any further 380-400 mhz additions for military and I know they have already done several reviews about band swaps and transferring use over to what they are already using. The M2 xts5000's that the navy use for 380-390mhz(running software ADP) are easily moved to other frequencies they already use higher up the band. Knowing several guys that work as field tech's that band has very very minimal use already.

I'm tired seeing all these new police repeaters popping up where they could have jumped on the GRN already and pooled all that money so ALL agency's have better radio coverage and extra channels on a site.

AFP should be on the GRN full stop!. All the Major states already have coverage where 90% of the AFP are based. Why should we be paying for the extra freq allocations? same goes for National Parks etc. chuck them all on the GRN with something similar to RFS stratnet as an additional network. cheaper contacts to buy gear in bulk, everyone can talk to each other etc. if there is an incident, any service can kick over there comms bus/trailer fitted with a mini GRN/cell site station and all is good.

I can't wait until the next series of radios get released. Simoco SRM9000's fitted with Next G sim cards. if no trunked radio coverage, the radio just flicks over to the mobile network.

[soupbones]

This is all good and well, sticking these services on GRN, but there are reasons why they won't. One is state wide compatibility. The feds, if they have to say follow a suspect across state borders will have no coms with GRN to say Victoria or QLD. So they won't go for this.
Other issues with GRN come down to priorities on trunk sites, specially during a disaster event, such as a major bush fire. The RFS found this out at the last major bus fires in Sydney when the Ambulance, who rightly so have priority over pretty much all else, were getting locked out on sites during major fire incidents. This of course could be very dangerous to an RFS unit if in the heat of the moment they get locked out.
And while the NOC can change priorities of agencies if need be, this does not always happen fast enough.
This is one reason why many agencies won't use GRN full time.

[BerryV]

This is all good and well, sticking these services on GRN, but there are reasons why they won't. One is state wide compatibility. The feds, if they have to say follow a suspect across state borders will have no coms with GRN to say Victoria or QLD. So they won't go for this.

fed pol use mobile/sat phones for covert ops and usually p25 radios between multiple units doing an operation.

VIC/NSW/SA GRN's are very easily linked, we all know that. as I said, the fed pol's own stats show that 95% of them are in areas that are covered by the GRN

Finally to add the obvious: FED/State pol and the various black ops groups(ASIO, military, ACC et al) have piles of covert communication and surveillance gear scattered throughout the bands and no doubt this will effect some of this gear(yes, also in the 380-400mhz split). much of this piggy backs on existing networks like TV broadcast etc. that's the cost of change, minor costs in the bigger picture.