Hornsby RFS - Kurrajong Heights (near Richmond) Tower

[durox]

the site at mt white is also tied up in red tape. there is a new tower going in there and the hornsby and gosford repeaters will be commissioned on the new site once it has been finalised. not able to give a date yet as there have been issues with the land.

[cartman]

I am going to ask a dumb question here but if there is an existing GRN site at Kurrajong Heights would not the grn talkgroup 28000 be just as effective as PMR, given that the GRN radio would vote/roam to the site that it could hear on the western side of Hornsby district ie Kurrajong. Something doesn't sound right. I know in the past the railway radios were not allowed to affiliate to certain sites like Horsley Park, which of course resulted in crap reception along certain railway corridors. I think Mal (ex NOCC) said that restriction had been lifted. I would guess the real issue would be that under certain circumstances too many radios swamp a site in an emergency .... that seems to me to be the only rationale for a PMR network that basically mirrors much (but not all) of the GRN footprint. Surely it is an issue of more frequencies need to be added to a site or adding these "new" Tx locations as a booster site than building another radio empire. No doubt the RFS folk will have their two bob's worth - just an observation from an outsider.


Grant
(Cartman)

[ivahri]

You really are cruel Grant... I'm grinding my teeth to the gums...

Cheers,


Richard

[scanSydney]

Grant, Hornsby RFS don't use GRN as their primary network. They still have it linked 'incase' GRN is required. The only radios in Hornsby RFS which use GRN are the old XTS3000's. All XTS5000's (as far as I know) operate off Hornsby VOTE. I don't know how the costs of GRN are structured, but the reasoning behind all units using PMR is because the various RFS districts don't want to pay (I presume!). Once Mt White is online and all towers are active, I guess they'll cut the GRN link.

I mean, all RFS districts in Sydney could be using GRN as there are plenty of bases to cover for all districts, but I'm guessing the costing reason is why they don't do it, and develop their own PMR network instead. My understanding is PMR is further developed for bushland than GRN is. GRN is mainly used for urban areas.

This is all guessing though.

[cartman]

I got the impression over the last decade or so that the complaint was that the GRN wasn't giving proper coverage or couldn't sustain the needs of the RFS during an emergency - which is understandable ... everybody from the emergency services tends to converge into one or so geographical areas and usually gives a number of nearby sites a thrashing. I am not sure that they will actually fix the problem in a large fire with a 5 site PMR unless they detach a geographical transmitter for a taskforce group. The GRN can accomodate multiple taskforce talkgroups within a region, that can be monitored statewide etc.

In the brief experiences I have had with "fire" related folk (NSWFB in particular and RFS generally) I have noticed (as an outsider to their organisations) that they are big on the command and control even to the point of their terminology they use .... very precise ... and compliance to the protocol is paramount. By extension the argument to me seems to be that the RFS have found on past experiences that the GRN radio system is not sufficiently reliable to ensure that the RFS hierarchy/field staff can carry out their strategic and tactical roles properly ie loss of command and control. Controlling their network gives them 100% command and control functionality.

Hence another network is being created rather than additional resources being directed to make the existing one better. I might be barking up the wrong tree - just some of the radio installations appear to be duplicating a lot of the GRN footprint. If they upgrade the PMR to digital stand alone at a later date then at some point the same arguments that have convinced the cops to come across to the GRN eventually must apply.

Grant
(cartman)

PS Hornsby did use the GRN until about the last year or so ago - these days it is just a patch from the PMR. How do I know? Answer: I use to log and tag on Unitrunker for all the individual radios on TG 28000. They have only switched in the last season or so.

[ivahri]

Hi Grant,

Without wishing to get my head shot off... I will make one observation on using "reliability" as an excuse to use PMR over a trunk system. PMR= 1 channel, 1 base. 1 base fails= 100% outage. GRN (5 site system)= 4 voice channels. 1 base fails= 25% outage. So anyone using "reliability" as an argument in this case is talking out of their proverbial... I know the real reason, you know the real reason, and they know the real reason- and they ain't fooling anyone!

Cheers,


Richard

[Longreach]

Hi all, Were denied access in our area to the GRN purely and simply because of cost. there are spots in my area which i wish we had access due to near nil pmr but excellent GRN coverage, but are not allowed. the powers have said no so we all shut out of it.
i think many other zones think the same way. i dont agree with it however
cheers

[centralcoastscanman]

its the same for where I work they'd prefer to spend money on a pmr system than look at the grn, but then when it comes to the crunch of spending money on the pmr system they'd prefer to spend it on other non operational related issues.

I could go on further but i'd upset too many people.