Post
by system_tech » Fri May 01, 2015 12:00 pm
Gosh I could say a few things here. Those of you who know my last job will understand. There has been a lot of of discussion (with a lot of agencies) over may years going back at least 1995 about importing a massive number of talkgroups in to areas during events, or even at big training sessions for example. In the old GRN, talkgroups could be given priority over other talkgroups and there was a strategy way back to do this, but not used for quite a while. It was a bit of a bit of a cludge, as say, the lead agencies would temporaly be given high priority eg bush fire so RFS and FR. So other agencies would get lower priority. The problems .. other agencies may also need urgent traffic .. eg Ambos have business as usual, Sydney Water may be bringing in bulk water trucks urgently. Heaven help us if a second situation errupted in the same general area. I think the priority strategy was eventually canned as not need as Ambo data disappeared to MDRS and some sites were upgraded.
In defence, with the advent of P25 there have been site upgrades with more channels at various sites.
However, if the same trouble now occurs with numerous talkgroups causing site overload it appears we have gone back to where we started.
ST
PS .. what ever kind of links from sites to NOCC you have, be they Telstra. landline, microwave, or whatever, they are are all vulnerable.
The NSW Telco's choice of microwave links (prior to 2009) was never fully implemented and it is quite possible that Telstra or whatever landlines / fibres are still used to probably 50% of sites. Telstra or whoever also use microwaves.
One of the biggest vulnerabilities is the lack of AC power. the actual radio sites will run out of battery, or the generators run out of fuel. The link sites be they landline or microwave also have the same problem. With the widespead flooding or even fires, site access can be denied and no one can get the generators there, or refuel them.