GRN P25 Pt2

[Bigfella237]

~ The 'government' could easily remove the need for separate PMR systems by expanding the GRN state wide, rather than the bit here and a bit there system it is. ~ R

The VICMMR is an excellent example of how hard it is to get 'full coverage', they have almost 100 sites (not counting all the road & rail tunnels which they don't seem to bother licencing) covering the Greater Melbourne area alone, compared to 48 sites covering the Greater Sydney area which, I would think, should really have twice as many sites as Melbourne due to the topography (plus we're just better )?

Andrew

[cartman]

My recollection of a discussion i had with System Tech on one of these forums was that the GRN didn't have a big yearly budget and that the directions it first took outside Sydney was to follow the railway lines to the south west, central west and hunter valley on the back of a substantial donation from Rail Services Group in the late 90's (ie the nsw rail instructure people at the time ..... there has been about five name changes since then) and then later in the ACT after the disasterous Canberra bushfires (with money from the ACT Government).

Folk who work for the government know it is impossible to spend capital money without treasury approval. If Treasury doesn't OK then it doesn't get spent (despite the tricks people employ to cover their tracks) The Olympics was like a black hole for money prior to the Games (money diverted from the normal capital works program) and then afterwards everybody was playing catchup eg it took rail up to 7 years to turn over cars they are suppose to get rid of economically every 2-3years.

So late 1990's - early 2000 was a very lean time for GRN expansion. I think since about the middle of the decade the GCIO has just built on the directions the GRN has already travelled and decided to install P25 equipment at new installations (which i think sort of caused problems for the reuse of the SOCOG trunked repeaters). As I expressed before i find it a bit odd that the North Coast (with a large % of the rural population) is left almost to last but I think in another thread Richard said it will take about 70-80 bases - ie a big project in itself.

My personal opinion (on the outside looking in) for what it is worth

Grant

[Bigfella237]

~ the North Coast (with a large % of the rural population) is left almost to last but I think in another thread Richard said it will take about 70-80 bases - ie a big project in itself. ~ Grant

No offense to Richard or yourself Grant (and I am by no means an expert) but I can't see how it would take more than 25-30 sites at the most to cover the North Coast based on a couple of points; firstly the number and location of the duplex sites up the North Coast which are presently licenced to the DoSTaA (there are 23 of them) which would seem, to the untrained observer, to be placed in roughly the right locations already for the necessary trunk sites; and secondly the South Coast, which is covered by about 25 sites (counting W/gong but not counting inland sites), is roughly the same area as the non-coverage part of the north?

The Newell already has reasonable GRN coverage as far north as Moree which means the only extra part of NE NSW which needs some lovin' would be the New England north of Tamworth to Tenterfield and maybe a handful of sites along the Gwydir and Bruxner Highways?

Andrew

[ivahri]

Hi Andrew,

25 sites? You have to be kidding! We have about 40 and still can't match the coverage of the Police networks- try more like between 70 & 80 sites to cover from Taree to the border with handheld grade coverage (in other words assume 5W radios with a stumpy little antenna, not 25W with a 4.5db whip).

My opinion isn't based on guess work- I have coverage plots for all of our sites, plus composite plots of the networks & voting scan groups. I've also driven the entire north coast nany times actually measuring the signal strengths to verify these predictions. Take a town like Coffs- the topography there requires 2 to 3 sites to cover it reliably. Then the "coast" actually extends inland to places like Tabulam & Kyogle, and places like Gloucester need 2 sites. There are 2 sites needed for just the Yamba & Maclean areas. Port Mac & Taree both have 2 sites. 25 sites might come close to doing the major towns- just- but not the roads linking them.

Cheers,

Richard

[ivahri]

~ the North Coast (with a large % of the rural population) is left almost to last but I think in another thread Richard said it will take about 70-80 bases - ie a big project in itself. ~ Grant

The Newell already has reasonable GRN coverage as far north as Moree which means the only extra part of NE NSW which needs some lovin' would be the New England north of Tamworth to Tenterfield and maybe a handful of sites along the Gwydir and Bruxner Highways?

Andrew

Andrew,

That isn't true either. Mt Dowe does not cover north to Moree. Yes, if you have a dipole on a hose pole it does, but do you drive around with a hose pole on your car? Sites at The Tops & Moree are needed just to cover from about Bellata to Moree.

It doesn't cover the Pilliga and it doesn't cover Gunnedah either. And what about Werris Creek? Or Inverell and Barraba?

We aren't using 100W Yaesus you know... Count the sites that Police Fire & Ambos have now & you will see how many sites are needed- minimum. The GRN designers can't perform miracles, they can't achieve greater coverage then we can when they use the same towers as we do!

Cheers,

Richard

[Bigfella237]

~ but do you drive around with a hose pole on your car? ~

Ahh... so you've seen the aerial on my Cruiser then...

~ still can't match the coverage of the Police networks ~

Yeah, my mistake, I was thinking "coverage" in as much as what the Far South Coast has at the moment, yes it is 'covered' in that it has a site here and there but if we're talking coverage such as the NSWPF has then yes, I can see how you would easily triple my estimate?

But that doesn't only apply to the North Coast, there are a whole heap of areas (pretty much all of them actually) within the current GRN footprint which would need many many more sites to obtain the coverage that the police PMR networks have now! As an example, from Nowra south to the Victorian border there are 13 GRN sites compared to 24 police sites, almost double; and I know of quite a few areas where the cops have trouble now getting into one of their own bases that they would probably want addressed in a network upgrade, so you could add a few more to the tally?

Andrew

[centralcoastscanman]

Andrew,

When I had meetings with GCIO about my work going over to GRN they gist of what they told me was they are eventually aiming for 99.9% coverage of the state but as with any system if you want 100% coverage the individual agencies would need to pay for their own repeaters to cover those black spots...

[Bigfella237]

Sounds like ASNSW may be moving toward migration... at least in Southern NSW?

Listening to Southern Operations over the last couple of days and they've been mentioning "changes" to their radio system that they "will take a while to get used to" (although I'm not sure myself how much 'getting used to' it would take not to have to change PMR channels all the time)?

Andrew

[ivahri]

Andrew,

They are still months away yet as they are running behind my agency with their radio upgrades. The plan is both agencies will co-ordinate their migrations so when one goes over to P25. so does the other. That allows Moto to make the capacity changes at the sites at the same time. This is supposed to occur during February.

I guess you must be referring to South Coast? Our guys are facing the same big change but let's face it moving from PMR to GRN ain't rocket science. There is some anti-GRN folk in these areas but they will have to just suck it in & cop it...

Richard