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Understanding Motorola Radio Trunking 101 by Phil Burks Genesis. What IS Trunking?. The ‘dictionary definition is- It’s a concept that allows the automatic sharing of a small number of communications paths among a large number of subscribers. Like Telephone and PBX Systems.
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Understanding Motorola Radio Trunking101by Phil BurksGenesis
What IS Trunking? The ‘dictionary definition is- It’s a concept that allows the automatic sharing of a small number of communications paths among a large number of subscribers. Like Telephone and PBX Systems
What IS Trunking? Here is the ‘practical’ definition that you will use in daily life- A Trunking System is a radio system that is usually owned by ‘The State of…’ or ‘The County of…’ or ‘The City of...’ It has many radio channels that are controlled by a ‘brain’ so that many many radios can all use the same system at the same time. Trunk systems are also owned by the ‘University of…’, power companies, manufacturing plants and other entities that need portable, radio communication. There are Motorola Trunk systems EVERYWHERE. Motorola owns over 80% of the public safety Radio Trunking market space.
What IS Trunking? In 2-way radio– over 3000 radios can share 28 radio channels and all talk. BUT… What IF it gets clogged and busy???? Call 007’s Guru----- “Queue”
BAD Queuing I HATE the lines at the bank drive in and at toll booths!
BAD Queuing I HATE RED Cars
GOOD Queuing!! This is like at Airline Counters. THIS is the type of queuing that Motorola uses- FIFO. Typically there are enough radio channels to handle even the worst peak in radio traffic, but like a PBX, sometimes they do get overloaded.
Basic Radio Terms Unit ID-Like the License Plate # on your car, it identifies who each radio is to the system. Note- this is NOT the serial number of the radio, but rather an ID that is assigned to each radio by the system manager. Talkgroup-It groups all radios that work with each other on the system. Like- Within the Police, there might be a Sergeant's Talkgroup, a Traffic Talkgroup and a Vice Talkgroup.
Basic Radio Terms Unit ID ALIAS- While each radio has a Serial Number and then an ID, the Alias makes more sense to the users. Aliases fro radios are like— 34025= Sgt. Smith 22737= Outside Maintenance In a Motorola SmartZone system, Aliases are many times entered into the SmartZone Management Terminal. If that is done, the ATIA data stream gives us the ID and the Alias that we then send to other devices. Talkgroup ALIAS-Like Unit ID, this is an understandable name for a Talkgroup, like- T800401=Tyler Traffic Control T800427=Tyler Meter Readers
1 Police Ambulance Fire Police 2 Fire Ambulance Police Basic Radio Terms GROUP CALL (Dispatch) This involves all radios in a given Talkgroup at one time. (Example Below- 2 Voice Channels, 3 Talkgroups) Voice Channels Time Group Call (sometimes called simply Dispatch) is the most common form of communications on a Motorola system. It is a ‘one to many’ type call. A conversation can move from channel to channel on a Trunk system. You can see that Police started on Channel #1 then went to Channel #2 then back to Channel #1. Piecing together an entire conversation can be very difficult without some intelligence being added.
Basic Radio Terms PRIVATE CONVERSATION (2 radios only) Private Conversation is used to allow 2 radios to talk without the rest of the radios in a Talkgroup listening. This is used many times for supervisors to talk about an employee. BUT, many times it is also abused by over use. RF based audio is the ONLY method that will capture the audio of a Private Conversation.
Basic Radio Terms INTERCONNECT TELEPHONE (Radio to Land / Land to Radio) Before Cell Phones, this was a very popular feature on Motorola Trunk Systems. Now, it is rarely used. Also, it’s operation is simplex, not duplex (talk and listen at the same time). Thus it is more difficult to use and thus it is not often used.
Basic Radio Terms EMERGENCY CALL (Radio to Dispatcher) As the name implies, this is used to indicate an emergency condition. There is an orange button (usually) on each portable radio that the user can push to indicate an emergency. The data that indicates that a call is an emergency becomes one of the search criteria.
Genesis’Expertise(Motorola Trunking 101) Control Channel-A radio channel that carries all of the data about what is happening on the system. The mobile and portable radios listen to this data to know what channel to go to when a call involves them. There is NO Alias information on a Control Channel. ATIA (Air Traffic Interface Application)- It is a Data Port on a SmartZone Controller that carries all of the data about what is happening on all of the channels, all sites, all Talkgroups, all radios, all DIUs and much more on the system. This DOES include Alias information.
Basic Radio Terms Central Controller (The BRAIN for SmartNet) There are 2 types for SmartNet- the older is called the 6809 Controller and the newer is the MCC3600. Pictured is the older version. This has a list of all radios that are permitted to use a system and it tells all radios on a SmartNet system what channels to use. It also handles the call queuing. There is one Central Controller per site.
Basic Radio Terms Repeater (Analogues to RF channel in MOST cases) Transmit Receive If you hear that a system has 83 channels, then it is likely that they have 83 of these repeaters. SmartNet systems can have a maximum of 28 channels and SmartZone systems can have well over 100 channels.
Basic Radio Terms Zone Controller (The BRAIN for SmartZone) Older 4.1 & Newer Zone Controllers are used on SmartZone systems to control everything. The ATIA data stream comes from this box. The owner has 2-3 terminals that are used to activate and manage the valid radios and Talkgroups.
Basic Radio Terms DIU (Digital Interface Unit) Older Newer On Motorola ASTRO systems, each call type can be encrypted to keep scanners and other ‘ears’ from understanding what is said. The DIU units handle the encrypting and decrypting tasks. They are a great audio ‘tap’ point for recorders. They are found in SmartNet and SmartZone systems. There is not necessarily one DIU per channel.
Basic Radio Terms AEB (Ambassador Electronics Bank) Used in 3.0-4.1 systems The AEB handles the audio switching tasks and is a connection point for consoles on a SmartZone system. This is where the T1 audio from the sites merge. The ARE limits in the AEB and it cannot be expanded very easily. In SmartZone 6.x, this is replaced by a VoIP router.
Basic Radio Terms CEB (Central Electronics Bank) The CEB handles all the control ‘back office’ type things for Motorola consoles. LORI (Logging Recorder Interface) cards are located in the CEB.LORI cards provide audio output that USUALLY is one Talkgroup per LORI card. For Talkgroup based recording installations, we need them to be set up this way.
Let’s look at the Motorola System Types, their names, and typical uses.
Genesis’ Focus(What we do) Genesis specializes in Enhancing Motorola Trunk Systems • SmartNet • Simple system with about 30 mile radius coverage • We use- Control Channel Data • SmartZone • Collection of SmartNet Systems • We use- ATIA Data from each Zone • OmniLink • Collection of SmartZone Systems • We use- ATIA Data from each Zone • Dimetra for TETRA • Same ‘guts’ as OmniLink with different channeling and different over-the-air protocol. • We use- ATIA Data from each Zone
Genesis’ Expertise(Motorola Trunking 101) • SmartNet • Simple system with about 30 mile radius coverage Handles about 3000 radio units. 1-28 Channels Genesis can decode the RF Control Channel
Genesis’ Expertise(Motorola Trunking 101) • SmartZone • A Collection of SmartNet Systems Handles up to 65,000 radio units. 1-100 sites Genesis can decode the ATIA data port.
Genesis’Expertise(Motorola Trunking 101) • OmniLink / Dimetra • A Collection of SmartZone Systems Handles up to 65,000+ radio units. Genesis can decode the ATIA data ports.
This completes the basic Motorola Trunk System Terminology. Questions? Ask your Sales Engineer, or feel free to call us at Genesis! 903.561.6673 1-877-548-0465