Radios :)

timmywex

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0502/breaking51.htm

Contract signed for Garda radio system
Patrick Logue

Gardaí are to be issued with a new secure radio system starting later this year, Minister for Justice Brian Lenihan said this morning.

Officers in the Dublin Metropolitan Region will be first to use the new system with a full role-out across the State within two years, Mr Lenihan said a statement. He said his Department had signed a contract with Tetra Ireland Ltd last night for the provision of the national digital radio service.

Garda radios currently work on the analogue system, which can be intercepted by criminals and others using scanners, but digital radio transmissions are secured against eavesdropping, according to the Minister.

They also offer better coverage, a push-button emergency signal and are compatible with the system used by the PSNI. Data can also be transmitted. Many officers have resorted to using their mobile phones in the absence of a secure radio system.

The digital radio service was first mooted by the Government in 2001, when a pilot project was carried out to assess its usefulness.

The contract will also provide a secure digital radio service for members of other emergency and allow all emergency services to communicate with each other. It will also allow gardai to communicate with members of the PSNI when necessary.

Tetra Ireland is a company formed for the delivery of the service and comprises Eircom, Motorola and Sigma Wireless.

FGR

Finally some official progress.

It'll be nice to be in the knowledge that your (personal issue) radio is reliable and in good working order.

Eru

Replace 'Later this year' with 'by the end of 2009' and '2 years' with '5 years'.

Random

"a push-button emergency signal"
How's this work?

Sully

random wrote: »

"a push-button emergency signal"
How's this work?

Sends a signal back to base that there is an emergency. Just by pressing a button if in a situation where you cant radio for backup.

Fyr.Fytr

Give the officer a few seconds open air time to shout location and whats going on

Thomas_S_Hunterson

I presum it's just like a panic button or something. When it's pressed, it sends an alert signal to base and latches the microphone on so those at base can hear exactly what's going on.

/edit: beaten to it x2

Sully

Sean_K wrote: »

I presum it's just like a panic button or something. When it's pressed, it sends an alert signal to base and latches the microphone on so those at base can hear exactly what's going on.

/edit: beaten to it x2

As seen in "The Bill"

Random

I've just been given a couple different answers?

Does it just send a distress call to the base, the radio is unique to the officer, and they dispatch units to their last location?

Does it put the radio on speaker phone and let them shout for help?

Does it actually help pin point their location?

Does it do something else?

Thanks

metman

Sully wrote: »

As seen in "The Bill"

What annoys me about the emer button is that some parties use it as a way to get priority on the radio......by 'some parties' I mean PCSOs (though you do get the occasional officer who likes the sound of their own voice on the airwaves). When you hear an emer activation you immediately think someone is getting a kicking and it is a major source of irritation when instead you hear some numpty PCSO say: "can I have a police officer attend so and so, I've got a male who won't give me his details..." The bloke hasn't done anyting but the PCSO in question thinks not giving details is an offence. Several times I've had to be physically restrained from CSing the PCSO after such an occurence :rolleyes:

Oh and the Bill = pants.

Sully

If its like the UK system it indicates an officer in distress back in the base and the radio is open mic so everything said can be heard back in base. Im not to sure does it pin point the location, but I would imagine the base knows their location regardless.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Sully wrote: »

As seen in "The Bill"

/hangs head in shame

Random

Sully wrote: »

If its like the UK system it indicates an officer in distress back in the base and the radio is open mic so everything said can be heard back in base. Im not to sure does it pin point the location, but I would imagine the base knows their location regardless.

So if they don't know where the officier last was and they don't say it after hitting the button the other coppers won't be much better off in finding him other than to know he's in trouble so they send more units ?

Fyr.Fytr

Well if tetra is used to its full capability I believe it has gps tracker capability.

Metman will have experience in this are please do tell

Random

Fyr.Fytr wrote: »

Well if tetra is used to its full capability I believe it has gps tracker capability.

Metman will have experience in this are please do tell

That'd be useful I guess - finding out the nearest units and what not !

metman

random wrote: »

Does it just send a distress call to the base, the radio is unique to the officer, and they dispatch units to their last location?

Does it put the radio on speaker phone and let them shout for help?

Does it actually help pin point their location?

Does it do something else?

Thanks

When the emergency button is activated every officer on channel's handset vibrates angrily and beeps loudly and a message is displayed on the on-screen display. The control room will immediately try to make contact with the officer in question and will know whose handset it is. You can't really miss an emer activation and it usually makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand-up and all conversation in a police station stop. Having heard a few serious emer activations (on one occasion I could hear one of my colleagues screaming for help and fighting with someone, turns out he was fighting off a pitbull that the owner had set on him before joining his dog to attack my colleague) it brings home the danger of the job and you drop everything and run to help.

Once activated the user who has hit his button has priority over all other traffic on the air for x amount of seconds with short gaps to allow control to pass messages and the microphone on the user's radio is switched on and works on handsfree so you can hear what is going on.

As regards specifics about pinpointing locations etc Airwave has various capabilities in this respect but different forces have opted for different packages and I'm not going into specifics as to whats used in my force or others.

Random

metman wrote: »

When the emergency button is activated every officer on channel's handset vibrates angrily and beeps loudly and a message is displayed on the on-screen display. The control room will immediately try to make contact with the officer in question and will know whose handset it is. You can't really miss an emer activation and it usually makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand-up and all conversation in a police station stop. Having heard a few serious emer activations (on one occasion I could hear one of my colleagues screaming for help and fighting with someone, turns out he was fighting off a pitbull that the owner had set on him before joining his dog to attack my colleague) it brings home the danger of the job and you drop everything and run to help.

Once activated the user who has hit his button has priority over all other traffic on the air for x amount of seconds with short gaps to allow control to pass messages and the microphone on the user's radio is switched on and works on handsfree so you can hear what is going on.

As regards specifics about pinpointing locations etc Airwave has various capabilities in this respect but different forces have opted for different packages and I'm not going into specifics as to whats used in my force or others.

Ah, so it can locate their position much like you can narrow down a mobile phone signal then? That's handy enough. Though I reckon pinpoint GPS would be much better.

System sounds pretty good !

TheNog

I checked the internet for this story and was only able to find Timmywex link and this one from enn.ie

http://www.enn.ie/article/10124318.html

However neither the Department of Finance or Justice have it on their sites.

Could this have been a created story?

source

was mentioned to me during the week by a sgt that the contract was signed and that the radios were on their way, He's CPD and apparently they have training on the tetra system coming up.

TheNog

foinse wrote: »

He's CPD and apparently they have training on the tetra system coming up.

training coming up? that's fairly quick

source

it's instructor training he's going on, so frontline training won't be happening for a while yet.

Eru

Theres a few on trial in my place at the moment, only seen them and havent used them so cant form an opinion but I have been informed that they will be personal issue and will have our details plus tracking enabled.