"Broken" radio network risks lives: Police union

[auntys_eyes]

POC - Police Operations Centre = VKI
PAC - Police Assistance Centre = Where you end up when calling for Police assistance (131 444)

[Nick]

The WAPOL HF network has been upgraded and now has Automatic Link Establishment to eliminate having to find frequencies and encryption.

[vk6hgr]

The WAPOL HF network has been upgraded and now has Automatic Link Establishment to eliminate having to find frequencies and encryption.

Is the police HF encrypted?

[Nick]

They have the option of open or encrypted with NGT radio's, they need to press the encryption key on the handpiece both ends. If you go to the Codan website they have a demo so you can hear the difference, basically it sounds like white noise.

[slipknot]

I remember whn i lived down there , i was told that wapol have encryption, they just dont know how to use it on hf as most have mentioned.
I would have thought it would be hard to use digital encryption on hf. appart form anaolgue scramble

[VK6DF]

"A lot of it comes down to training too. Most of the HF gear is sitting in Country Police Stations gathering dust. Many 'dead spots' across the State could easily be overcome by using the right gear - HF or Sat Phone's. As I have siad previously, PAC have a dedicated Country / HF Op but they tend to sit there VERY lonely on most shifts...

Most Country Cars have the gear - most Country Police don't know how to use it!"

Id like to think my training went along way. spent alot of time training up regional police staff on using HF and made all the training doc's. at almost every country station i had been to there were more then 1 vehicle with HF. im not sure where that info come from.
there where problems before with training with HF. the staff did not have confidence in the system (even tho it has always worked fine) just a bit of a demo day with some equipment and showing them the tricks (until ALE was rolled out). my exp was that people just didnt understand it, and after a bit of training alot actually started to use it and often. I know of 1 station on the north west coast that hardly bothers with the uhf channel because the area they have to cover cant possibly be covered with uhf, and they have chosen to use the hf network and they loved it. infact after a few months of doing the first training i went back and was trying to call them on the uhf channel and got no response because they tend to use the hf more often. made me smile

As nick said, there using ALE now which is an AWESOME feature that finally got pushed thru to be used. it means no need to try and guess what channel to use. it takes all the hard work out of hf. dial in the selcall number u want and send. then wait for the confirmation

for the people (and gov knobs) who think its a matter of clicking there fingers n bam seemless coverage throughout the state, have they really thought about what it actually takes to get "Good" coverage on uhf in them area's.
take a look at the metro network. it works well because there are 30 sites in such a close area. when there were only about 6 analog channels before. take that ratio, and work out just how many sites will be needed to give them seemless comms throughout the state.

Gets me fired up coz i know how hard the comms guys work to try n keep everything ticking over and then basiclly gov knobs come out and say "ahh its crap" plus, as we speak its slowly being replaced with new equipment.

As for the uhf system going "encrypted" in the country. this obviously has nothing to do with coverage its purely a security reason, to stop people (mainly the baddies) from listening in. a few site upgrades would go along way but comes down to someone spending some $$

[Tyranus]

VK6NDT really has the nail on the head. Training is usually a big factor in it not being used. I spent tonight supervising a stand where a team had to setup an SES HF radio, most of them had never seen it before, it involved setting up a long wire and earthing so it was not a simple matter of turning the HF in the vehicle on.
Once they'd seen it setup and I'd explained where it would be used a few members were rather interested in it (not enought to be come amateurs though.) and thus more training will be provided to them on the subject, if someone doesn't know how it works, they generally don't want to touch it incase it breaks. Teach them how it works and how reliable it is and they'll use it I'm sure.