WAERN use

WA Department of Fire and Emergency Services (6AR and 6IP) (Including the Fire Services, SES & VMRS) and Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions

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Magnus
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Re: WAERN use

Post by Magnus »

For those interested in providing feedback on WAERN

http://www.ses-wa.asn.au/node/1601
nra555
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Re: WAERN use

Post by nra555 »

BuddahFRS wrote:
nra555 wrote:Has anyone used the dual TX/RX or crossband repeat function operationally ? they could be awesome features to have at hand, but seem to be causing more bad than good. as said befor, it all comes down to training, or lack of.
I know our brigade has barley touched on these functions. most people struggle with changing bands.
we have been told and its also stated in the WAERN manual that X-Band repeter is not to be used. its one of the rules of WAERN same as scanning. we are told about, only to disable it just incase someone has enabled it. told it could cause a lot of problems on the network
I'm aware of this, Iv done the training, I was just asking to see how commonly it is actually used.
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Re: WAERN use

Post by vk6hgr »

Magnus wrote:For those interested in providing feedback on WAERN
Writing only as a listener myself, but the problems WAERN appears to have stem I think from its newness and the general unfamiliarity of users with the new radios and channel plan. Many users don't appear to know the fireground and network channels for their area (or inadvertently swap the two so they pop up on 6AR instead of the fireground channel).

LOTS of users don't listen before they speak or just transmit their message without waiting for an acknowledgement. (probably not helped by key-up delays that large linked networks have) More times than I can count I hear someone transmit right over the top of someone else mid-sentence. Uh, folks, listen before transmit, looking at the busy light..?
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observer
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Re: WAERN use

Post by observer »

To be fair you find that sometimes radio transmitions are not picked up. The user believes the airway is clear and then talks, only to find out later on that they are talking over another unit. I have witnesed this on numerous occasions.

Also you often get people pressing the PTT button at the same time (give or take a second or two) as another unit. This is common when multiple units are turning out at the same time.
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Re: WAERN use

Post by VK6DF »

I could not help but laugh years ago when i heard just how they were going to try and develop this system and implement it. Having worked in comms ind for a long time and delft with vollies there is 1 thing i know and that is to keep EVERYTHING. Simple. I mean why complicate things when the folks are already under stress of the job at hand, they are not going to want to have to remember all this radio crap or pull out books of cheat sheets to figure it out.

Couple years back when living/ working in Tom Price i was asked to assist the WAERN tech, what blew me away was he struggled to explain to me how it all was suppose to work ( and the need of so many radios in the car was too confusing even for me)

With the technology today (or even 5yrs ago) surely they could have developed a much simpler and more effective radio system.

Its obvious they're trying to move away from mid band, it would have been easier to deck out all the repeater sites like they have ( just not with crappy icom repeaters that need to be modified to hell before you can send them into the field) use a simple audio bridge (like they have ) link mid and high band together then over time upgrade the radios in the cars (pull out mid band and fit high band) keeping everything simple, none of this multi coloured control heads and 24 radio's mounted in the back.

1 of the tradesmen i work with (comms tech) has been involved with the fire brigade here in karratha for many years and even he cant get his head around how it all works.

There is something like 5 high band repeaters for our area listed (and as far as i know only 1 exists which is located at my works comms site on the Burrup peninsula)

It just seems way more complicated then it needs to be.

My 2 cents

jono
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Re: WAERN use

Post by vk6hgr »

I've heard from friends who use these radios is that it is hard to get your head around them. Like anything new, I suppose...
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Re: WAERN use

Post by floppy »

more buttons on a phone or TV remote

Image
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Re: WAERN use

Post by VK6DF »

Image - so is yellow VHF high band? mid? UHF?

ch 112 for high band is different to your picture.

it may have less buttons, but try explaining to someone who doesnt know the difference between 27mhz cb and uhf cb about how to link there high band and mid band together to make a mobile repeater to talk to site x and remember to be on channel xyz or it work work and enable this feature and that feature and your hand held needs to be on channel B.
oh and make sure its the dual body single head radio not the dual head single body ...


why not take all the complicated stuff away from the user and leave it at the comms site and give the operators 1 radio keep it simple. mayb even use a voting system to increase coverage and the user doesnt even have to change channels on there radio. or even simulcast. Radio over IP is a very easy and affordable option now days...

unlimited options and they chose the hardest one possible
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Re: WAERN use

Post by floppy »

VK6DF wrote:ch 112 for high band is different to your picture.
like this one for Gnowangerup
Image
In my humble opinion the issue is channel numbering, personally I think they should have used channels 1 -1000 for VHF
and 1001 - 1500 for UHF, unfortunately for the 3 - 4 versions of the same radio I saw when I was involved not one actually said UHF of VHF which would have been confusing anyway if you were in a hurry.
it may have less buttons, but try explaining to someone who doesnt know the difference between 27mhz cb and uhf cb
given the time I usually had quite a lot of success with those sorts of questions, but FESA was more interested with how to talk ( official term is voice procedures ) rather than how to operate .....
oh and make sure its the dual body single head radio not the dual head single body ...
LOL most don't need to know that ....
why not take all the complicated stuff away from the user and leave it at the comms site and give the operators 1 radio keep it simple.
quite agree ... sigh ... just don't think the radio itself is at fault
but the way it was set-up, and the lack of actual training to actually operate it
VK6DF wrote:and give the operators 1 radio keep it simple.
for hand-helds, the vertex was a little pearler .. at least for UHF

and for anyone wondering, a couple of years ago I was trying to write a simple instruction manual on how to operate the WAERN radio
which is why I have the photos but as I said , voice procedures was more important
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Re: WAERN use

Post by VK6DF »

Last week the Karratha station had a representative come and show a slide show/ demo the equipment which from what iv heard seemed to be not that helpful. Tonight im going to help out "demo" actual operation for them. the stuff they will use etc.

let people push buttons for them selves in a controlled environment and come up with scenarios and show what there radio gear can do (that is useful to them not all the other silly BS the system is capable of because not everyone needs to know that)

Floppy, I agree there could have been far better way's to clean up the channel listing and with such a large alpha numeric display you could put plenty of text on the screen.

There is a need for "Voice procedures" but first thing first, Know how the gear works. There is no point talking in protocol if no one can here you.

From what iv heard from many is the training is lacking ALOT. Training is the key to any new gear. a few years back i spent quite a few months rolling out training on WAPOL's HF network and cleared up alot of myths and showed user's not to be scared of the gear, to use it to there advantage. Having a couple radio's set up in the training room for people to actually push buttons on and get the hang of it and interested in how it can benefit them was key. no body likes death by power point, there needs to be hands on training.

nothing beats " This radio can make a telephone call. *push buttons + wait for training room phone to ring* see :) "
" wanna see a text message sent from radio to radio? *write text like on mobile phone + send* you in the back, come up here and read what it says on that other radio over there...*

make people interested in the gear, promote use dont make people afraid to play with them. and when in doubt "turn it off and on again"
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Re: WAERN use

Post by vk6hgr »

Listening with some frustration to an incident in Chidlow where the Helitak ground controller needs to speak to both the incident controller and aircraft but doesn't know that ch 621 and ch 16 are linked (she seems to have access to mid and high band radios) and doesn't know how to get her WAERN radio to monitor both channels.
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auntys_eyes
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Re: WAERN use

Post by auntys_eyes »

vk6hgr wrote:(she seems to have access to mid and high band radios) and doesn't know how to get her WAERN radio to monitor both channels.
Depending on the age and setup of the appliance some appliances don't have radios that can dual receive the VHF Hi and Mid bands. Some appliances have the old black Tait 2020 radios for Mid band and the new yellow head radios for Hi band (and UHF), others have the new green head radios that are dual Mid/Hi band. She may have been operating 2 different radios.
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nra555
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Re: WAERN use

Post by nra555 »

auntys_eyes wrote:
vk6hgr wrote:(she seems to have access to mid and high band radios) and doesn't know how to get her WAERN radio to monitor both channels.
Depending on the age and setup of the appliance some appliances don't have radios that can dual receive the VHF Hi and Mid bands. Some appliances have the old black Tait 2020 radios for Mid band and the new yellow head radios for Hi band (and UHF), others have the new green head radios that are dual Mid/Hi band. She may have been operating 2 different radios.
Your probably right. But if thats the case why not just use the 2020 and 8260 (set too highband) as your dual recieve ?
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