23 February,2009 09:40 AM IST | | Prawesh Lama
Delhi police graduate from wireless to digital trunk radio
If you have ever had a chance to travel with a police constable, hearing all sorts of messages that were flashed on his wireless set, you must have wondered how he will pick the message meant for him among hundreds of others.
All this is going to change soon.
The Delhi police are ready to junk their wireless sets for advanced digital trunk radio system. All patrol motorcycles would be equipped with the new system making for enhanced communication between the cops on the street.
Rajan Bhagat, Delhi Police Public Relations Officer said, "The process to procure the system has been initiated. They will be delivered soon."
The new system would enable the communication process between the police officials to run more smoothly. "The transmitter of a message now would be able to choose an individual or a particular user group for a message. The target user would be tracked through a GPS device and informed about an emergency in his area," said a senior police official explaining the system.
This is a far cry from the Ultra High frequency wireless sets where a message was transmitted to everyone on the user frequency to and the transmitter of the message cannot pinpoint the target. Also, the transmission is not smooth and the message is sometimes lost in translation.
The new digital trunk radio system offers complete safety of the information.
Senior police officials also pointed out that if there is a break in the communications, the controller could immediately move all the users in a selected talk group to the next available frequency without much delay.
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In the west many countries have adopted the digital trunk radio system in communications. The Philadelphia police was one of those who started the system. Beijing police has also adopted this modern version of the communication system. The Delhi Police has around 150 Police Control Room motorcycles along with 600 Police Control room vans.
| Target practice |
| "Trunked" radio systems differ from "conventional" radio systems in that a conventional radio system uses a dedicated channel (frequency) for each individual group of users, while "trunking" radio systems use a pool of channels which are available for a great many different groups of users. For example, if police communications are configured in such a way that twelve conventional channels are required to permit citywide dispatch based upon geographical patrol areas, during periods of slow dispatch activity much of that channel capacity is idle. In a trunked system, the police units in a given geographical area are not assigned a dedicated channel, but instead are members of a talk-group entitled to draw upon the common resources of a pool of channels. |
