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The
Washington PNWDigital.Net network of
repeaters support the work done by EmComm and other public service
groups and we offer our network
services in Washington. Scheduled
nets or drills by an organized
EmComm or public service group are
supported and we encourage
these groups to explore the services
that we can provide your
organization..
Your event will have priority on our talkgroups over other normal network
user activity when scheduled through
our
Nets coordinator.
Please
contact us to reserve dates
and times as well as to discuss
specific needs. This will
enable PNWDigital.Net to provide the most
efficient resources and notify our
members of upcoming events to reduce
inadvertent use during your event.
PNWDigital.Net
can provide 95%
coverage of the I-90 travel corridor
to supplement our current 95%
coverage of the I-5 travel corridor
in Washington and well into British
Columbia and south to Eugene OR.
While Idaho, Oregon and British Columbia
are not officially in our Washington EmComm plan, they
may be
potentially
available to use with many
of our interconnected talkgroups as they
are officially a part of the PNWDigital.Net
network.
We can likely provide
you with single or multiple
repeaters, local, county wide,
intra-county or statewide
services. By default our PS 2
talkgroup is set-up to operate
independently on each local repeater but public service
event personnel are easily able to
add more repeaters as needed, in the
field and on the fly. With
prior arrangements for scheduled
nets or other events, we are able to
implement unique setting that will
set-up our repeaters to suit your
needs better.
PS 1 and PS 2 are
generally quiet by design. PS
1 is similar to PNW 1 (primary
hailing) and PNW 2 (secondary
hailing) as these talkgroups light
up almost every repeater in
Washington state by default.
PNW 1 and PNW 2 are calling or very
short QSO talkgroupsTG's primarily
as they are full time on all PNWDigital.Net
repeaters. That is why they
are generally quiet as well.
For EmComm and
public service group use of PS 1 or
PS 2, we request that you
contact us
to make arrangements for the use of
PS 1 or PS 2. Unforeseen
priority or Emergency events are not
subject to any prearrangements,
so use you best judgment. You
might consider PS 1 as being the 911
for Washington.
PS 2 is the
primary public service talkgroup as
it can be scaled up as needed to
provide coverage into more and wider
areas. Other talkgroups tend
to be used as a practical
implementation or by each groups
preference.
PS 1 is a
secondary talkgroup
available if needed but it lights up
almost all Washington state
repeaters so PS 1 is more likely to
be used in a statewide emergency,
rather than for routine weekly nets
or training events.
PNWDigital.Net has it's
own direct connecting MMDVM
server to support hotSpot
deployment and use at stationary
locations or in the field via
convenient tethering to cellular
phones or other Internet sources in
tandem with repeaters or use in
areas not supported by RF repeater
coverage. Generally not the
most robust, dependable approach due
to Internet connectivity but bring
essential operational advantages to
areas that do not have RF repeater
coverage. We also have 7 other
MMDVM services to support other
aspects of our network operation
that could provide essential back
channel operation if the repeater
network is busy or congested.
SMS or Text
Messaging can also be available.
At this time, it's use is
problematic due to many non Motorola
radios not implementing SMS support
according to their standard.
PNWDigital.Net is working on determining
how to best support most radios
rather than only MotoTRBO hardware.
This is an ongoing effort.
PNWDigital.Net is
closely associated with
HamWAN and their statewide
microwave IP backbone and we have
been able to bring HamWAN to sites
where PNWDigital.Net has repeaters.
Many of our repeaters are now using
the HamWAN backbone and all our
Networking services on the West side
of the state is on the HamWAN
microwave backbone as are 6 of our
repeaters. We have 3 repeaters
on the East side with HamWAN network
support and we are supporting and
funding the effort to bring HamWAN
backbone over the Cascades to Yakima
in a major effort to bring all of
HamWAN onto a single RF backbone.
PNWDigital.Net also
is capable of supporting a Brandmeister
talkgroup (TG ID 31771) on a full
time basis if needed.
Brandmeister brings several benefits
to the table with little downside.
In fact we have
PS 1 and PS 2
talkgroups are designed to function
in an emergency. Nothing must
be enabled or programmed ahead of
any event. So these services
are available at any time. Of
course any talkgroup can be used for
an emergency. We suggest
Washington 1 or PNW 1 (programmed
full time on most Washington
repeaters) as the initial talkgroups
of choice as all our users have
these talkgroups and generally are
listening via scan or Rx Groups. |