SwiftSTOR^TM Logging Recorder for Trunked Radio Pinpoints Intermittent Problem in
Trunked Radio System Even Before Installation is Complete!

WOOD RIVER, IL - Radio professionals at a major refinery here, were surprised and pleased when a new type of Logging Recorder they were having installed did more than they expected by locating and identifying an intermittent trunked system repeater - even before the installation was complete. The recording system, the SwiftSTORTM Logging Recorder for Trunked Radio was purchased to record and recover trunked radio conversations, but on this day, it did more than double duty. As Swift Computers' personnel were finalizing the installation and conducting training, a refinery worker entered the room and approached the chief radio technician. The worker complained of poor radio reception quality on his handheld radio and requested a new one. The radio tech tested the transmission and reception quality of the handheld and it seemed to be OK. The radio tech offered to give the worker a new radio but stated that he was not sure there was anythink wrong the one he had been using. Carl Swift, President of Swift Computers, who was conducting the training overheard the conversation and suggested that because this particular installation captured the trunked radio transmissions off-the-air using receivers, the SwiftSTORTM Recorder could be used to listen to the transmissions and find out if the problem really was in the handheld radio. Swift asked the worker when the problem and been at its worst. As luck would have it, the new recording system had been started just two hours beforehand. By searching for transmissions on the workers talk group during the time period he experienced the problem, the SwiftSTORTM Recorder quickly recovered the specific radio transmission in question. When the transmissions were replayed, the worker immediately recognized the groups conversation. "Hey, that's us talking," he exclaimed. "Listen, you can't understand what he is saying". With those few words, the handheld radio was eliminated as a suspect because the recorder had heard the same problem with a different receiver. The question remained, where was the problem? The transmitting radio or the trunked radio system repeater. By observing the display on the SwiftSTORTM which provides the date, time, radio ID, talk group and RF channel of the transmission, it was quickly apparent that the problem moved among the individual radio transmitters in the talk group, but always occurred on the same repeater. A quick subsequent search for transmissions on the suspect repeater confirmed that the repeater was handling very short transmissions OK, but transmissions lasting more than a few seconds were becoming garbled. The radio tech commented "I've got a bad repeater, I can fix that." and took the faulty repeater out of service. The radio tech then turned to the refinery worker and thanked him for reporting the problem. "No telling how long that repeater has been acting up. You are the only person out of 1300 users who has reported the problem." The radio technician then turned to Swift and said "I think this thing just paid for itself. It could have taken months to find this problem with out your recorder. It was an intermittent, intermittent!"