PTrunk Version 2.16

During the last few years while TBSA has been selling FTrunk the hobbyists MPT1327 trunking decoder we have been asked on several occasions by trunking professionals if we had a product that could decode and display all MPT1327 codewords.

Now TBSA is proud to announce its latest product - PTrunk. This product consists of a specially designed MPT1327 modem which connects to a PC via a serial port and a piece of Windows 95/98/NT software. In its most basic form this software displays the MPT1327 codewords on the screen as they are transmitted on the control or traffic channels (both base and mobile sides).

Here you can see some screenshots showing PTrunk monitoring the base and mobile sides of a control channel as well as a traffic channel.

In addition the PTrunk software comes with a number of advanced features ..

• The ability for the user to filter which codewords they see displayed on the screen using the familiar Windows menu interface. This is a very useful facility without it when monitoring a control channel the scrolling screen would contain a great many ALH codewords.
  
  
• The user can decide to log activity on the trunked system to disk as a text file. Below is an example of codewords logged on a control channel ..
  
  09:37:45 PFIX#4 REGI ACK QUAL=0 IDENT2#6225 N=0
09:38:11 PFIX#4 IDENT1#5255 ACKV QUAL=0 IDENT2#5250 N=0
09:38:15 PFIX#4 IDENT1#6219 AHY IDENT2#6223 (Need ack from Ident1) CHECK=0
09:38:15 PFIX#4 IDENT1#6219 Speech GTC from IDENT2#6223 CHAN=115 N=1
09:38:15 PFIX#4 IDENT1#6219 Speech GTC from IDENT2#6223 CHAN=115 N=1
09:38:28 PFIX#4 REGI ACK QUAL=0 IDENT2#5102 N=0

  
• PTrunk version 2.1 can control a second computer controlled receiver to monitor voice conversations on traffic channels. The software can be configured so when PTrunk decodes a GTC codeword it automatically tunes the computer controlled receiver to the traffic channel designated.

  Computer controlled receivers currently supported are the AOR 3000 , 3000A , 5000 , 8200 plus the Icom R10 , R7000 , R7100 , R8500 and R9000 as well as the WiNRADiO receivers. Support for further receivers can usually be added free of charge if customers request it.

  If the PC being used has a soundcard fitted then PTrunk can be configured so it automatically records audio activity on traffic channels to the hard drive as industry standard .wav files for later analysis.

• The contents of codewords are interpreted and displayed in the correct format. The example below shows a mobile requesting a call to the public telephone network with an RQS. The second line shows a SAMIS codeword which contains the telephone number which has been dialed.
  
  21:24:04 PFIX#12 PSTNGI RQS IDENT2#1523 (Request Speech) (Priority) FLAG1=1 FLAG2=0
21:24:07 SAMIS DESC=1 (PSTN dialing number) (1 codeword to follow) 2979651811

  Where the program does not know how to interpret data it displays it in binary format such as in this SAMO codeword.
  20:27:45 PFIX#19 IDENT1#1721 SAMO 1000011010101110100010

  
• Short Data Message Headers (HEAD) are displayed along with their associated data codewords.
  
  19:46:11 PFIX#13 IDENT1#2511 HEAD PFIX2#13 IDENT2#2497 (4 data codewords)
Free Format Data
1000000000010100000100010110111000100010010000
1000001001001100110011000000110011001100000011
0000111100000011001000110000001100000100110000
1000100001100101000111000000000000000010000000

  The information in the data codewords is displayed in the method indicated by the data. In the case of free format data it is displayed in binary format.
  
  
• Even invalid codewords are displayed such as this unknown BCAST codeword. The unknown data contained in the PARAMETERS section is displayed in binary format.
  
  20:41:13 BCAST SYS#11418 SYSDEF=21 (unknown) 100000010111000001

  
• Individual radio units can be given an alphanumeric tag by the user. So instead of displaying ..
  
  10:11:03 PFIX#9 REGI ACK QUAL=0 IDENT2#1209 N=0

  The following could be displayed ..
  
  10:11:03 PFIX#9 REGI ACK QUAL=0 Ambulance 5 N=0

  
• On starting PTrunk automatically opens an ASCII text file called the incident file to which it logs all unusual events that the user may be interested in. Each incident logged includes the offending codeword and a plain English description of what it could mean. Below are some examples taken from incident files ..
  
  18:12:43 PFIX#12 REGI ACKX QUAL=0 IDENT2#7381 N=0
This is an invalid request to register which has been denied

19:02:10 PFIX#92 PFIX#12 IDENT1#5907 AHYX IDENT2#7810
Ident2 has cancelled a call.
  
  At midnight PTrunk automatically closes the incident file and opens another. The program gives the incident file a name which describes the day that it covers. For example 20000128_incidents_s00001.log is an incident file for the 28th January 2000. With this ability PTrunk can be left running continuously and there is a constant record of any problems which may have occured. If a customer complains of a problem you can examine the incident files for invalid requests or cancelled calls and the like.
  
  
• There is a calls queued alarm facility. This writes a message to the incident file when the number of queued calls exceeds a level which the user sets. An example is shown below ..
  
  08:39:45 Call queue alarm. The number of calls in the queue is 4
  
  As you can imagine this gives you an important insight into the grade of service you are offering your customers and can give an early warning of system congestion.
  
  
• Another alarm is one which writes a message to the incident file if a mobile spends more than a user determined ammount of time in a call queue. An example of this is shown below ..
  
  08:36:02 PFIX#9 IDENT1#113 Speech GTC from IDENT2#119 CHAN=325 N=0
Call queue time alarm. This call has been queued for 21 seconds.
The average length of time that users currently spend in the queue is 7 seconds.

  This feature gives you yet another insight into the service that you are giving your customers.
  
  
• It is possible for two copies of PTrunk to run on a single PC at the same time. So if you have two PTrunk modems you can simultaneously monitor both the base and mobile sides of a control channel on your computer screen.
  
  
• A feature new to PTrunk version 2.1 are what are called selection files. These allow the programs user to tell the program to view only those commands to or from certain radios or even certain fleets. This is a useful feature when you are fault finding a problem with a particular radio or group of radios on a busy system.
  
  
• PTrunk version 2.1 now has the option to create a HTML file of the contents of its display screen. So with any web server software you can share the output created by PTrunk across your companies intranet or via the internet to someone on the otherside of the world. Here is an example of this file which shows the information that can be shared across any network.

All of these features make PTrunk a powerful tool for the trunking professional to monitor an MPT1327 system and to diagnose problems when they occur.

PTrunk are now available from TBSA.

Australian Purchases

Purchases for inside Australia the cost is $795.30 inclusive of GST plus postage, handling and insurance of $44.00 inclusive of GST.

International Orders (Outside of Australia)

Because there is no Australian government GST on exports out of Australia, your price is slightly better.

The cost is $723.00 plus postage, handling and insurance of $65.00. All orders are sent via Australia Post Airmail and Fully insured.

These prices include an MSK modem , software and connection cables. The modem unit requires 12 volts DC to operate so a power supply will be required.

Existing PTrunk customers can upgrade to PTrunk version 2.16 for free. Contact Ian Wraith for more details.

* NOTE * All prices quoted are in Australian Dollars.