Tune In with MPSCS: Radio Tech Talk

In this episode we chat with Jason Simmons, a subscriber radio tech from Michigan's Public Safety Communications System. He covers the Lansing Radio shop in 11 Michigan counties, stretching from Gratiot down to Barry County, across to Livingston. Subscriber radio techs maintain and repair the radio network and communications equipment for various first responder State of Michigan agencies, such as the Michigan State Police, Department of Natural Resources, Department of Transportation, and even the National Guard. Some of the equipment include 800MHz radios, modems, cameras, and radars. You will also learn what some of the tones of the radio mean. Transcript is available here: https://cms.michigan.gov/mpscs/-/media/Project/Websites/MPSCS/Social_Media/Transcripts/MPSCS-Radio-Tech-Podcast-Transcript-FINAL.pdf

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Welcome to our podcast. Tune in with MPSCS. I am Judy Light, your host for the show. I work in the Field Resource Center, or the FRC, here at Michigan Public Safety Communications System, or the MPSCS. At FRC, we get work requests and we turn them into work orders for our field to go out and take care of equipment that may be broken. We work on several different departments' equipment. So MDOT, DNR, MSP are the ones we deal mainly with. And today we have a fun and interesting show for you. If you've ever wanted to talk to an MPSCS radio tech, we have one here today. With me is Jason Simmons. He is a radio tech for the MPSCS and works in the Lansing region. Welcome to the show, Jason.

SPEAKER_03 1:01

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:03

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_03 1:05

I'm a radio technician with the MPSCS Lansing Radio Shop.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Do you have kids at home? Um what do you guys do?

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Got a uh nine-year-old son and a uh 17-year-old daughter that just graduated, headed to college next year.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Everybody's cooped up at home together right now?

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Yeah, for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Yeah. Um, what did you do before you came to the MPSCS?

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Retired from the Army for 20 years of service doing communications in the Army.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

20 year stretch. Where were you stationed all that time?

SPEAKER_03 1:44

I've been all over the world. Most of my time was at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Did a couple years in Korea. My last duties assignment was at a Defense Intelligence Agency out of uh DC. Or there I went to probably 10 or 12 different countries throughout that four years being there.

SPEAKER_02 2:02

And that was all in communications background, right? Yep. Wow. Um, what does a radio tech at the MPSCS do exactly?

SPEAKER_03 2:11

We have sort of different radio techs. We all kind of do the same thing, but we have radio techs working at the network control center. We have radio programming techs, we have install techs, but the majority of us are either subscriber or infrastructure tech. Infrastructure techs are the techs that work mainly on the towers and the network, and then the subscriber techs, which is primarily what I am. We mainly work with customers, primarily MSP, but we also do DNR, MDOT, and occasionally we work with other agencies. Like I've even done some work with the National Guard.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

Um so after how many years have you been doing this?

SPEAKER_03 2:53

Been with MPSCS for almost four years now.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Okay. So you're seeing some of the same people over and over again getting to know people?

SPEAKER_03 3:00

Yeah. Originally I was at the install shop for a little over two years, primarily building cars for MSP.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

That's when they come in brand new?

SPEAKER_03 3:10

Yeah. And then uh we build them from the scratch or you know, from the ground up, minus the lights, they come in that way. But everything else in the car we install at the install shop.

SPEAKER_02 3:19

How many parts is that roughly?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

You got a dock, a modem, a printer, one to up to three radios, camera system, radar. It's a it takes on average from 10 to 12 hours to build a full car.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

People have no idea what are in these trooper cars, do they?

SPEAKER_03 3:41

No.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

No. Um, what's a normal day like for you?

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Well, my normal day is primarily, like I said, working with subscriber work. In the morning, I get in, I check and see what work orders you guys have sent us from the FRC. And then uh usually have to coordinate with officers or whoever the MDOT on uh scheduling when to do the work, and then or if I already have work scheduled, you know, I'll go out and take care of the work.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

So every day's a little bit different, the same but different.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Yeah, yeah. That's the nice thing about being a field tech is it's not a repetitive like install where you're for the most part, you're doing the same thing every day. I could be working at on a snow plow truck, and then the same day I can be working at a helicopter at for the National Guard.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Whole different animal.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

Nice. Um, what's an example of something you've recently worked on?

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Most recently, probably the cameras for M MSP. Not the new cameras, but the old Digital Ally 800s or 500 cameras.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:46

Those are going away.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

We're being upgraded.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Um, what's your coverage area and what makes that coverage area a little bit more challenging than the rest of the state, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 4:58

Like I said, I work at the Lansing Radio Shop. So our coverage area is 11 counties from Grashett down to Lenaway County and Barrie County across to Livingston County. I guess what makes our area a little more challenging is that we have quite a few counties coming out of the MPSCS system, which require more towers and a little more complexity.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So how many guys are covering 11 counties?

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Our shop has four techs and then the one supervisor. Two of us, again, are primarily subscriber, and the other two are primarily infrastructure, but like myself and one of the other techs that's subscriber, we're learning the infrastructure, so we're kind of you know getting into that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Good. Um, so you get a lot of windshield time some days then. Um, who generally are your customers?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

The customers we deal with the most is MSP, like I said before, since they have the most and the largest variety of equipment, but could work with DNR Law, DNR Parks, DNR Fire, MDOT, and even uh, like I said before, the Michigan National Guard sometimes. And occasionally we'll do some local fire or whatever, like we had to reprogram all of the Jackson County fire departments or radios, but we don't do too much local, but other state stuff.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Okay. And these different agencies, they have different types of vehicles, and they're not all equipped the same.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Oh yeah, no. Because you you know, like MDOT, you could be working on a pickup truck or a salt truck or DNR fire, you could be working on a bulldozer, you you could be working on a you know a regular pickup truck.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

And obviously the bulldozer is not gonna have a radar in it, so no, it does have a radio, but uh could you explain some of the terms that go with the radio programming, like talk groups?

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Talk groups are used on a trunking radio network, uh, which is what we have. It allows more groups on less frequencies, unlike a conventional network where that only allows one group per frequency, pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

So it frees up space.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Yes, it allows more users on the the network pretty much.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

And then you have like encryption, which is uh algorithm used to keep radio communication secure.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:24

You have scanning, which uh allows a user to listen to other talk groups. You have radio IDs, which is a unique identifier that each radio has on a trunk system.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Okay. So each radio ID, if we see that come up on a screen, we know what radio it goes to.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

Yeah. Each radio has, like I said, the unique identifier. So depending on the department or whatever, they know what their IDs are and they they generally know that ID is associated with that officer or that user, whoever that person is.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Um, there's a lot of tones on the on the radios. Can you tell us what some of those mean? Like the push to talk, the chirp?

SPEAKER_03 8:06

Yeah, the the most common one is the push to talk, the chirp. It's a tone that lets you know uh you have a channel and you're free to talk.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Okay. Then the busy.

SPEAKER_03 8:16

The busy is a tone that uh tells you that there is no channel available on the tower that you're affiliated with.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

So eventually the busy goes away and you're allowed to talk.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah, then you'll get a go-ahead tone, which is kind of like the the the chirp that you get when you're you know, when you push the talk, and that tone lets you know that the channel is available. Okay. The thing is, is if you get the busy and if you try it again, it bumps you to the bottom of that queue. If there's a lot of traffic, you know, you could keep messing yourself up.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

You keep putting yourself back in the top.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Very rarely does that happen, but uh but it can happen.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Uh, how about the prohibit?

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Uh prohibit is a tone that you get when someone else is talking and uh on the talk group that you're on when you key up.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

So you're interrupting somebody. Yeah. Okay. Um out of range?

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Out of range is when your radio loses connectivity with the network. And that could be in multiple different reasons. Uh one, you're too far away from a tower, it's a portable, you know, you're inside a building that can cause you to lose signal from the tower, or there could be a problem with your radio, like your antennas damaged, or uh, or there's a problem with the radio.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Okay. And how about Failsoft?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Uh Failsoft is uh is a tone and it'll display on the radio that is that if the tower that you're affiliated to loses connection uh to the site controller, the radio will then only use a single frequency on that site. So it limits your uh traffic that you can talk on.

SPEAKER_02 9:55

Okay. Um, how about site trunking?

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Site trunking is uh a tone and it'll also display on the radio that if the tower that you're affiliated to loses connection with the rest of the system, the radio can only communicate with radios on the same tower.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

So only their neighbors.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Yeah, so any other radios that are affiliated with that tower, those are the only ones that are going to hear your traffic. It won't go back to dispatch or whoever.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

Oh, okay. Um, how about low battery?

SPEAKER_03 10:24

Uh low battery is a tone that you get when your battery is low. Uh you'll want to replace the battery or charge the battery as soon as possible.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Do you know about how much time there's left on a battery when you get that? Or does that just depend?

SPEAKER_03 10:37

It varies. Okay. Batteries can be very temperamental, mainly because people don't maintain their batteries properly. As far as you know, the way you're supposed to charge and discharge your batteries and stuff like that. When you leave batteries sitting on a charger for a long period of time, they'll build up a memory. And uh just like your cell phone, you know, when you first get your cell phone, your battery will last two days, but a year and a half later, your battery only lasts a half a day.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

So it's probably a good thing we're having this talk right now as there's a radio on my desk at home sitting in the charger. Um, when and why did you end up entering this field?

SPEAKER_03 11:12

I entered this field kind of on accident. When I joined the army, I originally wanted to be infantry, you know, the guys with the guns out there, you know, shooting and doing stuff. But uh at the time, the army was pretty full. You know, this was back in '96. It would have been about six months or so before I was able to deploy. So I kind of looked at other jobs that were I'd be able to ship for basic training. So I looked for other jobs and the communications field I got into, I kind of thought or I thought that I would be the guy with the radio on his back with the infantry. Well, I didn't know until I got to school that no, I'm the guy in a big truck with a big antenna, you know. But I eventually was able to start doing some of the stuff with the infantry like I wanted to when I became a satellite uh radio operator, you know, tax at jumper when I was in 82nd.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

So 80 second airborne. No kidding. Um so it was a happy accident.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Yeah, yeah. And after once I learned, you know, communications, whatnot, I realized that hey, this is something I can actually use when I get out eventually. And you know, at that time I didn't know I was gonna spend 20 years in the army, but uh but you still got out. Oh yeah, yeah. And that's how I ended up here because I had 20 years of experience in radios.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Then it worked well for all of us. Um, what challenges or hurdles do you encounter in your line of business?

SPEAKER_03 12:36

I would say that my biggest challenge is uh scheduling and meeting with customers, mainly mainly MSP officers that are night officers and and their take-home cars. Even though there's cars at the post, they don't always like to leave their car to get work done.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Well, I know we were supposed to uh do this podcast a week ago and you had to bump it to meet with somebody that worked on a different shift. Yeah. What are some of your favorite parts of being a radio tech?

SPEAKER_03 13:06

I think my favorite part of being a radio tech is the wide variety of equipment and vehicles and stuff that I work on. You know, like I said before, I could be working on an M dot truck in the morning and then a DNR truck the afternoon and a helicopter.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah, I was more interested in that helicopter part and stuff. Um, do you ever get to ride in them or just work on stuff?

SPEAKER_03 13:27

Well, when I was in the army, yeah, but not since I've been out.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

I was just asking for myself. Um, what are some of the challenges uh that you see as a radio tech?

SPEAKER_03 13:37

I'd say the biggest challenge is uh keeping up with all the technology changes and stuff like that. Somebody's always getting some sort of new piece of equipment, and then of course we're gonna learn it and learn how it works and how to fix it.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

So you have to be smart and you have to be flexible. Oh, yeah, at least. Um, how often do you or should you main do maintenance on the radios?

SPEAKER_03 14:01

I would say uh you should go by the recommendations of the manufacturer because it varies a little bit. There are common things like uh you know, cleaning it and charging your battery properly, like I was saying before, you know, don't just leave the your portable radio sitting on the charger for three weeks, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Or yeah, we'll talk more about that.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

But uh, but yeah, you should go by the manufacturer recommendations on the equipment.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Okay. Good job.

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Try not to spill the coffee on the control head, you know, in the police cars and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Especially that.

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Yeah, they get pretty sticky.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Um, we're going to take a little break and we will be right back.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Open calendar. What's my schedule looking like? Next Thursday, you will be caught in an emergency flash flood between park and first tree. It doesn't work. I'm busy today.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

You can it starts with talking to your loved ones about making an emergency plan. So wait, communicate. Visit Michigan slash and I ready.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

Welcome back to our podcast, everybody. Um, Jason, what is the one thing you wish you had known when you began your career as a radio tech?

SPEAKER_03 15:36

I wish I had a better understanding of what I was actually signing up for when I joined the army. Like I said before, uh, you know, I thought I'd be the guy with the radio on my back, humble with the grunts, and I ended up being in a big old truck and whatnot. But if I would have looked in more on the different communication jobs, I probably would have picked uh a satellite operator uh versus the multi-channel radio operator that I ended up being. Uh just because, you know, I actually ended up doing about 10 years worth of satellite work while I was in the army, but never got the official training to get the official money when I got out, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

So if it wasn't in writing, it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Oh dear. Um, what advice would you give somebody interested in becoming a radio tech?

SPEAKER_03 16:20

If you're really interested in being a radio tech, I would suggest joining the military. Not that I'm trying to push the military or anything, but uh there isn't a lot of college degrees out there for radio techs. There's you know, degrees for elect different types of electronics and whatnot, but nothing that's really focused directly on actual radio communications.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

This would be a hard, hard time to get the experience.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Yeah. In the military, you'll get the training and the experience. So when you get out, you know. You're ready to go. Yep. Nice. You don't have to do 20 years like I did, but you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Um, does it take a certain personality type or background to do the kind of work?

SPEAKER_03 17:01

I would say uh you should be someone that likes to, you know, service the community, you know, especially with what we're doing with the at MPSCS, you know. We're not first responders, but we make their job a heck of a lot easier, you know, because without the radios and stuff, they can't talk or respond to problems.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

And you guys are obviously pretty flexible and accommodating and yeah, well-rounded backgrounds. Um, can you tell us about some of the enhanced training that your group goes through?

SPEAKER_03 17:34

When I was at the install shop and uh now as a subscriber tech, we constantly getting new uh training on new equipment. Like I said, you know, MSP is changing a lot of their equipment. Almost the four years I've been with the MPSCS, they've upgraded their sirens cameras and modems.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

And that's a lot of cars throughout the state.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

That's oh yeah, yeah. MSP has I think roughly 1,500 blue cars, and then they have hundreds of uh investigative cars. You know, DNR has hundreds of vehicles and M dot Sky hundreds of trucks.

SPEAKER_02 18:12

So then when they upgrade their sirens, you've got potentially thousands.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Well, with the sirens, usually the the siren like upgrade happens with their new vehicle. So they would uh when they get their every year, you know. They don't bring the old cars are getting life cycled out, you know, that new vehicle would have the new siren. But but in the case of like the camera system that they're getting now, the whole state is getting all the you know, they're all being replaced.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

You touch a lot of cars.

SPEAKER_03 18:41

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

Um, what's the one common myth about your profession or your field that you would like to debunk?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

I guess uh one myth is that we fix computers. Uh we're not field services. We provide the internet up to the dock, which is to the computer. And uh if it's a computer issue, it's field services, not us. Whole separate ballpark. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Um, do you have a favorite memory or a time that you felt you really made a difference?

SPEAKER_03 19:11

I was the and still kind of am, the primary siren guy when they switched to the new siren. Um there was a lot of changes to the lighting patterns and what the because the new siren system, it takes signals from the car and then the lights will do different things. Like when an officer has his lights on and he's uh applies the brake, the whole back of the car goes red instead of having all those flashing lights. That way cars that are behind him know he's slowing down or stopping, and they don't lose his brake lights in all the flashing lights. Okay. You know, to help prevent cars from slamming into him, or um, in cases where when they pull somebody over and they stop and they put their car in the park, the front of the car goes solid, and you only have a couple of lights flashing versus having all those, so that way when they're out in front of their car, they're not being blinded by their own car while they're talking to you know a person that they're the they're investigating or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

That's a lot of people don't even think about that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

But so I get calls from techs all over the state uh when they have to work on that issue. Yeah, yeah. Luckily, um one of the techs that installs kind of kind of taking some of that stuff over as far as the programming side, but since I was the initial guy, people call me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Got a problem? Call Jason.

SPEAKER_03 20:34

Yeah, I actually was doing that yesterday and the day before.

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Well, good. Um, that's all we've got for today, everybody. And we hope you enjoyed the show. And I would like to thank Jason for being here to tell us all about himself and being the radio tech.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

We hope you all enjoyed the show, and we will be back soon. Thank you. Be sure to look us up at www.inted.com slash mc and our Twitter slash mc. You can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes.