Mobile Command Captures Communications Traffic
Mobile Command Captures Communications Traffic
Arlington County’s (VA) new Police Mobile Command Vehicle is equipped with communications technology that rivals permanent equipment located in police headquarters.
The vehicle’s full-featured logging and archiving system serves as the digital voice logger and archiving system for 15 different radios, VOIP technology designed by Avaya and all voice, radio and telephone traffic that runs through the mobile unit. It also serves as a voice auditing system and for radio recall checks.
Installed in the county’s 40 foot custom-built truck, the system allows the communications center within the truck to act as the nerve center for all communications traffic at major incidents and special events such as the 4th of July fireworks or the Marine Corps marathon (with 40,000 runners), while major incidents is self explanatory, especially given the fact that the Pentagon is within Arlington County Police jurisdiction.
There is a place for command staff to meet in the back of the truck so they can make on-scene decisions while having access to the technology they need. Satellite access and large video screens are central to the vehicle’s technology as is just about any communications capability or resource in the field. The concept is to be able to run all communications and decisions for a major incident, no matter the size, from the truck, while allowing headquarters to handle the rest of the county in as normal a way as possible.
The VR615, by Eventide, was specified by communications consultants, Emergency Telecommunications, Inc. (ETI).
“We recommended the VR615 as a good digital recorder for that application,” said David Craig of ETI. “As a consultant in emergency telecommunications, we try to find the best solutions for customers without being attached to a vendor, but because of the high quality and amount of channels the county wanted, we said to go with Eventide.”
Installed in June, the system records everything on the radio and phone going in or out.
The VR615 features variable recording compression rates of 13.3, 16, 32, and 64 kb/s, giving users complete control over recording time and quality. Storage capabilities include a standard mirrored RAID-1 system with dual 120GB hard disks, which can record 19,800 channel hours at 13.3 kb/s. Also standard is a DVD-RAM offering 1,540 of channel hours of storage per DVD.
An intuitive front panel Graphical User Interface (GUI) offers complete control of all functions on the VR615, creating a fully functional stand-alone unit. Front panel features include an easy-to-read, bright 320×240 color TFT LCD screen, soft and hard keys, the easy-to-scroll Eventide navigation wheel, keypad, playback speaker, volume control, LED indicators, and line-out and headphone jacks.
The VR615 can also function as a network server, allowing up to 16 separate users to simultaneously access the system via any standard Windows XP or 2000 networked PC workstations, using Eventide’s Call Record Browser software. The Call Record Browser supports live monitoring or playback with talking/time/date of up to eight simultaneous channels. In addition, recordings can be e-mailed via simple drag-and-drop functions.
For more information, visit Eventide: www.eventide.com.
