MRMap with Multiple Radio Inputs

[Rob_Brookes]

On Monday 18th August I hope to be at Langdale Ambleside's base, Low Fold, where I'll be testing the next major inclusion into Dave's MRMap application. This involves running a version that allows multiple comm ports to be read and used by the program so allowing more than one radio to be connected to the program at the same time. Although not yet ready for release, this version has aready undergone preliminary testing to identify any problems or bugs, the current version is a significant advance on previous ones and takes us a step closer to the release version.

At the moment Langdale team can connect four indivdual radios to the program. These are either at Low Fold itself (1) or at remote sites located around Langdale's area (3). Ultimately it's hoped that this number will include two additional sites currently served by leased landline.

I'll add to this post as the tests are carried out, hopefully I'll include some photographs of the system in operation.

[Rob_Brookes]

The multiple radio input version of MRMap has now been tested over a number of days and both Dave and myself actually run this version routinely. Although both of us generally use it with just one radio connected, occasionally we both connect additional radios just to see what happens. And what does happen, it works fine. There are some quite nice touches to the user interface included with this version and although it doesn't necessarily have an immediate application for a lot of teams there are reasons why the ability to connect more than one radio to a single instance of MRMap could potentially be of value to all rescue teams. Unfortunately I'm not yet able to go into this in any detail but if everything happens in the right order and as we would like then multiple radio input will turn out to be very handy.

Shortly I'll be going to the next phase of testing where it's installed on Langdale's communications system operationally. This is quite a major escalation as the connections to the computer can only handle one system or the other, either manually switched sites or multiple radio input but not both. Because of this, if things go wrong during a job then it's difficult to put the system back to the way it was.

Rob Brookes