Status Buttons
Some MDC-equipped radios have buttons which allow pre-defined status messages to be sent to the base station decoder. The status messages decode as generic messages, (for example: status 1 or status 8). The user defines . Typically, key caps on the status button for status 8 may be marked with the user-defined definition of the status such as available. The base station may respond to a button press with a voice acknowledgment, for example, "Downtown 6, available."
In a CAD environment, the message status 8 may be translated by the CAD system to a meaning such as available. Status 1 might mean starting a meal break. Key caps on the radio's status buttons may be engraved with their user-defined status. The unit's status changes at the moment the button press is received. This helps take a load off the dispatcher because the status change is logged automatically. This happens even though the dispatcher may be talking on the telephone. In systems where the dispatcher is often overloaded, the use of status buttons may slightly reduce the work load and may reduce voice message traffic on a channel.
If the acknowledgment packets are enabled, every status button press gets a handshake packet in response from the base station encoder-decoder. The radio where a status button was pressed will normally beep to confirm the decoder's ack for a status button press.
Read more about this topic: MDC-1200
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