Connect Live on the District

That's told me then ;D

Likewise, I also had the pleasure of meeting Colin for the first time when he took me off at Earls Court last night.

Well I was duely issued with my personal Connect handset and call number today ;D

Seemed OK, I thought all messages were being relayed via connect and the old system at the moment ? However my connect set was only getting about 3/4 of the messages my non-connect fitted trains were

A PEA at Becontree put it to a live test. Control responded to my call about the alarm, and then to my notification of the problem (unattened bag) but I then could not raise them to advise of the all clear and after 5 attempts, I made use of the "plcae call in queue request a call back" facility ..... but never in fact received a call back !

It is very mobile phone ish ...but like an ancient brick type ! Except the orange button on the top that looks all the world like every other phones on/off button is in fact the mayday button, resulting in at least 15 spurious emergency calls to control overheard during my shift !!

It's almost like being back in school again, huh? ;D

How long are the handheld's batteries supposed to last?

Seeing as how these radios are supposed to be a semipermanent possession of the T/Op, have you been issued with recharging equipment?

No, we are not issued with recharging equipment.

A rack of battery chargers is laying on a table at Acton & we simply change the battery over, at the start of a shift would be most appropriate I guess.

In the blue Motorola box comes a belt clip, in two pieces.

Colin ! You on nights again !!!!!

Now that's almost all of the east end stations ?? Was the absence of Hornchurch (the only missing one) intentional ?
For some reason the quick dial programmed into the phone (or at least my phone) seems to omit Upminster Bridge ... I wonder why ?? (It also seems to have call groups for Upminster TOP, Barking TOP and Acton TOP but not Earl's Court TOP .... or is that not a group to call all T/ops of a particular depot )

Yesterday the controller put out a call telling drivers to stop trying to call the signal boxes / operators as they have no equpitment yet.

Now today, for the first time, I could hear both sides of some conversations with the controller. About time ... but why first time today ...and then only some calls - I assume other calls were on connect as my phone still showed the callers connect id number)

My battery, from the box, not a fresh charged one, has just managed 22 hours, switched on hours, but is now showing red ;D

I had indeed missed out Hornchurch - due to tiredness ;D ;D ;D

Upminster is a c2c station, West Ham is part of the Stratford group on the Jubilee line, Mile End belongs to the Leytonstone group on the Central line, Aldgate East is a Liverpool Street group station on the Met and Monument is another Central line station belonging to the Bank group - so these stations are not part of the District Connect system.......yet.

Earls Court DMT is indeed missing for some reason that cannot be explained by the I/Ops - certainly at the west end of the line. I do know the number for the Earls Court DMT though - if anyone wants it, PM me.

Also if you want to get rid of things like predictive text, there is a useful leaflet now available in the booking point at Earls Court - I don't if it's available anywhere else

As the handhelds are 'personal', do you take them home with you?
I take it you can't listen in, unless you live very close to a station or track, can you?

DISTRICT LINE: Minor delays are occurring due to faulty communication equipment earlier.

Message received 1:51pm

anything to do with Connect?

with 30 trains done, how many more are there to do? (how many D stocks are there?)

I don't know what the problems are as I'm not working today.

There are 75 D stock trains in total

I meant to post this a couple of days ago, but I completely forgot

Anyway, the latest is that all D stocks are now Connect enabled meaning communication between the line controller and all D stocks is now through Connect only.

Stations west of Cannon Street are slated to switch over to Connect from 30th October.

Signal operators will start to join in with Connect from the 30th October as well, though not all at the same time - this will be 'phased'.

Finally, from the District's point of view, the C stocks are planned to be Connect enabled starting on the 8th November, with the completion of C stocks by 13th November.

As Connect is a completely different system, using completely different infrastructure - yes, the traditional dead spots have gone. But........there some slight niggles with Connect, such as the slight delay caused by the cab units changing from one section to the next. Or the fact that one or two units in the cabs seem to take it upon themselves to sign out of the system

Only stations on the east end of the District are 'Connected' - which I suppose you could argue is the end of the line where the facility would be most useful - however it's not been used to my knowledge.

There are basically two ways of contacting a station - the first one is by selecting that stations group on the hand held, thereby becoming part of the stations radio group. The other way is to call a specific hand set, which can be done from the cab unit or on the hand held. That's great if you have the number you need....

Presumably as each one of the receivers is in a fixed place it will be possible to assign them a designated emergency contact number. I'd have therefore thought it possible for an ermgency "contact the next station" feature to be possible - i.e. the driver presses the relevant button and your unit sends the message to the beacon with a code that the beacon interprets as "forward to the emergency contact number", whatever it is.
In the event of a station being closed I wouldn't have thought it too hard to get the system to be told to forward the message onwards.