A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/1189372
There have been more than a few instances of facilities making changes to their systems and causing issues (slow performance, non-performance) on their networks. As a reminder to all NIDS facilities only local documentation changes and official/authorized updates are supposed to be done on the local level. All other changes to database, configuration, etc., are done by the staff in Atlantic City, N.J., and sent to the facility for uploading. If you have any questions or concerns please contact the NATCA NIDS (IDSR) Rep, Richie Smith at IDSR@natca.net. NAS VOICE SWITCH (NVS) Jon Shedden (ZFW) represents the NATCA membership as the Article 114 Rep to the NVS project. His report is below: The National Airspace System (NAS) Voice over IP Communication Enterprise (VoICE) program will encompass what was the NVS program. This will include acquisitions to replace our aging voice switches, as well as Radio Control Equipment (RCE). The first Request For Industry (RFI) was released this past summer. Work continues reviewing the RFI responses and developing strategies for the next round of acquisitions. Work continues on the Air-to-Ground Media Gateway (AGMG). The AGMG, being developed as a part of the Future Flight Service Program (FFSP; for flight service in the contiguous U.S.), will allow modern Internet Protocol (IP) voice switches to communicate with legacy radios. These will be deployed to several Centers to aid the transition of flight service radios to VoIP. Alaska Flight Service was scheduled to have their aging voice switch replaced with NVS. Now that the NVS contract has ended, work has begun to find a suitable replacement. Work continues on a shortfall analysis as well as requirements review. Work to develop a Concept of Operations to support the shortfall analysis occurred on Nov. 5. Next Generation Air-Ground Communication (NEXCOM) continues deployment of new CM300/350 V2 radios to terminal facilities across the country. The NEXCOM Program Office has kicked off the Emergency Transceiver Replacement. This program is looking to replace aging tunable transceivers at DEN, HNL, PCT, PHX, SCT, and SLC. Work continues in Second Level Engineering to develop a suitable replacement. They are also looking to replace approximately 2,000 of the grab-and-go style emergency transceivers (e.g. PET-2000). The replacement for the PET-2000 is currently in source selection. NAS Voice Recorder Program (NVRP) is the replacement for existing NAS voice recorders (DALR, DALR2, DVRS, DVR2). NICE Ltd. was officially awarded the NVR contract to replace the legacy voice recorders. Keysite is estimated for the summer of 2020 in Seattle. Headset testing as a part of the Tone Mitigation National Workgroup continues. Discussions with future sites are ongoing. The FAA is in the process of purchasing approximately 1,000 headset splitters for use in terminal facilities with only two-jack positions. This is related to CAR-2012-001 and will allow controllers to perform position relief briefings during OJT. Work continues on updating the