Where In The World Is Sum1?

New York City (Queens)

Locale: New York City (Queens)

Week of: 5/8/2023 

         This past week I was in Queens NY delivering a networking class to the Mass Transit Authority, Long Island Railroad (MTA-LIRR).  This was a unique class in that as far as their radio system is concerned, the radios are on one Subnet, so no routing is done. That's an understatement because obviously routing is done, but it's done outside the portion of the system they'll maintain.  This required a lot of editing on my part, because I didn't want to cover anything associated with routers, routing, and our ASTRO systems.  Let me explain.

         ASTRO is our term for a radio system that meets the APCO 25 standard.  MTA-LIRR is not P25 compliant for many reasons.  The biggest is that they are Analog only, meaning their radios do not use the Digital side of things at all.  Plus, their IP address scheme is not per the Motorola Solutions standard.  Yes, we have a standard IP address scheme for our systems, but since they are not Digital, do not have a core of any type, and other reasons we don't need to go into here, their IP plan is different. This meant I removed at least a day and a half of course material from this session, yet it was still scheduled for 5 days, the same as any other networking course.  I still managed to deliver this over 5-days, mainly because of the student background, and because MTA-LIRR had asked that the class last no more than 6 hours/day, instead of 8 hours/day. 

         The class went well overall, but on Wednesday morning one student complained/moaned confessed that he wasn't learning much, and was pissed off that it had been all Powerpoint slides thus far.  He said he learned best doing hands-on type of exercises.  I explained that not everyone learns like that, and the Powerpoint slides were used to stress the theory of operation of a network, and the concepts of TCP/IP.  We started doing the hands-on exercises, I wanted to keep everyone together doing the same labs at about the same time (keep it simple for me really, it's very hard to monitor three groups of people who are performing different hands-on activities).  That didn't work too well though, because the groups would complete things at different times.  We ended up with the groups starting out on the same hands-on activity, then doing their own thing (using the software to explore the configuration, do things they will never be able to do after the class, etc) while the slower groups caught up.  By Friday, the dissatisfied student was quite happy.

In Closing

         I am home right now, and was home last week instead of being in Brooklyn for a 2-day class.  I was home because this old body decided it would rebel against things.  In a nutshell, I was exhausted due to a medical condition, one caused by my Chemo Drug.  It's a common reaction to this drug, but it's not something I've experienced, until last week.  As a result, I slept Sunday and Monday almost all day, and half of Tuesday.  Nor was I eating much.  I ended up losing almost 15 pounds, but you couldn't tell it by looking at me.  I've now gained 10 of those pounds back.  This week I'm back on schedule, which is being home for the week.  Next week I will be in Schaumburg for a couple of days before returning to Schaumburg the following week for a resident class.  Until next time, be good to those you love, spoil them, and write!


Jim Dorrell





Jim Dorrell