Feature: Support for multiple nodes grouped within one larger system

[natecarlson]

(Note, not necessarily asking you to do any work here - just opening this for discussion. I may try to implement this at some point, we'll see..)

Here in Minnesota, there is a statewide P25 system called ARMER, which almost all of the state uses for its emergency communications. There are then multiple simulcast sites. Within each site, you only get a small subset of the entire system's calls; I believe a site only gets calls for a given talkgroup if there is a radio that receives that talkgroup currently connected to that site. (There may be other roaming limits/etc too - but I know that officers can be halfway across the state and still receive the 'local' calls.)

Currently, there are two options to handle this in trunk-server:

1. Create a separate system for each site that you have a scanner for. This is the way people are currently setting things up with OpenMHz. It works - but it means you might have to browse a bunch of different systems to find a call or see if a call is available.
2. Set up one system for the overall P25 system, and have multiple sites upload calls to that system. I haven't tested this yet, but it should work in theory. The downsides I see are:

• No duplicate call handling -- duplicate calls will just show up multiple times.
• No ability to pick a specific site to listen to calls only from that site.
• The API key is the same for the entire system -- this is fine if you have one person managing all the scanners, but if you have multiple people, you're sharing credentials.

I'm thinking it would be nice to set up the ability to do a hybrid, sort of like what Broadcastify has done with Calls..

1. Add another tier under Systems called Sites. The Site would basically just be an API key for uploads; TGs/Sources would belong to the System.
2. Add some sort of duplicate call detection. I like the idea of just collapsing the calls detected as "duplicate" into a list, where you can still select from the calls that are available. This would avoid the behavior I see with BC Calls where sometimes the first call recorded is junk, but other sites that attempt to upload the call get denied because it's duplicate.
3. On the frontend, give the ability to listen to the entire system (with talkgroup filtering options/etc), or to select a given Site to listen to.

[natecarlson]

Example of two sites uploading to one system:
https://mnscanner.com/system/mnarmer

[wx-jc]

As you mentioned, Broadcastify Calls already does this. I know, it's not as "open" or easy for everyone to get to, but just saying that solution already exists over there and works pretty well. I tend to use both OpenMHz and Calls, depending on what I want to listen to and what my mood is :) OpenMHz is nice for monitoring what is coming from my feed directly vs. Calls may filter some of my TGs out if another system received it as a duplicate.

Calls also is nice for monitoring mixed systems (analog, P25, EDACS, etc.) in one place.