PulseRadio¶
PulseRadio is voice radio for roleplay communities: a dispatch console, real talkgroups, push-to-talk, and the channel discipline a real radio system has.
It runs at radio.mypulsetech.com and works on its own. You do not need PulseCAD to use it, though if you run both, they connect (see PulseCAD integration).
What it does¶
- A dispatch console: resource cards grouped into zones, per-channel volume and mute, scan, and push-to-talk on as many channels as you prime.
- Real channel behavior: trunked talkgroups, conventional repeaters and simplex channels behave differently, because they do in life.
- Talk-power arbitration: while somebody is transmitting, an equal-priority operator who keys up is refused and hears a blocked tone. Dispatch and field units are the same level by default.
- Patches and multi-select: join talkgroups so their members hear each other, or transmit to several at once without joining them. They are different things and the console says which is which.
- One page for channels and radios: zones down the side, radios across the top, the real radio beside it. One radio for everyone, or one per PulseCAD department or Discord role.
- A tone board: alert tones, station paging and evacuation tones, fired at whatever you have primed.
- A radio in game: a FiveM resource that puts a real handheld, and a car radio, on screen on the same net as the console. See the in-game radio.
Accounts¶
You sign in with your PulseTech sign-in, and PulseRadio has no password of its own. Your PulseRadio account is still a separate record from your PulseCAD one (a role in one is not a role in the other) but proving who you are is one step, not two.
Anybody can sign up. There is no separate sign-up form because signing in is signing up: if you have never used a PulseTech product, continue with Discord at the sign-on and that is your account made.
See Your account for signing in and what to do when it will not let you.
Getting started¶
- Create an account, or accept an invite link from a community you are joining.
- Get into a community: create your own and you are its owner, or join one that already exists with an invite link, a join code, or by requesting access.
- Open the console and press Connect. Your browser will ask for the microphone; the radio needs it even to listen, because it publishes one permanently-muted track and unmutes it when you talk. That is what makes keying instant.
- Run the radio check it offers you, and set your talk control if you have not.
- Prime a channel with its TX button, then hold your talk control.
Finding your way around a community¶
When you open a community you are asked to Select a workspace. The cards depend on your role:
- Dispatch opens the Dispatch console.
- Admin is where the community is set up and run.
- Radio appears only in the desktop app, and puts your own radio on screen.
If your role can use only one of them, you go straight in. To change later, use Switch mode at the foot of the side menu.
In Admin, the side menu on the left lists the community's pages in three groups, with a Search every setting box at the top:
| Group | Pages |
|---|---|
| Build the system | Set up your radio, Channels, Alert tones, On-air rules |
| Run the community | People, Invites, Coverage, In-game commands, History |
| Your community | Connections, Plan & ownership |
Under those sit Downloads, Switch community (if you belong to more than one), Switch mode and the light or dark theme switch. You only see the pages your role can use. On a narrow screen the side menu folds away behind a Menu button.
For community owners¶
- How a radio system is laid out: how a real county's system is organised, what the naming conventions mean, and the procedures that make a net sound like one. Read this before you build.
- Channels and radios: channels, zones, who gets which radio, private channels, and the setup wizard.
- Console IDs and radio IDs: what a dispatcher and a unit ident as when they key up.
- PulseCAD integration: putting the radio on your dispatch board.
Plans
PulseRadio has two plans, Free and Pro, and what your community can do follows the plan it is on. The plans and their prices are published on the PulseRadio site; that page is the one to trust, because a price copied into a second place is a wrong price the day it changes.
Recording and transcription are switched on by default for new communities and can be turned off by an owner. Whichever plan you are on, every transmission is still recorded and every key-up still writes a line in the comms log; the plan decides who can read that record back, not whether it is kept.