Lscott

OK. "Morse Code is used exclusively by Electronics Based Life Forms to communicate among themselves using advanced Organic Digital Signal Processors, running state of the art Artificial Intelligence Software, to perform the highly complex transmit encryption, receive decryption and error correction functions."

As sophisticated as the radios are becoming I just wished they would do one with voice commands. They have that now with the systems in modern cars. Then second thing is provide an option to plug in a mobile radio to the communication network in the car so the ubiquitous info screen can be used to replace the front panel on the radio. Then you can stash the radio body out of sight and not screw around running cables all over the place, drilling holes etc. to mount it or the remote head. In place of that more manufactures can do what Anytone has done with the D578 buy offering a BT remote. It's about the size of a cell phone. I have one on order for mine. https://powerwerx.com/anytone-bt01-bluetooth-mic-d578uv

That's why repeaters use PL tones for access. You can have multiple repeaters on the same frequency, but using different tones. Not really an issue unless the repeaters are being accessed at the same time. Per the rules all frequencies are shared so nobody has exclusive use of them. Any interference has to be worked out between the users involved.

This link gets a bit technical but covers other factors that affect range. https://vu2nsb.com/radio-propagation/free-space-propagation/

When you're there have you tried to monitor 446.0 to 446.2? That's the European PMR446 license free band there. Likely foreign visitors bring their PMR446 radios with them not realizing they're not legal here, and are in fact operating on the Ham 70cm band. They operate narrow band FM and or DMR! Some will do a mode called dPMR446, which is very similar to NXDN. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMR446 https://kenwoodcommunications.co.uk/files/file/comms/uk/pmr446/PMR446-White-Paper-V6_18AUG2016_JT_KB.pdf

I typically use my HT's for scanning. The one thing that helps a lot is setting the scan resume delay to 5 seconds or a bit longer. The cheap radios have a fixed delay whereas the commercial radios you can program it. The delay is so the other party has time to hit the PTT button before the radio resumes scanning. That way you don't keep missing part of the conversation because the radio hasn't gotten back to the active channel. On some radios they can also be setup where a very quick press of the PTT button will drop the radio out of scan mode and leave it on the current channel. That way if you want to joint in on the conversation you don't have to manual stop the scan then scroll through the channels to get to the one you want. Later you can just resume scanning with a button press on the front panel.

You can use an external unit that doesn't require a specific radio type. https://www.argentdata.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=98

The NXDN does sound a tiny bit better. It's a subtle difference to my old ears. Less mushy sounding. It's amazing it sounds as good as it does in the very narrow mode, which consumes less bandwidth than P25 does.

I have a TH-D74A as well. It has a complex menu system and can be a bear to learn how to use. Because of that it mostly just sits in a box. For the most part around my area it looks like more people are moving towards DMR and YSF (C4FM) and away from D-Star. Another reason why it doesn't really get used. Personally I would love to see Kenwood replace the now discontinued D-Star TH-D74A with a tri-band version with DMR. Of course they would be competing against the cheaper Chinese radios, like the D878. I think if they had a rock solid radio without all of the firmware and radio programming bugs the D878 versions have people would pay the extra money. They were already paying over $600 for the TH-D74A. Now discontinued they are selling used for way more than they cost new, up to a $1000 in some cases!!! Somebody is buying them. The one thing I don't like about YSF is there currently exists just ONE vendor that makes radios using that mode. I like to have choices.

If you're looking to get some detailed info the below site has a lot to look at. It would be worth your time to check it out. Also people here that have been down this road before can supply good recommendations. http://www.repeater-builder.com/rbtip/index.html

I frequently read similar comments, but doesn't really make sense. DMR, P25 and NXDN all use the exact same codec namely the AMBE2+. When the data rate is the same there should be no difference. Any difference you do hear most likely has to do with any pre and post audio processing done in the radio and not really due to the mode in question. One of the chief problems has to do with ambient noise on the TX side. I've read about plenty of complaints, mainly by fire fighters and police, where things like sirens and other non human spoken sounds cause issues. The codec is HIGHLY optimized for human speech only and anything else will really muck up the encoding. The railroads found out that a lot of their equipment is controlled by DTMF tones that don't encode well with NXDN, and the have to switch back to analog FM when they need to use the tone controls. Because of the above just about every commercial grade digital radio has some kind of audio processing before it's applied to the codec to eliminate any sound that isn't in the range for human speech.

True. As long as the mode details are published it doesn't count as a "secret code" and you're free to use it on the Ham bands. BUT you can't use the encryption feature in those modes! I think another group is trying to come up with a public domain digital voice mode, M17. https://m17project.org/

How much did Kenwood charge you for the license keys for the different modes? I have a buddy that was gifted a NX-1300, the non display model, with NXDN only. I understand another license key, for DMR, can be loaded into the radio and the DMR firmware flashed. Then to switch between modes you have to re-flash the mode specific firmware. I was told the license doesn't need to be reloaded. I have the firmware for both. I have the programming software now I just need to find a display version of the radio, preferably DMR, but if not and it's NXDN I could switch it so long as I don't get raped on the license key.

D-Star and YSF (C4FM) are specific for amateur radio. Everything else is commercial.

I have radios for D-Star, DMR, P25 Phase 1 and NXDN (6.25 KHz and 12.5 KHz) in both VHF and UHF versions. I don't have anything for C4FM yet. I've been looking for a dPMR radio, which seems to be fairly common in Europe, and may start seeing in North America.

Don't even think about talking religion. ?

This topic came up a while back on the wide area GMRS repeater I used during a net chat. Most people didn't mind so long as any discussion remained "civil". That sort of surprised the net control operator/repeater owner.

I know people have a collection of radios, some digital enabled. I'm curious what digital voice modes do you have radios to operate? I want to specifically exclude hot spots, so it would be just base, mobile and HT's. Also what are the models and manufacture? It seems there are pockets of activity for different voice modes across the country including repeaters. Is the operation primary simplex, duplex through repeaters or both?

As I stated before the license requirement is there for contact purposes, not just simply used as a club by the FCC to wield their power over the masses. Of course If somebody is really messing up without the call sign who do you tell the FCC is causing a problem? It's the same logic why you're required to have a Ham call sign, license plate on your vehicle, registration number on boats and aircraft and so on.

If that's the case, just ignore the license requirement, then why would anybody bother? Lets all just say screw the FCC we don't need to get a license. No license there is no accountability.

It would be great if they said so specifically in plain language. It would open up a lot of otherwise used very serviceable equipment.

Maybe I did.

When you're using a of watts maybe not but GMRS can run up to 50 watts. That can cause a lot of problems. I don't know how many times I read the same comment. People don't understand the reason why a license is required and the use of call signs. When you're using a couple of watts maybe not The license is for getting a unique FCC assigned call sign that's in a public database that anybody can search. It has contact information in it whether it's a home address, or for the more privacy orientated people, a PO box. In either case for any issue that a radio operation causes there is a way to contact the responsible person to notify them of the problem. That's assuming the operator isn't deliberately being an A-hole. Transmitters can fail and generate garbage on the air, frequency drift, signal cutting out etc. The call sign at least provide some measure of knowing exactly who is the source of the issue and can fix it. The operator may not even be aware there is a problem.

Put up a 33cm one. Almost nobody has equipment for that band. I got a very clean looking used Motorola XPR6580 that does about 2.5 watts on that band. Good for FM and Mototurbo (DMR). There are instruction on the Internet on how to do an in-memory edit on CPS 16 to enter frequencies between 902 MHz and 928 MHz. No radio hardware modifications required! Only pitfall is you can't read out the radio contents without the CPS setting them back to default values. You always have to use the computer saved copy of the code plug, no big deal. Oh, I have a couple of TK-5320's so I could use that P25 repeater.?

Just like everything else they do. Have to keep the starving lawyers employed.