Digital in GMRS - which mode is most appropriate?

[Radioguy7268]

I'm not sure how close you are to Canada - but just wanted to make sure I'm clear. Business frequencies under Part 90 do not share any frequencies with amateur radio. Your comment about 440 and 222 makes me wonder if you checked availability with an amateur Frequency Coordinator. There is no "waiting list" in the Business bands for Part 90 UHF.

[jlag]

I'm not sure how close you are to Canada - but just wanted to make sure I'm clear. Business frequencies under Part 90 do not share any frequencies with amateur radio. Your comment about 440 and 222 makes me wonder if you checked availability with an amateur Frequency Coordinator. There is no "waiting list" in the Business bands for Part 90 UHF.

I had checked with NESMC. VHF is waitlisted, UHF is not, but getting tight.

But correct, I should have been looking at 450-470 frequencies I believe.

[Radioguy7268]

 

 

NESMC, the New England Spectrum Management Council, is the NFCC certified frequency coordination body for amateur operations on the 29MHz and up frequency bands in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

 

 

Again - Part 90 is NOT controlled by any of the amateur Frequency Coordinators. You're going to have to check with someone else. There are certain particulars that involve areas of operation that get within a certain distance of the Canadian borders. I'm not up in that area, so I've never really paid much attention to the Border rules. 

[jlag]

...I'd try looking up someone like FIT (Forest Industries Telecommunications) or EWA (Enterprise Wireless Assocation). They'll walk you through the steps. I find FIT to be a little more personable - but EWA is very professional & capable. Up front cost isn't cheap to get the 10 year FB6 license & coordination - expect to see something around $700, but it's still pennies per day. If you tell them you're looking for an FB6 UHF repeater pair with DMR/Trbo emissions, you'll be off to the races....

Yes, as you mentioned, for example, FIT (Forest Industries Telecommunications) or EWA (Enterprise Wireless Assocation).

​I am in eastern MA, a good bit south of the line.

[jerrym58]

In my opinion Yaesu's Fusion for Ham radio is the most user friendly for non-technical folks, plus it adds some useful capabilities like GPS location and callsign display and unlike DMR, the actual callsign of the calling station is displayed instead of a programmed interpretation of a digital contact number.  DMR is VERY complex for the average non-technical user to understand and set up.  On the other hand DMR does make IP repeater linking much easier and it makes automatic roaming possible whereas Yaesu's WiresX linking leaves a little to be desired.    I think P25 would just be too expensive for a personal radio service.  Whatever digital format is used, I think it would be best to allow it on only specific channels while preserving analog-only on others, because while it is possible to mix modes, those modes compete for air time.  Dual-slot DMR could allow as many as 4 time-slots on a single 25 KHz channel, but I'm not sure how beneficial that would be to GMRS users.  I designed and built several dual-slot MotoTrbo DMR IPSC systems and while I think it's a great technology for commercial use, I've never liked it that well for ham radio even though there are now a lot of DMR Ham repeaters on the air.   I think I would like DMR for GMRS even less.  After all, Part 90, 95, and 97 have different purposes.  But I can imagine a Yaesu FTM-100D with GMRS firmware and part 95 certified.  That would be pretty cool. 

[wayoverthere]

43 minutes ago, jerrym58 said:

DMR is VERY complex for the average non-technical user to understand and set up. 

I think P25 would just be too expensive for a personal radio service.  Whatever digital format is used, I think it would be best to allow it on only specific channels while preserving analog-only on others, because while it is possible to mix modes, those modes compete for air time.  Dual-slot DMR could allow as many as 4 time-slots on a single 25 KHz channel, but I'm not sure how beneficial that would be to GMRS users. 

No disagreement on the complexity of DMR, though the multi slot capability could make good use of the spectrum, especially if a little more spectrum could be allowed for digital only (wishful thinking, I know).

The other I've messed with a little is P25, which seems really simple as an end user, though I know there's a couple more layers, such as setting up ids. Overall, it doesn't seem too much more complicated than analog with tones, though. Now the price....why is it so expensive? Still an expensive licensing in place? All the equipment priced for public safety budgets? I found a p25 capable icom at a really nice price, but the license to enable p25 was more than 4x the price of the radio.

[Lscott]

On 10/25/2021 at 11:41 PM, wayoverthere said:

No disagreement on the complexity of DMR, though the multi slot capability could make good use of the spectrum, especially if a little more spectrum could be allowed for digital only (wishful thinking, I know).

The other I've messed with a little is P25, which seems really simple as an end user, though I know there's a couple more layers, such as setting up ids. Overall, it doesn't seem too much more complicated than analog with tones, though. Now the price....why is it so expensive? Still an expensive licensing in place? All the equipment priced for public safety budgets? I found a p25 capable icom at a really nice price, but the license to enable p25 was more than 4x the price of the radio.

DMR isn’t that complex to setup. It’s just messy. For a single repeater which supports multiple talk groups the easiest solution is use one memory for each full time talk group using the appropriate color code and time slot. The repeater frequencies, and just about everything else, stays the same. I myself have used 6 or more memory slots in a radio for just one repeater due to all the supported talk groups.

[MichaelLAX]

My Radioddity RD-5R was the least expensive DMR on the market at the time of my purchase (and used all my Baofeng accessories, including the higher limit batteries), but at a cost of requiring much detail in the way of programming my codeplug

I am told there are DMR HTs that only require programming in the Repeater frequency and Talkgroups can be just dialed up on the fly.

Can anyone tell me which of the current batch of DMR HTs have this slim programming capability?

[tweiss3]

15 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

My Radioddity RD-5R was the least expensive DMR on the market at the time of my purchase (and used all my Baofeng accessories, including the higher limit batteries), but at a cost of requiring much detail in the way of programming my codeplug

I am told there are DMR HTs that only require programming in the Repeater frequency and Talkgroups can be just dialed up on the fly.

Can anyone tell me which of the current batch of DMR HTs have this slim programming capability?

Connect Systems CS760/761 & CS580

[MichaelLAX]

38 minutes ago, tweiss3 said:

Connect Systems CS760/761 & CS580

Thanks for that suggestion, almost perfect, but I see that those are either UHF or VHF but not both.

[tweiss3]

4 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

Thanks for that suggestion, almost perfect, but I see that those are either UHF or VHF but not both.

Correct.

[MichaelLAX]

Well the upside to writing a rather long codeplug on my RD-5R is that I get 2 meters, 70 cms, GMRS, MURS, analog and DMR all in one easy to carry HT package!

[SUPERG900]

The Anytone's have always had the capability to change the talk group of a digital channel on the fly - and I use that functionality occasionally. Mostly though, I like to create individual digital channels for each of the talkgroups I commonly use on a particular repeater. This way, I can simply simply use the channel knob of the radio for selecting my most-used talkgroups on the current repeater - and I use 'zones' button to select different digital repeaters. I usually reserve one channel on each digital repeater as a scratch-pad for on-the fly talkgroups that I'm not worried about maintaining.

 

For analog repeaters - I create a zone for each analog network, and a channel in that zone for each individual repeater.

[Lscott]

On 10/28/2021 at 10:16 PM, SUPERG900 said:

The Anytone's have always had the capability to change the talk group of a digital channel on the fly - and I use that functionality occasionally. Mostly though, I like to create individual digital channels for each of the talkgroups I commonly use on a particular repeater. This way, I can simply simply use the channel knob of the radio for selecting my most-used talkgroups on the current repeater - and I use 'zones' button to select different digital repeaters. I usually reserve one channel on each digital repeater as a scratch-pad for on-the fly talkgroups that I'm not worried about maintaining.

 

For analog repeaters - I create a zone for each analog network, and a channel in that zone for each individual repeater.

That’s a very good way to do it on those radios. You have 4000 memory slots on the D878UV for example so why not use them.

[MichaelLAX]

2 hours ago, Lscott said:

That’s a very good way to do it on those radios. You have 4000 memory slots on the D878UV for example so why not use them.

I hope the 878 CPS has a good import/export function, because I don't want to do the data entry for hundreds, if not thousands, of channels by hand?!?

[Lscott]

17 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

I hope the 878 CPS has a good import/export function, because I don't want to do the data entry for hundreds, if not thousands, of channels by hand?!?

Yes, the CPS can import and export different parts of the radio’s setup. In fact that’s how you would keep the HT and the mobile version D578 in sync. 
 

When the firmware is updated for one it looks like they do the same for the other. If you’re interested in DMR these are two radios worth looking at. While some might protest they are CCR’s they aren’t that bad. I have the D878UV early model however I don’t use it much at the moment. 

[n4gix]

On 10/27/2021 at 9:24 PM, Lscott said:

DMR isn’t that complex to setup. It’s just messy.

Analog radio programming uses a flat-file database (like an Excel spreadsheet).

DMR radio programming uses a relational-file data base, which is why it appears "messy."