DMR

[Lscott]

I'd also like to add that scanning on digital is a waste of efforts. DMR put on the radio in promiscuous mode. D-Star, you are stuck with the current reflector, u mess you change it, no scanning required. No point in jumping around repeaters, they all are on the same base TG, or the one you key up (for 10 minutes).

The scanning I do is on the analog channels. I like to monitor the local FRS/GMRS channels, the 5 MURS channels and a collection of business only VHF and UHF frequencies. Most of the public safety stuff has moved to 800 MHz P25 with encryption. There are still a few around that are still on 450 MHz to 470 MHz analog systems.

 

There are a few business that are using DMR, thus the D878UV radio, locally but they are rather few in number currently.

 

The only DMR radios I have are the Anytone D878UV and the Kenwood TH-D340U. The Kenwood I got off eBay for $45 before somebody else saw it and made the purchase. Radios like these don't last long selling that cheap. I guess the seller didn't know exactly what he had. Some of these guys buy surplus equipment in bulk and sell it off for what they can get for a quick buck. I also snagged a Kenwood NX-340U with the rare 400 MHz to 470MHz band split, perfect for Ham Radio, for $50 the same way. Haven't seen deals this good since then. The few I've seen since then sell for $125 and up for the base models.

 

https://comms.kenwood.com/common/pdf/download/DMR_TK-D240V_D340U_K_letter_1124.pdf

 

https://comms.kenwood.com/common/pdf/download/05_nx240v_340u_K_1117_typeD%20added.pdf

 

Both radios will do analog/digital on a per memory channel basis. The brochures say the radios won't do normal FM for the US models. Get the right version of the programming software and license key they will. It's a limitation of the radio programming software, not the radio's hardware or firmware that I can see.

 

There are pockets of NXDN activity.

 

https://ctnxdn.wordpress.com/what-is-nxdn-all-about/

 

From the little I've read NXDN and DMR both employ similar ideas, talk groups etc., for communication, but use different modulation/signaling formats and narrow bandwidths.  I know this thread is about DMR, however NXDN will work in a 6.25KHz bandwidth and DMR using 12.5KHz bandwidth. That has the potential to expand the number of usable "channels" without using more spectrum. Some of the existing 25KHz channels could be split into 2 or more digital only channels.

 

The most intriguing thing about DMR is the SFR, single frequency repeater, mode where one can build a repeater using just one frequency in place of a pair. That eliminates the trouble and cost of a set of tuned cavity filters.

[gman1971]

Yes!, the SFR is certainly a nice thing. ERDM is called in Motorola terminology. The SLR repeaters have the option, but you need to get the entitlement.

 

TETRA also has an SFR, RX on TS1 and TX on TS4 

 

The downside of NXDN is that you don't have timeslots. So you can't really TX and RX at the same time on the adjacent channels, not without blowing the receiver. The timeslots allow for TX/RX to be done 90ms within each other so the receiver doesn't blow up. With a time based multiplexing, you can cram more concurrent channels (adding more timeslots), provided you can satisfy the data stream. Nothing equivalent exists on NXDN.

 

 

G.

[Lscott]

I would like to see Kenwood come out with a DMR version of the TH-D74A radio instead of the D-Star version currently available. I would likely buy one.

[gman1971]

Yes! Totally, I had at some point 4 TH-F6a... and it was a huge letdown to see they went with D-Star and not with DMR, which I think its far more popular than D-Star... considering every digital CCR ever made since 2015 is been DMR... plus the top dogs like Motorola use DMR... 

 

So, if they do, I probably will get one too, but ATM I am so tied up in Motorola right now, that its hard to give up some of the bells and whistles these Moto radios have, especially hard to give up is RX Audio leveling...  the only way it would happen is if Kenwood added a SFR to the TH-D74a... but... I doubt it.

 

G.

 

I would like to see Kenwood come out with a DMR version of the TH-D74A radio instead of the D-Star version currently available. I would likely buy one.

[Lscott]

Yes! Totally, I had at some point 4 TH-F6a... and it was a huge letdown to see they went with D-Star and not with DMR, which I think its far more popular than D-Star... considering every digital CCR ever made since 2015 is been DMR... plus the top dogs like Motorola use DMR... 

 

So, if they do, I probably will get one too, but ATM I am so tied up in Motorola right now, that its hard to give up some of the bells and whistles these Moto radios have, especially hard to give up is RX Audio leveling...  the only way it would happen is if Kenwood added a SFR to the TH-D74a... but... I doubt it.

 

G.

I hear you. Looks like Anytone will be selling a lot more DMR radios until Kenwood, Icom and Yeasu get the big picture.

 

While Motorola makes nice radios for DMR they are aimed at commercial users where they can get away with raping them for the programming software. For Ham radio that won't fly. Hams are cheap S.O.B's most of the time. I admit I am. If I can't find some place to download the software I'm not interested in the radio. I'm not spending $100's on software. I have 9 different software packages installed just for the commercial Kenwood radios in my collection. More if you count the Ham versions. Some are different versions of the same basic package because a few radios are European, or non North American, types that have slightly different hardware. Using a different install key doesn't work on those.

 

For the life of me I can't see why people want to buy a Yeasu radio using their "System Fusion" digital format. Its only works with other Yeasu radios. At least with DMR there are a verity of radios and manufactures to choose from. And with D-Star at least you have Kenwood and Icom.

 

While NXDN is interesting and several manufactures sell radios it seems more of a small market targeted to business users, like P25 is to public safety, and seems popular with the railroads too.

[SUPERG900]

Yep - scanning on DMR is pointless - just enable promiscuous mode. The only case where scanning  DMR might make sense is if you are scanning different repeaters/hotspots, and even then, with promiscuous mode on, you only need that repeater/hotspot listed once in a list.

 

I'm happy as can be with my Anytone's. I see that some folks have quibbles with this feature or that feature - my guess is that you'll have pretty much the same amount of idiosyncrasies in a radio even if you buy from Yaesu or Kenwood, plus you''ll pay more, too. The amateur market just isn't as big as the commercial market - and those established vendors will respond to quibbles with just about that much alacrity too.

[tweiss3]

I hear you. Looks like Anytone will be selling a lot more DMR radios until Kenwood, Icom and Yeasu get the big picture.

 

While Motorola makes nice radios for DMR they are aimed at commercial users where they can get away with raping them for the programming software. For Ham radio that won't fly. Hams are cheap S.O.B's most of the time. I admit I am. If I can't find some place to download the software I'm not interested in the radio. I'm not spending $100's on software. I have 9 different software packages installed just for the commercial Kenwood radios in my collection. More if you count the Ham versions. Some are different versions of the same basic package because a few radios are European, or non North American, types that have slightly different hardware. Using a different install key doesn't work on those.

 

For the life of me I can't see why people want to buy a Yeasu radio using their "System Fusion" digital format. Its only works with other Yeasu radios. At least with DMR there are a verity of radios and manufactures to choose from. And with D-Star at least you have Kenwood and Icom.

 

While NXDN is interesting and several manufactures sell radios it seems more of a small market targeted to business users, like P25 is to public safety, and seems popular with the railroads too.

Icom and Yaesu will never make a DMR radio, because they have their own digital mode. Icom developed DStar and Yaesu developed C4M (Yaesu System Fusion). Personally, I think Kenwoods decision to go DStar was the right one, and it's hardware and programming is much better for it. The only reason I bought my D74 is to join 220, but the hardware is far superior to Anytone, and it's wide range receive is only a pipe dream for the cheap DMR radios.

 

I'm going to do some traveling this summer, and the one place I am going, there is a Motorola based DMR linked system for 5 hours of my drive. That is the real benefit of DMR, where TG2 is the full time link to the system, TG1 is dynamic, and can be used for local only, a call channel, an echo channel or 1 of 3 tac channels.

[jc1240]

Yep - scanning on DMR is pointless - just enable promiscuous mode. The only case where scanning  DMR might make sense is if you are scanning different repeaters/hotspots, and even then, with promiscuous mode on, you only need that repeater/hotspot listed once in a list.

 

I'm happy as can be with my Anytone's. I see that some folks have quibbles with this feature or that feature - my guess is that you'll have pretty much the same amount of idiosyncrasies in a radio even if you buy from Yaesu or Kenwood, plus you''ll pay more, too. The amateur market just isn't as big as the commercial market - and those established vendors will respond to quibbles with just about that much alacrity too.

 

When I first started programming my DMR radio I put in a channel for each TG I thought I would like.  Let me tell you that got tedious.

 

With another repeater I can hit from home I set up only 2 channels, one for each time slot.  If something pops up, I can select that TG on the fly.

[gman1971]

LOL cheap S.O.B. hahaha....

 

Their NX series offers the option to chose two out of three digital modulations on these radios. So, for such a premium radio like the D74 one would think they could add the options... but... oh well...

 

G.

 

I hear you. Looks like Anytone will be selling a lot more DMR radios until Kenwood, Icom and Yeasu get the big picture.

 

While Motorola makes nice radios for DMR they are aimed at commercial users where they can get away with raping them for the programming software. For Ham radio that won't fly. Hams are cheap S.O.B's most of the time. I admit I am. If I can't find some place to download the software I'm not interested in the radio. I'm not spending $100's on software. I have 9 different software packages installed just for the commercial Kenwood radios in my collection. More if you count the Ham versions. Some are different versions of the same basic package because a few radios are European, or non North American, types that have slightly different hardware. Using a different install key doesn't work on those.

 

For the life of me I can't see why people want to buy a Yeasu radio using their "System Fusion" digital format. Its only works with other Yeasu radios. At least with DMR there are a verity of radios and manufactures to choose from. And with D-Star at least you have Kenwood and Icom.

 

While NXDN is interesting and several manufactures sell radios it seems more of a small market targeted to business users, like P25 is to public safety, and seems popular with the railroads too.