Which Digital Voice Modes Do You Have Equipment To Operate?

[Lscott]

On 1/14/2023 at 9:55 PM, MichaelLAX said:

This is my best digital mode.  

 

 

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."

[MichaelLAX]

2 hours ago, Lscott said:

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."

Isn't that a quote from the well-known purveyor of technical information, Leland C. Scott, KC8LDO?

[DONE]

Far as what I have.

Number of (5 or 6) VHF XTS2500's with P25

Couple UHF XTS2500's on UHF With P25

XTS2500 on 900 with P25

XTS5000 VHF and UHF P25

Several XTL5000's on UHF P25

Couple XTL5000's on VHF including a High power unit. P25

XTL2500 on 900Mhz P25

APX 7500 on VHF P25

APX 8500 all band on VHF/UHF P25

Several Astro Spectra's both mid and high power with P25

Icom ID-5100 D-Star radio.  Still in the box.  Have never powered it up.

Two VHF Quantars (one on the air) connected to the p25.link system on P25.  Repeater is multimode and runs on Analog as well

Couple UHF Quantars.... need to convert from R-1 to R-2 to put on ham and GMRS.

Few MTR3000's that are DMR able, but not programmed for it currently.  One on ham the other is one of the three GMRS repeaters.

Four XPR8400's that are UHF waiting for repair (board swap) due to bad finals.  One will become a GMRS linked repeater once repaired.

Large number of UHF XPR6550's that are programmed for ham DMR, GMRS and some Itinerant UHF's freqs for tower work.  Two 6 slot chargers full plus a number of others.

XPR 6300 on 900

Few XPR6550's that are VHF

one of those MMDVM hot spot things.

Unknown number of XPR4550 UHF and VHF radios that are console resources.  Not sure of number right now, have four sitting here right now and at least 12 more at the tower. 

 

I do some DMR on Ham.  Do a bit of P25 on ham VHF.  Working on conversions for UHF and moving a couple 800 Quantars to 900.

Talked on D-Star once. 

No wires, fusion, NXDN, or other digital. 

 

[Lscott]

4 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

Isn't that a quote from the well-known purveyor of technical information, Leland C. Scott, KC8LDO?

One and the same.

[Lscott]

1 hour ago, WRKC935 said:

Far as what I have.

Number of (5 or 6) VHF XTS2500's with P25

Couple UHF XTS2500's on UHF With P25

XTS2500 on 900 with P25

XTS5000 VHF and UHF P25

Several XTL5000's on UHF P25

Couple XTL5000's on VHF including a High power unit. P25

XTL2500 on 900Mhz P25

APX 7500 on VHF P25

APX 8500 all band on VHF/UHF P25

Several Astro Spectra's both mid and high power with P25

Icom ID-5100 D-Star radio.  Still in the box.  Have never powered it up.

Two VHF Quantars (one on the air) connected to the p25.link system on P25.  Repeater is multimode and runs on Analog as well

Couple UHF Quantars.... need to convert from R-1 to R-2 to put on ham and GMRS.

Few MTR3000's that are DMR able, but not programmed for it currently.  One on ham the other is one of the three GMRS repeaters.

Four XPR8400's that are UHF waiting for repair (board swap) due to bad finals.  One will become a GMRS linked repeater once repaired.

Large number of UHF XPR6550's that are programmed for ham DMR, GMRS and some Itinerant UHF's freqs for tower work.  Two 6 slot chargers full plus a number of others.

XPR 6300 on 900

Few XPR6550's that are VHF

one of those MMDVM hot spot things.

Unknown number of XPR4550 UHF and VHF radios that are console resources.  Not sure of number right now, have four sitting here right now and at least 12 more at the tower. 

 

I do some DMR on Ham.  Do a bit of P25 on ham VHF.  Working on conversions for UHF and moving a couple 800 Quantars to 900.

Talked on D-Star once. 

No wires, fusion, NXDN, or other digital. 

 

Is there a lot of Ham P25 activity in your area? You have a ton of equipment for it.

[DONE]

31 minutes ago, Lscott said:

Is there a lot of Ham P25 activity in your area? You have a ton of equipment for it.

There is a groups of 3 or four of us that use it.  The linked repeater has some traffic on it but not a lot.  Need to find a better resting talk group to park it on to drum up additional traffic.  IN addition to my VHF liinked repeater, there are two more VHF two UHF and one or two 900 Mhz repeaters that are on the air in the greater Columbus area.  There is also a significant system over on Dayton Ohio that gets some use.  I am considering having a discussion with that group and connecting a repeater to that system.  Due to the way it's linked, the repeater could be any band I desired.  Again, if there is gonna be activity on it, I am all for it and I believe it will draw people in that want to talk.  I have three GMRS repeaters on the tower right now.  The 600 which is linked to the MidWest system gets hundreds of PTT's a day.  The 675 machine gets some traffic, and the 725 is pretty much silent.  Just like the hoards of ham repeaters around here.  We get some DMR traffic from other area's but almost none locally.

Far as the radios. 

I didn't discuss the boxes of CDM's I have since they are not digital.  Or any of the Hytera or other stuff.  But I have a BUNCH of gear. 

My stuff in general stops at 900Mhz but I am looking at getting into satellite comms and may well be looking to add 1.2 and 2.4 Ghz stuff for that endeavor at some point. 

I will add this.  Most of the P25 gear I have has some level of encryption on it.  Not that I use that normally, but in certain situations, OPSEC becomes a thing.  Haven't gone as far as getting FHSS radios yet, but I wouldn't turn them down if the right deal presented it self.  And there may or may not be a repeater on the air that is mixed mode but hasn't got a normal NAC in it that will pass secure traffic if the need was to arise.  It may or may not be connected to a large battery bank as well that will have solar and possibly wind generation charging ability later this year.  Wife is NOT a radio operator,  but there will be a radio in her vehicle that might possibly have the ability to utilize such a system.  And there is currently a portable radio and charger kit in that vehicle that might have that ability. 

And again.  Operating digital radio with encryption on ham or GMRS is illegal.  But operating it on a commercial frequency, is legit if the license has the correct emission designation on it.  Working on that too.  

[tweiss3]

I've got a XTS2500 for 900 P25. I'd like to eventually get up a 900 repeater, probably a quantar setup for both analog & P25, but that is a whole different battle. 

[Lscott]

9 hours ago, WRKC935 said:

I will add this.  Most of the P25 gear I have has some level of encryption on it.

There are different types and levels of encryption. How much of that is operational with other radios and manufactures?

[tweiss3]

46 minutes ago, Lscott said:

There are different types and levels of encryption. How much of that is operational with other radios and manufactures?

I'll send you a PM.

[gortex2]

5 hours ago, Lscott said:

There are different types and levels of encryption. How much of that is operational with other radios and manufactures?

To be honest AES, ADP/RC4 and DES is available in most of the 3 large LMR worlds. I know Harris, MSI, Kenwood,EFJ all support AES encryption. All my radios support all forms of encryption but the most used is AES across all my systems. ADP is used alot in small agencies as it was free in alot of MSI subscribers for a long time. DES was used by military and picked up by some departments long ago. DES is slippin away in favor of AES. Thats the standard I would imagine. I know all our grants state AES on them along with P25. 

 

[PACNWComms]

On 1/16/2023 at 10:57 AM, Lscott said:

https://powerwerx.com/anytone-bt01-bluetooth-mic-d578uv

Something else I "need" to have. I also wish more radios could be had with a handheld remote control head like this as well. Thank you for posting the link, I may have to spend some money myself. 

[tweiss3]

7 minutes ago, PACNWComms said:

Something else I "need" to have. I also wish more radios could be had with a handheld remote control head like this as well. Thank you for posting the link, I may have to spend some money myself. 

They have only been available for about a month. I also haven't seen a good review of the microphone that wasn't directly by the reseller. I'm interested to see how well it works, and the battery life observed.  It's been advertised as "coming soon" for over 2 years. I have my doubts that is because it was perfected.

I agree with you, HHCH should be an option for more radios. I thought about it for a while, but finding one is harder than deciding to spend the money on one, which is hard enough considering how expensive they are.

[gortex2]

The main issue with HHCH in the hobby world is price. People complain about the cost of Midland over and over. A LMR radio cost 10 times that cost. Granted used stuff is out there. The second issue is what the mic lets you do. the CCR/Ham world think every option on the radio should be controlled by the mic/head unit. For years as a ham I never had a "true" ham radio and used alot of LMR gear which required me to program stuff ahead of time. Rarely did I run into an issue where it didn't work. Since then as said I have the FTM400 in my jeep. I programmed the SD card 3 years ago and have not touched programming since. I guess if your all worried about 2000 repeaters and changing PL etc on the fly its an issue.

For me last summer I took a 6000 mile trip around the US for vacation. My APX8500, FTM400 and a CM760 CB were all I had mounted in the truck. CB sat on 19 for most of the trip, FTM on 146.520 as well as APRS and APX scanning GMRS. Not once could I not talk to who i needed to. Guess there is always an exception but I never ran into it. 

[Lscott]

5 minutes ago, gortex2 said:

The main issue with HHCH in the hobby world is price.

Hams are cheap. They will complain about the cost of the BT remote mic, $150, then go out and spend $10K on a fancy HF rig they use for nothing else but contest work.  

[MichaelLAX]

6 hours ago, Lscott said:

Hams are cheap. They will complain about the cost of the BT remote mic, $150, then go out and spend $10K on a fancy HF rig they use for nothing else but contest work.  

I don't think that the word "cheap" is appropriate to your example.

[Lscott]

4 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

I don't think that the word "cheap" is appropriate to your example.

Think about the logical contradiction. And yes there are Hams that do just what I’ve mentioned. 

[MichaelLAX]

1 hour ago, Lscott said:

Think about the logical contradiction. And yes there are Hams that do just what I’ve mentioned. 

Perhaps but someone who spends $10K on a fancy HF rig is not cheap. 

[Lscott]

9 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

Perhaps but someone who spends $10K on a fancy HF rig is not cheap. 

Just like people who buy an expensive luxury vehicle and when it comes time to replace the tires buy nearly the cheapest ones they can find. Life is full of examples of this sort of things. Hams are no different.

[PACNWComms]

23 hours ago, Lscott said:

Hams are cheap. They will complain about the cost of the BT remote mic, $150, then go out and spend $10K on a fancy HF rig they use for nothing else but contest work.  

This whole scenario played out for me recently. My employer has Aux Communications Service radio stations spread across the country. Everett, WA wanted money to buy a new Icom IC-7851 HF/50 MHz transceiver at around $13k. Because their two Yaesu FT-900A radios did not function. I had one of my radio technicians in Seattle check the Yaesu's out, and one needed the RF Gain knob cleaned with DeoxIt, while the other needed a new potentiometer that maybe cost $20 plus technician time in pay. 

These ACS stations are essentially corporate sponsored hobbyists that bring their amateur radio mindset to the equation. Not willing to repair an older radio, but wanting to spend a lot more corporate money on their hobby when they can get it to go through the bean counters (or under their "radar"). $13k versus some repair work. Now, would they have tried this had it been their own money, I have witnessed that as well. 

A co-worker of mine bought one of those Icom PCR-1000 computer controlled receivers. But, Icom ran ads that mentioned that if you wanted the world map paint job on the outer case, to contact them direct, and the cost would be $10k. Icom had several people that paid that price for a custom paint job on a $500 receiver. I bought the standard black cased unit and still use it to this day, even though SDR USB receivers are my go-to now. 

[MichaelLAX]

3 hours ago, Lscott said:

Just like people who buy an expensive luxury vehicle and when it comes time to replace the tires buy nearly the cheapest ones they can find. Life is full of examples of this sort of things. Hams are no different.

I've never heard of a Ham having a blowout of an inexpensive bluetooth microphone!

You're really stretching your analogies out of proportion such as to be unrecognizable.

[WRQC527]

I myself have a collection of decent HTs, mobiles and HF radios that weren't cheap. And I have been known to McGuyver antennas out of coat hangers, wire salvaged from old extension cords, and PVC sprinkler pipe to save a few bucks. 

[Lscott]

2 hours ago, WRQC527 said:

I myself have a collection of decent HTs, mobiles and HF radios that weren't cheap. And I have been known to McGuyver antennas out of coat hangers, wire salvaged from old extension cords, and PVC sprinkler pipe to save a few bucks. 

I hear ya. These were really cheap to build too.

https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/264-uhf-antennasjpg/

 

[catbrigade]

I currently have a DMR radio and will be getting a P25 radio shortly. I'm in the Dayton area and got connected to the P25 group here so I'm going to work through their programming guide and see if I can get up and running on that system.

[DONE]

9 hours ago, MichaelLAX said:

I've never heard of a Ham having a blowout of an inexpensive bluetooth microphone!

You're really stretching your analogies out of proportion such as to be unrecognizable.

NO actually he's NOT.

I have seen more than one setup where the radio and antenna system was a combined total of over 10K and they used RG-8X coax to connect it.  That was ONE.

Second was a big ICOM, huge money.  Reused cable that the braid was showing connected to a Yagi that was missing elements.  Thought the expensive radio would compensate for the broke ass antenna.  It didn't. 

 

[SteveShannon]

32 minutes ago, WRKC935 said:

NO actually he's NOT.

I have seen more than one setup where the radio and antenna system was a combined total of over 10K and they used RG-8X coax to connect it.  That was ONE.

Second was a big ICOM, huge money.  Reused cable that the braid was showing connected to a Yagi that was missing elements.  Thought the expensive radio would compensate for the broke ass antenna.  It didn't. 

 

Sure, and I’ve seen people who want to impress others match a great audio system with crappy lightweight speakers. Some people spend money on the stuff they have to look at and neglect it on the parts that are out of view. People are funny sometimes. 

But nobody should be shamed for refusing to pay $150 for a Bluetooth microphone with crappy reviews.