Which band for digital voice modes?

[Lscott]

Which band seems to have the most activity for digital voice modes? Just looking through the listings in RepeaterBook.com most of it appears to be on the 70cm band. There are some repeaters on VHF 2M and a few on UHF 33cm. I don't see any listed for VHF 1.25M. There are some radios out there that will work digital voice on 1.25M but it just doesn't seem to get any interest.

IMHO if anyone is looking at getting a radio for digital voice on the Ham bands your money would be better spent on a UHF 70cm radio.

[kidphc]

Agreed. I found the most traffic on 70cm yeasu c4fm, dmr and dstar.

Rarely heard anything on 1.25m. Sadly, really wanted to, so I could look at those radios.

Even with the popular digital modes not so many repeaters were set up for vhf. It was almost a 4-5 to 1 ratio of uhf to vhf.

I looked into old motorola 33cm gear. But not many repeaters around here don't require either a 13cm or 23cm up/down link on rhe opposite side. Guess most of them were running icoms. Kinda frustrating. I thought of converting an old motorola flip phone for 900mhz.

[KAF6045]

54 minutes ago, kidphc said:

Agreed. I found the most traffic on 70cm yeasu c4fm, dmr and dstar.

Rarely heard anything on 1.25m. Sadly, really wanted to, so I could look at those radios.

Even with the popular digital modes not so many repeaters were set up for vhf. It was almost a 4-5 to 1 ratio of uhf to vhf.

I looked into old motorola 33cm gear. But not many repeaters around here don't require either a 13cm or 23cm up/down link on rhe opposite side. Guess most of them were running icoms. Kinda frustrating. I thought of converting an old motorola flip phone for 900mhz.


 

I suspect most people are using hotspots (Pi-Star/OpenSpot) boxes, linked to cellphones for network connections, rather than trying to find compatible digital mode repeaters that permit linking to ad-hoc talk-groups (There are something like three repeater sites between Lowell and west Grand Rapids that are part of the CMEN/Mi5 DMR network -- but they ONLY permit Mi5 Statewide-1/-2 and Event 1-4; and the latter are reserved for special event usage at which time they request users stay off the corresponding Statewide group [odd/even time-slot]). I can just reach a D-Star repeater that is normally linked to REF030C.

I do consider using hotspots in a vehicle an RF risk. Many are using mobiles to access them, so which luck have a low power in the 1W range -- just to hit a box less than 6ft away. And that box is then using WiFi to reach the cellphone which is acting as an access point using cellular frequencies to reach internet. I just don't want to think about what intermodulation and heterodyning is going on inside the cabin of that vehicle.

I do have a hotspot -- on top of a china cabinet near the center of my house, and a Kenwood D-74 that run at less then 0.5W for access. My house is a Faraday cage (metal roof, aluminum siding); While I can break squelch on the Lowell repeater [<4 miles as Hugin&Munin fly] my audio has been reported as poor.

[Lscott]

11 hours ago, KAF6045 said:

I suspect most people are using hotspots (Pi-Star/OpenSpot) boxes, linked to cellphones for network connections, rather than trying to find compatible digital mode repeaters that permit linking to ad-hoc talk-groups (There are something like three repeater sites between Lowell and west Grand Rapids that are part of the CMEN/Mi5 DMR network -- but they ONLY permit Mi5 Statewide-1/-2 and Event 1-4; and the latter are reserved for special event usage at which time they request users stay off the corresponding Statewide group [odd/even time-slot]). I can just reach a D-Star repeater that is normally linked to REF030C.

I do consider using hotspots in a vehicle an RF risk. Many are using mobiles to access them, so which luck have a low power in the 1W range -- just to hit a box less than 6ft away. And that box is then using WiFi to reach the cellphone which is acting as an access point using cellular frequencies to reach internet. I just don't want to think about what intermodulation and heterodyning is going on inside the cabin of that vehicle.

I do have a hotspot -- on top of a china cabinet near the center of my house, and a Kenwood D-74 that run at less then 0.5W for access. My house is a Faraday cage (metal roof, aluminum siding); While I can break squelch on the Lowell repeater [<4 miles as Hugin&Munin fly] my audio has been reported as poor.

Yeah, I've noticed that frequently many of the commercial digital mode Ham repeaters are using the Mi5 network in Michigan.

https://w8cmn.net/dmr/

https://w8cmn.net/p25/

There is nothing for NXDN on their network. In fact there are only two repeaters for the whole state listed in RepeaterBook.com that does NXDN.

There is a nice linked NXDN network in west central Florida however.

https://ni4ce.org/nxdn-digital-communications/

 

[kidphc]

Yeah, I've noticed that frequently many of the commercial digital mode Ham repeaters are using the Mi5 network in Michigan.
https://w8cmn.net/dmr/
https://w8cmn.net/p25/
There is nothing for NXDN on their network. In fact there is only one repeater for the whole state listed in RepeaterBook.com that does NXDN.
There is a nice linked NXDN network in west central Florida however.
https://ni4ce.org/nxdn-digital-communications/
 

Yeah, mxdn is pretty much unavailable in Washington DC area.

One repeater in Arlington.

Wonder if that repeater is as dead (little to no traffic) as a majority of the p25 repeaters in the area.

Really wish repeaterbook wouldn't list some of these tiny repeaters (1 mile coverage) for personal use. You know the hotspots with a high gain outside vertical. I feel it kinda misrepresents the actual digital coverage.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[Lscott]

19 minutes ago, kidphc said:

Wonder if that repeater is as dead (little to no traffic) as a majority of the p25 repeaters in the area.

I don't know if that NXDN repeater is used much on digital. It's about 25 miles from my house and from what I've seen on the Internet it's not linked either.

There are a few P25 repeaters around Michigan. The closest to me is the K8FBI machine on 70cm, which is about 6 to 7 miles away. I monitor it and most of the traffic is analog.

US and Canada NXDN Repeaters - 20230113.pdf US and Canada DMR Repeaters - 20230119.pdf US and Canada D-Star Repeaters - 20230120.pdf US and Canada P25 Repeaters - 20230117.pdf

[gortex2]

The only P25 repeaters I use are VHF. There was one UHF I used in Northern VA but last time I went thru it appeared off line. Around my area DMR is mostly on UHF. 

[KAF6045]

13 minutes ago, gortex2 said:

The only P25 repeaters I use are VHF. There was one UHF I used in Northern VA but last time I went thru it appeared off line. Around my area DMR is mostly on UHF. 

70cm  probably has more bandwidth available for new repeaters compared to 2m