APCO 25 Ham Systems

[blantonl]

Hahah.... Shaun, that was funny.

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I came across this interesting presentation on the TAPR site that talks about P25 Digital Voice from the Motorola Ham Club in North Texas. It appears to be part of the Digital Voice Forum from Dayton 2002.

http://www.tapr.org/tapr/dv/digital_..._reasoner2.pdf

73 Eric

[kg4icg]

By the way Dstars is FCC type accepted or HRO wouldn't be selling it.

[DaveNF2G]

Originally Posted by kg4icg

By the way Dstars is FCC type accepted or HRO wouldn't be selling it.

Interesting assumption, but I wouldn't stake my license on it.

BTW, I don't think the FCC does "type acceptance" any more.

[PJH]

DStar is a format. FCC does "type accept" formats/protocol's in the format that you would think..

[kg4icg]

Icom IC-ID1 1599.00 1.2 ghz digital transceiver and it uses a open GMSK CELP which is an open protocol.
System
MOS
Modulation scheme
Codec
Raw data rate
SVD?
Error correction

G4GUO
3.3
OFDM/PSK
AMBE-1000
3.6k
no
FEC

Kachina 505RC
3.8
FHSS/DSSS
CVSD
38.4k
yes
iterated coding

D-Star
3.4
GMSK
CELP
128k
yes
FEC

Alinco
2.5
GMSK
CVSD
14.4k
no
none

AOR
3.6
OFDM/PSK
AMBE-2020
3.6k
yes
FEC

APCO25
3.4
PSK/FSK
IMBE
9.6k
yes
FEC

Thales
3.4
OFDM/PSK/QAM
MPEG-4/HSX/SBR
3.2k
yes
FEC
bb

[PJH]

Can you post a link so we can see the formatted listing?

Thanks!

[kg4icg]

www.arrl.net members section apco25 search 2nd link of the 4

[HamSexy007]

I have seen, played with and touched the D-STAR equipment. In a real world application, it does anywhere from 50k to 75k data transfer...which places it a little faster than a dial-up modem. The voice quality sounds like a ham-grade radio, only in AMBE digital modulation.

Icom wants about $1k per D-STAR radio, which is a remote mount 10w 1200 MHz unit about the size of all other Icom mobile ham rigs. Only high spot is the control head, which looks like a 3/4 scale GE Orion system head.

I have no idea how much they want for one of the D-STAR repeaters, but I know it's not cheap.

Overall, I wasn't impressed and I'll be sticking to playing with IMBE and my Astro Saber.

[MikeOxlong]

I've just put up a dualmode Quantar repeater in Edgar, Ontario (near Barrie).

Frequency is 147.285 (+) with a PL of 156.7hz and a NAC of 293.

[Thunderbolt]

I was talking with a friend of mine who is a Ham in the Tokyo area, and the D-STAR technology is becoming very popular there. Currently, there are several wide-area repeaters that have been converted over to this new modulation mode on the 430 MHz band. In fact, three of them are linked together from north of Tokyo, in the Saitama-shi area, and down into Yokohama-shi, and another repeater maybe added in the western suburbs around Tachikawa-shi within the next several months. So far the results have been very positive and many more repeaters will likely be upgraded to D-STAR technology across the Kanto and Nara regions in Japan. However, I honestly don't see this technology catching on in the USA for sometime to come, if at all due to the costs involved.

73's

Ron

[mancow]

N0NDP put up a qantar in KCMO on 147.015


To our knowledge t's the first and only one in the area.

We were actually getting just a little bit better range than analog at one point.


mancow

[aka_ramon]

There are LOTS of companies that make P25 compliant radios other than Moto. For radios that don't cost the earth (like an XTS5000 does), consider the brand new ICOM P25 compatible digital radios like the F70 (http://www.radcomm.bizland.com/rad-comm/id78.html). Yeah, it costs more than a 396t, but you can TALK on it.

In terms of "type acceptance", I'm not sure that's relevant to this discussion. Assuming I've read the rules correctly, the US FCC allows amateurs to use digital emission types on licensed bands pretty much without restriction, as long as the emission/modulation scheme is publically documented (so that it can be recognized). That's my reading of part 97 anyhow.

So, there's no reason why US hams couldn't use P25 on repeaters. And, as folks have told us on this forum, it IS being done.

DSTAR is interesting, but more from a business than a technical perspective. Buy 9 radios by the end of the month, get a repeater free. This helps propagate a standard, and sell radios, that only one manufacturer supports (at least AFAIK). If the general idea is interoperability and compatibility, this doesn't sound like a great way to go.

R

[KS4VT]

Icom is a little late in the game to be presenting a new digital protocol into the ham radio arena, especially if a club/organization was looking for a grant to procure a new repeater. DSTAR is not a recognized standard and wouldn't be acceptable just like Open Sky wouldn't be an acceptable protocol if a government agency was also looking for grant $.

Like others have mentioned earlier, there are plenty of manufacturers that are producing APCO25 radios at prices way below what an XTS5000 costs and plenty on the used e-bay market. The only difficult item, especially with Motorola, is the programming software.

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by KS4VT

Icom is a little late in the game to be presenting a new digital protocol into the ham radio arena, especially if a club/organization was looking for a grant to procure a new repeater. DSTAR is not a recognized standard and wouldn't be acceptable just like Open Sky wouldn't be an acceptable protocol if a government agency was also looking for grant $.
.

You seem to be mixing different issues.

1) D-Star has been out there (but expensive) for a while now.
2) D-Star is a protocol for Ham radios not for government/Public Safety interoperability
3) Government agencies are not going to be using it or applying for grants to buy it.

[KS4VT]

Not mixing the issue and well aware that governments wouldn't be using DSTAR, it was probably the way I stated it that confused you. There are a lot of amateur clubs attempting to secure grants for replacement equipment and the Fed's would not grant one if it proposed DSTAR instead of APCO25.

[N_Jay]

Originally Posted by KS4VT

Not mixing the issue and well aware that governments wouldn't be using DSTAR, it was probably the way I stated it that confused you. There are a lot of amateur clubs attempting to secure grants for replacement equipment and the Fed's would not grant one if it proposed DSTAR instead of APCO25.

I had not heard of an Amateur club going after a grant.
I would love to hear is any are successful.

[KS4VT]

Here are a few grant requests and awards...

[url]http://www.g-c-o.com/para/Grant-Full.pdf#search='amateur%20%20radio%20%20grants'[url]

http://www.kypost.com/2004/12/13/grants121304.html

http://www.inarrl.org/ircc.html

His ability to discover and take advantage of various grants and donations has provided funds to build a complete Amateur Radio station at his educational facility covering 2 meters, 70 centimeters and HF. Jim has also organized a school Amateur Radio Club, with the call sign KC9EKW (every kid wins).

and
http://www.ectar.org/

What are ECTAR's goals?
Beyond public education and training, through donations and grants, ECTAR plans to complete the goal of establishing an emergency powered amateur radio communications network that would be made available by volunteer amateur operators to local, state, and federal emergency response agencies. To meet this objective, the Monterey County Emergency Communications Amateur Radio Project (MCECARP) was developed by ECTAR and is divided into 3 phases designed to meet the overall project goal.

[KE4NYV]

Originally Posted by grem467

hell in this area there are 3 ASTRO P25 ham repeaters:

444.275, IMBE and Analog
444.625, IMBE and Analog
147.315, IMBE and Analog..

Lucky!

[mam1081]

3 ASTRO repeaters in one area would be cool.


Another one to add to the list:

Midland, TX - K5MSO - 147.220, NAC-293. It was mixed-mode last time I was there, but they were thinking about making it ASTRO-only.