Motorola VS Vertex/Kenwood

[scusack]

Do any other product lines other then Motorola have something similar to Capacity plus? I am looking at Motorola for a large oil and gas site in excess of 3000 radios with multiple repeaters. We need GPS, intrinsically safe and CSA approved radio's, as well as 3rd party applications for monitoring things like mandown and work alone. Other then Motorola TRBO would anyone recommend another product line to look at?

MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus is a high capacity, voice and data communication solution that:
•Delivers 5 times the capacity of an analog conventional system and up to 3 times the capacity of an analog trunking system
•Delivers 2 times the capacity of a MOTOTRBO digital conventional system
•“Trunks” up to 12 digital voice talk paths
•Allows up to 24 additional dedicated data paths
•Accommodates up to 1,200 radios
•Integrates both voice and data applications such as GPS-enabled location services, text messaging, telemetry and much more, on the same system
•Offers system-wide calling capability to communicate with all personnel at once
•Supports the MOTOTRBO Repeater Diagnostic and Control (RDAC) utility to help ensure the continuous performance of your system

[kenjicam]

Yes and No.

Kenwood NXDN is FDMA (one talk path per frequency much like P25 Phase I). The Kenwood Nexedge trunking and conventional systems are very robust, are IS/FM rated, offer many data features including GPS, and is great for wide area IP networks. It has many of the same features that a P25 Phase I trunk systems have including over the air programming. However, as mentioned before you are limited with the one voice per channel, but is ready to go 6.25Khz.

MOTOTRBO is based on the DMR II standard from Europe, however many MOTOTRBO features such as it's trunking systems are proprietary to Motorola. This means that unless you are on a conventional repeater, Motorola has lock out radios from other manufactures from being used.

Simoco (the UK company that help develop TETRA and MTP trunking) is about to roll out their DMR product with in the next few weeks here in the US. It will use the open DMR II and III standard. You will be able to use other open standard DMR radios on a Simoco conventional and trunk system and vise versa. So on a conventional DMR repeater a MOTOTRBO radio and a Simoco radio should be able to talk to each other.

Both Hytera and Tait (VHF at this time) offer a DMR open standard products here in the US. I'm not sure if they have released the DMR III trunking at this time or not.

The Harris DMR radio is a re-branded Hytera radio.

Please feel free to contact me off-line if you have any further questions.

[krokus]

Do not forget to look at cost per talkpath. (Talkpath being a coventional repeater, TDMA voice capable time slot, etc...)

You might be able to purchase the equipment to allow for the same number of talk paths, from one brand over another. This would allow more fault tolerance, too.

[mmckenna]

I run a Kenwood NexEdge trunked system. Let me know if you have any specific questions or are looking for real world experience with it.

I've been running it for about a year now and am quite happy with it. Looked at both MotoTrbo and NexEdge before making our choice. I've got about 350 radios on the system.

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

What general area is this system going to be used? Is it in the US?

[mmckenna]

The CSA requirement would suggest he is in Canada.

[scusack]

The system needs to be digital and have two talk paths per frequency as it is getting much harder to get frequencies and I need to maximize what we have.

I also need to be able to do the following:

The main thing is I also need to be able to talk to the old Analog system as we slowly migrate to the new digital platform. At least to an emergency channel and device that will convert the digitial to analog.
Remotely disable radios
Over the air configuration
I need to make sure only the radios we own have access to our network. We currently have lots of cross talk from 3rd party folks.
i also need queuing capabilities and the ability for specific users to have priority status.

Cheers

[scusack]

Definitely interested in how you came to your conclusion on using Kenwood over Motorola. I have been reviewing the NexEdge system and it looks to be pretty robust.

I wouldn't mind chatting if you were available for a call sometime.

Cheers

[JRayfield]

I believe Hytera offers some software (AVL and dispatch 'console' (PC-based)) that can work with their products, but that's all I've seen in 'add-on' products for Hytera equipment/systems. I've heard 'rumors' about a 3rd party developer's program for a couple of years now, but I haven't seen anything 'for real' yet.

Motorola is the only company with a worldwide, well-established 3rd party developer/partner program. There are all kinds of applications and products (software and hardware) for use with the MOTOTRBO product line and systems.

If you'd like to visit sometime, I can get you a list of the Motorola licensed developers and providers for the MOTOTRBO Application Developer's Program (and their products).

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
Motorola Licensed Application Partner
w0pm (at) arrl.org

Originally Posted by scusack

Do any other product lines other then Motorola have something similar to Capacity plus? I am looking at Motorola for a large oil and gas site in excess of 3000 radios with multiple repeaters. We need GPS, intrinsically safe and CSA approved radio's, as well as 3rd party applications for monitoring things like mandown and work alone. Other then Motorola TRBO would anyone recommend another product line to look at?

MOTOTRBO Capacity Plus is a high capacity, voice and data communication solution that:
•Delivers 5 times the capacity of an analog conventional system and up to 3 times the capacity of an analog trunking system
•Delivers 2 times the capacity of a MOTOTRBO digital conventional system
•“Trunks” up to 12 digital voice talk paths
•Allows up to 24 additional dedicated data paths
•Accommodates up to 1,200 radios
•Integrates both voice and data applications such as GPS-enabled location services, text messaging, telemetry and much more, on the same system
•Offers system-wide calling capability to communicate with all personnel at once
•Supports the MOTOTRBO Repeater Diagnostic and Control (RDAC) utility to help ensure the continuous performance of your system

[mmckenna]

It is possible to run two 6.25KHz NXDN channels inside a 12.5KHz channel, but I've never done it myself, so I'll leave that up to the Kenwood guys to explain to you how its done.
A trunked radio system, by design, will get you the most bang for your buck out of a limited number of channels. If done right, it can be more efficient than a two slot TDMA system. If you currently have conventional repeaters, you might look at installing a number of small 1, 2 or 3 channel trunked sites. NexEdge trunking will do a non-dedicated control channel function to make the most of what you have. Technically, you can have a single channel trunked site on your system.

The nice thing about that is that it is actually two separate repeaters, so if one channel fails, you only lose that single channel. With MotoTrbo, if you lose a repeater, you lose both timeslots. If you have small sites running in conventional mode, this can be an issue.

NXDN repeaters will do mixed mode, so you can have analog radios and digital radios using the same repeater. The digital radios can be set to receive both analog and digital. So, if done right, you can do a slow transition from analog to digital.

The Kenwood trunked system I run is set up to control access by using the radio ESN numbers. If your ESN number (unique to each radio) isn't in the system, and the ESN and radio ID don't match, you don't access the system. I can allow or block radios in real time. Since the ESN's are hardcoded into the radio, I don't know of any easy way to spoof that. I'm sure it could be done, but it isn't something easy.

Kenwood does have an OTAP (Over The Air Programming) software package. I use it and it is really handy. I can update a radio in a minute or so with a new personality. I don't use it very often, but when I do, it pays for itself.

The NexEdge trunked system will do queuing and priority, including an preemption for top priority radios. Useful for a lot of things.

Connecting repeaters using your network is possible, linking trunked sites using your network is possible also.

Since we are are part of the state government, we run the heck out of our systems, often long past their designed lifespans. I seriously looked at MotoTrbo, but there were a couple of red flags that turned us off.
1. We use NPSPAC 800MHz channels. When we were looking, Motorola specifically blocked the NPSPAC channels from MotoTrbo systems. When I asked them why they did this, there reply was that NPSPAC channels were for public safety, and Motorola feels that all public safety should be using P25. They wouldn't budge, however they were more than happy to open up the MotoTrbo radios to work for us on the NPSPAC frequencies for our SmartNet system. We couldn't justify the $2 million for a P25 trunked system, so we were sort of stuck. We didn't want to have to relicenses everything to new frequencies, since we have the 5 pairs statewide.

2. since we tend to run the wheels off things, We were not comfortable with the "6.25 equivalent" statement from Motorola. Likely we'll never see a 6.25 mandate for our channels, but I didn't want to design myself into a corner. The 2 slot 12.5KHz repeaters do work well, but at the time, you couldn't do the "6.25 equivalent" in simplex mode.

To be honest, I think both the MotoTrbo and NXDN systems are very comparable. I would take a close look at both of them and make your decision. Make sure you price everything out, however, as sometimes the things that can push prices over the top are the little accessories, not the bigger items. Either way, you'll likely be happy with either one.

I'll PM you with my phone number if you want to give me a call.

[krokus]

Originally Posted by mmckenna

1. We use NPSPAC 800MHz channels. When we were looking, Motorola specifically blocked the NPSPAC channels from MotoTrbo systems. When I asked them why they did this, there reply was that NPSPAC channels were for public safety, and Motorola feels that all public safety should be using P25. They wouldn't budge, however they were more than happy to open up the MotoTrbo radios to work for us on the NPSPAC frequencies for our SmartNet system. We couldn't justify the $2 million for a P25 trunked system, so we were sort of stuck. We didn't want to have to relicenses everything to new frequencies, since we have the 5 pairs statewide.

You are using a digital on NPSPAC frequencies? Also, you are using then for daily operations?

[mmckenna]

Digital and Analog. Daily operations. We have 5 frequency pairs licensed statewide for operations. Some facilities are using P25 on the channels, some are still running SmartNet and SmartZone systems.

[jim202]

Originally Posted by JRayfield

Motorola is the only company with a worldwide, well-established 3rd party developer/partner program. There are all kinds of applications and products (software and hardware) for use with the MOTOTRBO product line and systems.

If you'd like to visit sometime, I can get you a list of the Motorola licensed developers and providers for the MOTOTRBO Application Developer's Program (and their products).

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma
Motorola Licensed Application Partner
w0pm (at) arrl.org

Tried to send you an email at the email address you have provided and they seemed to have black listed you at the arrl.org location.

[JRayfield]

Probably because I messed the email up. It should be w0pm (at) arrl.net.

John Rayfield, Jr. CETma

Originally Posted by jim202

Tried to send you an email at the email address you have provided and they seemed to have black listed you at the arrl.org location.