Nexedge vs Mototrbo

[Wendell01]

Hi! I'm from Brasil and my english is not very well. kkkk

MTS200 What was better sound? 12.5 or 6.25.

 

[JCWhite94]

I know this is a little bit of an old thread, just looking to see if anyone has some updates, or advice now that the systems have been out a little longer.

I'm looking to lease space on a wide area network for a small property management operations team. I have the options of going with a Nexedge system (OnQue), or with 2 different Mototrbo systems (GoTrbo, or Turbo-Connect. Operated by two different companies.) I'm hoping someone has some experience on these networks that they can share, or let me know if I'm really going to notice a difference from one to the other.

Just as some additional information. Both are similarly priced, and have coverage in the same area for me. The OnQue system has a better sign on promotion currently, but the turbo-connect offers more coverage included in the base monthly charge.

Hope someone can help me out with some advice, thanks in advance.

 

[matt131]

I use nexedge/idas. I love the audio and clarity of the signal. People continue to like MotoTrbo due to the two time slots per repeater channel but that aside I feel nexedge/idas is much better.

 

[hitechRadio]

I know this is a little bit of an old thread, just looking to see if anyone has some updates, or advice now that the systems have been out a little longer.

I'm looking to lease space on a wide area network for a small property management operations team. I have the options of going with a Nexedge system (OnQue), or with 2 different Mototrbo systems (GoTrbo, or Turbo-Connect. Operated by two different companies.) I'm hoping someone has some experience on these networks that they can share, or let me know if I'm really going to notice a difference from one to the other.

Just as some additional information. Both are similarly priced, and have coverage in the same area for me. The OnQue system has a better sign on promotion currently, but the turbo-connect offers more coverage included in the base monthly charge.

Hope someone can help me out with some advice, thanks in advance.

You really cannot go wrong with either if just a voice user. So it boils down to money and coverage.

 

[slicerwizard]

You should be able to get a few demo units to check coverage, audio quality, etc. Should be enough for you to make a decision.

 

[mmckenna]

I've tried both Trbo and NexEdge. Settled on a NexEdge trunked system and have been running that for about 3 years now.
The 2 time slot of the Trbo is useful if you are a system operator, but pointless from a subscriber point of view.
I'd say the NXDN has better audio if it's set up right.

I'd say take a close look at ALL the costs associated with this.
The one time costs of the radio should be considered, but don't focus too much on that.
Monthly costs being similar would be a wash.
What you really need to take a look at is the "expendables" associated with the radios. Replacement or spare batteries should be considered. Figure 2-3 years of life for your batteries, although you might see better/worse.
Speaker Mics, if you use them, would be considered expendable items.
Cases, replacement antennas, etc. should all be looked at.
Portable radios can take a real beating, and the accessories can take the brunt of it.

 

[BodePlot]

All good critical decision making considerations. If coverage and effective receiver sensitivity is of critical importance to you, I would lean toward the 6.25 KHz. NXDN platform. Radio communication range iand recoverability is all about signal to noise (S/N) ratio as it relates to off air signal and to the receivers performance. A 6.25 channel, as compared to 12.5 channel, presents half the background noise power density within the channel bandwidth. All else being equal, the same wanted signal level /1/2 the noise level = a 3db improvement the S/N ratio. The NX receivers I have tested rendered clear 4800 baud audio with less than -125dBm input. 12.5 kHz channels simply can't reliably do that.

 

[JCWhite94]

Thank's everyone for your advice. I've Demo'd both systems, and have found that the Nexedge (OnQue) system provided better all around coverage in comparison to the Mototrbo system.

Has anyone had a chance to use the NX 5X00 series? Or heard from anyone who has used them?

Looking into my options for what device I will move forward with.

Thanks again!

 

[matt131]

I have also used both. I am not sure what it is, I just don't trust the mototrbo equipment. I have tried vertex standard also and have had brand new units fail at 5 days old. Granted you don't get a 2:1 repeater with nexedge but I have never had a failure with nexedge or icom Idas. I truly trust that equipment.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I have also used both. I am not sure what it is, I just don't trust the mototrbo equipment. I have tried vertex standard also and have had brand new units fail at 5 days old. Granted you don't get a 2:1 repeater with nexedge but I have never had a failure with nexedge or icom Idas. I truly trust that equipment.

Try the European companies for DMR. Don't get me wrong, Motorola makes a good DMR radio but they will swear up and down that TRBO is not public safety grade. The European companies build public safety grade DMR.

I remember someone saying DMR was actually more spectrally efficient due to a small buffer needed between two adjacent NextEdge channels but I'm not sure I buy that.


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[krokus]

Has anyone had a chance to use the NX 5X00 series? Or heard from anyone who has used them?

Ask this question in the Kenwood forum, after checking the existing threads.

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[mmckenna]

Has anyone had a chance to use the NX 5X00 series? Or heard from anyone who has used them?

There are a couple of guys on here that have them. I've had one as a trial for a bit and I like it.

 

[mmckenna]

I remember someone saying DMR was actually more spectrally efficient due to a small buffer needed between two adjacent NextEdge channels but I'm not sure I buy that.

Yeah, if you look at the TDMA part of DMR, and being able to fit two time slots in to 12.5KHz of bandwidth it is more efficient than NXDN. Due to combiners, you'd need more space to get two NXDN channels in.

Flip side is that NXDN can run in true 6.25KHz mode, while DMR can only do "6.25" equivalent, or putting two traffic channels into 12.5.

In reality it usually isn't necessary to need channels so closely spaced together. I have 5 800MHz pairs separated by 500KHz, each. Not a problem with modern transmit combiners. 800MHz spectrum isn't congested here, so no issues.

I could see in some instances where two slot TDMA would be a huge advantage, though. Just not in my situation.

 

[902]

Yeah, if you look at the TDMA part of DMR, and being able to fit two time slots in to 12.5KHz of bandwidth it is more efficient than NXDN. Due to combiners, you'd need more space to get two NXDN channels in.

Flip side is that NXDN can run in true 6.25KHz mode, while DMR can only do "6.25" equivalent, or putting two traffic channels into 12.5.

In reality it usually isn't necessary to need channels so closely spaced together. I have 5 800MHz pairs separated by 500KHz, each. Not a problem with modern transmit combiners. 800MHz spectrum isn't congested here, so no issues.

I could see in some instances where two slot TDMA would be a huge advantage, though. Just not in my situation.

Not that long ago, the FCC released a report and order on allowing "non-standard pairs." That's a terrible misnomer that makes people think it's not a 5 MHz UHF pairing, but really, it allows for two 4K00 emissions to be placed 3.125 kHz removed from the center frequency of certain UHF channels, with the proviso that the center frequency also be licensed, and that the stations be licensed as FB8 (exclusive trunked), which is a disparity when compared to DMR. I've seen some of that implemented around Kentucky (but surprisingly not in many other areas).

From my vantage point, narrow NXDN's chief utility is in urban areas where an agency "has to" have a VHF frequency pair. Given the TSB-88.1 D relationships, and the corresponding LMR adjacent channel deratings, it's possible to squeeze on into frequencies where wider signals, like DMR would fail adjacency criteria. Same can be said for UHF. There are quite a few places who are dunking for frequencies at the bottom of the license barrel. The narrower they are, the better the possibility they'll be able to find a suitable frequency.

The other issue with DMR is channel occupancy patterns. DMR usage can be pretty singular. Some public safety agencies had been on a frequency for decades coexisting with other agencies all over. Things were in balance. Then, during the height of the narrowbanding "crisis," they buy a DMR repeater and make 2 channels out of 1. Woot! However, the defaults on the repeaters have a long hang time. And, some systems are running AVL on timeslot 2. This could mean the repeater hangs on in transmit just about all day, almost like a trunked control channel. That creates a plateau of interference that weaker signals can't overcome. In a lot of cases, the repeater is on someone else's input frequency on VHF high band. Then it pretty much blocks anything beneath it, and possibly superimposes digital artifact onto a stronger signal (think heterodyne, except one of the components is the DMR station). So, practices for TDMA (because no one's picking on DMR, it's really ANY TDMA implementation on shared use frequencies) require having below a certain threshold value of signal at the receiving stations' antenna, at the same height as the antenna - not to mobiles (the way coordination is usually done).

That's not a problem in paired environments, like UHF, where the transmitter to receiver separation will always be 5 MHz and outputs will not fall on inputs.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Not that long ago, the FCC released a report and order on allowing "non-standard pairs." That's a terrible misnomer that makes people think it's not a 5 MHz UHF pairing, but really, it allows for two 4K00 emissions to be placed 3.125 kHz removed from the center frequency of certain UHF channels, with the proviso that the center frequency also be licensed, and that the stations be licensed as FB8 (exclusive trunked), which is a disparity when compared to DMR. I've seen some of that implemented around Kentucky (but surprisingly not in many other areas).

From my vantage point, narrow NXDN's chief utility is in urban areas where an agency "has to" have a VHF frequency pair. Given the TSB-88.1 D relationships, and the corresponding LMR adjacent channel deratings, it's possible to squeeze on into frequencies where wider signals, like DMR would fail adjacency criteria. Same can be said for UHF. There are quite a few places who are dunking for frequencies at the bottom of the license barrel. The narrower they are, the better the possibility they'll be able to find a suitable frequency.

The other issue with DMR is channel occupancy patterns. DMR usage can be pretty singular. Some public safety agencies had been on a frequency for decades coexisting with other agencies all over. Things were in balance. Then, during the height of the narrowbanding "crisis," they buy a DMR repeater and make 2 channels out of 1. Woot! However, the defaults on the repeaters have a long hang time. And, some systems are running AVL on timeslot 2. This could mean the repeater hangs on in transmit just about all day, almost like a trunked control channel. That creates a plateau of interference that weaker signals can't overcome. In a lot of cases, the repeater is on someone else's input frequency on VHF high band. Then it pretty much blocks anything beneath it, and possibly superimposes digital artifact onto a stronger signal (think heterodyne, except one of the components is the DMR station). So, practices for TDMA (because no one's picking on DMR, it's really ANY TDMA implementation on shared use frequencies) require having below a certain threshold value of signal at the receiving stations' antenna, at the same height as the antenna - not to mobiles (the way coordination is usually done).

That's not a problem in paired environments, like UHF, where the transmitter to receiver separation will always be 5 MHz and outputs will not fall on inputs.

Is that DMR or MotoTRBO? There isn't a ton of non-PS VHF use here locally though. Most of the "commercial" LMR systems are UHF here with PS/PU being either VHF or 800 MHz.

 

[slicerwizard]

Yeah, if you look at the TDMA part of DMR, and being able to fit two time slots in to 12.5KHz of bandwidth it is more efficient than NXDN. Due to combiners, you'd need more space to get two NXDN channels in.

Two narrow NXDN channels fit nicely in 12.5 kHz and provide the exact same capacity (9600 bps, two voice/data paths) as one DMR channel, so where is this extra efficiency?

 

[mmckenna]

Two narrow NXDN channels fit nicely in 12.5 kHz and provide the exact same capacity (9600 bps, two voice/data paths) as one DMR channel, so where is this extra efficiency?

Because of the TDM, you get the two timeslots to use in 12.5.

I've heard some Icom's will do two 6.25 channels right up against each other, but the Kenwood's won't. You'd need a bit of separation to make the combiners work right.

I've only got a NexEdge trunked system, so I don't have any real experience with the Icom iDAS version. I understand there are variations, but I'm looking at just the NexEdge/Kenwood versions.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Two narrow NXDN channels fit nicely in 12.5 kHz and provide the exact same capacity (9600 bps, two voice/data paths) as one DMR channel, so where is this extra efficiency?

With NXDN you will need two repeaters, plus associated duplexer/combiner equipment for two voice paths, where as with DMR you only need one repeater and one duplexer for that same two voice paths. You are talking thousands of dollars difference in cost for the same two talk paths.


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[krokus]

With NXDN you will need two repeaters, plus associated duplexer/combiner equipment for two voice paths, where as with DMR you only need one repeater and one duplexer for that same two voice paths. You are talking thousands of dollars difference in cost for the same two talk paths.

That is where there is a trade off, as already mentioned, in equipment cost versus capability to accommodate an equipment failure. (Granted the reliability is high, but failures do happen for a number of reasons.)

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[slicerwizard]

With NXDN you will need two repeaters, plus associated duplexer/combiner equipment for two voice paths, where as with DMR you only need one repeater and one duplexer for that same two voice paths. You are talking thousands of dollars difference in cost for the same two talk paths.

That has nothing to do with spectrum efficiency. And it ignores the cost of the dozens, hundreds or thousands of subscriber units the system supports.

Because of the TDM, you get the two timeslots to use in 12.5.

I've heard some Icom's will do two 6.25 channels right up against each other, but the Kenwood's won't. You'd need a bit of separation to make the combiners work right.

I've only got a NexEdge trunked system, so I don't have any real experience with the Icom iDAS version. I understand there are variations, but I'm looking at just the NexEdge/Kenwood versions.

This NexEdge system and its subscriber units have no issues with 6.25 kHz channel spacing. Nor does my cheap netbook with its $10 DVB-T dongles; four carriers side by side in this screenshot and no decoding errors or audio distortion. I have no specific info on what hardware this airtime provider is using, but it obviously works just fine.