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Icom new Iridium TX

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VE2XWA

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News Release - Icom America
5f773dcc9cc5421fcf0185cdae903496.jpg



Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
 

mmckenna

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Interesting product.

I've got an Iridium phone at work, and while it's really handy, you really do need to be out in the clear for it to work reliably. Makes me wonder how well a "satellite" walkie-talkie is going to work. Wearing it on your hip will likely be problematic. It's not going to work inside a vehicle without an external antenna. Not going to work indoors.

Will be interesting to see if they make a mobile version or a mobile docking station for this.
Would be handy if it did phone calls, too. I did see that the press release specifically says:
"The market has shown a clear demand for a PTT-only radio solution designed for the Iridium network,"

Maybe add in LTE capability, or a traditional two way radio functionality to all it to link back to a mobile radio version for the uplink.
 

MTS2000des

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Curious what PTT technology they are deploying: Kodiak networks or their own homegrown?

Sat phones came in handy during hurricane Michael response in south Georgia. My director and radio manager were deployed as a state team, and sat phones were the ONLY thing that worked until they were able to work with local vendors to restore both PSAP and LMR. First NET did show up within 24-48 hours with COWs, but since the damage was so spread out over a couple hundred miles, cellular service was not reliable at all on all carriers. The state provided a cache of Iridium phones and they were a real life line.

Icom sees the future and it is IP over (x). They're on the right track.
 

prcguy

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There has been some similar PTT satellite radios out for awhile used mostly by the US military and I believe over the Iridium system. I'm now curious what modulation mode they use and if the downlink can be received and decoded.
 

Project25_MASTR

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This is becoming very interesting. Especially with Motorola announcing the TLK-100's last month (seriously, hard to beat when Motorola is giving away the handsets for those who sign up for 24 month contracts at $35 per month per device). See some applications for both but more importantly, what is the latency and will it be livable.
 

prcguy

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I've used Iridium phones and didn't notice any latency. Unlike geostationary satellites at nearly 23,000mi up the Iridium sats are less than 500mi up, so the RF path delay is not much.

This is becoming very interesting. Especially with Motorola announcing the TLK-100's last month (seriously, hard to beat when Motorola is giving away the handsets for those who sign up for 24 month contracts at $35 per month per device). See some applications for both but more importantly, what is the latency and will it be livable.
 

mancow

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There has been some similar PTT satellite radios out for awhile used mostly by the US military and I believe over the Iridium system. I'm now curious what modulation mode they use and if the downlink can be received and decoded.

TDMA similar to DMR with AMBE voice. Satellites act as a mesh network until the GEP is made.
 
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