• To anyone looking to acquire commercial radio programming software:

    Please do not make requests for copies of radio programming software which is sold (or was sold) by the manufacturer for any monetary value. All requests will be deleted and a forum infraction issued. Making a request such as this is attempting to engage in software piracy and this forum cannot be involved or associated with this activity. The same goes for any private transaction via Private Message. Even if you attempt to engage in this activity in PM's we will still enforce the forum rules. Your PM's are not private and the administration has the right to read them if there's a hint to criminal activity.

    If you are having trouble legally obtaining software please state so. We do not want any hurt feelings when your vague post is mistaken for a free request. It is YOUR responsibility to properly word your request.

    To obtain Motorola software see the Sticky in the Motorola forum.

    The various other vendors often permit their dealers to sell the software online (i.e., Kenwood). Please use Google or some other search engine to find a dealer that sells the software. Typically each series or individual radio requires its own software package. Often the Kenwood software is less than $100 so don't be a cheapskate; just purchase it.

    For M/A Com/Harris/GE, etc: there are two software packages that program all current and past radios. One package is for conventional programming and the other for trunked programming. The trunked package is in upwards of $2,500. The conventional package is more reasonable though is still several hundred dollars. The benefit is you do not need multiple versions for each radio (unlike Motorola).

    This is a large and very visible forum. We cannot jeopardize the ability to provide the RadioReference services by allowing this activity to occur. Please respect this.

17 *#@%ing years!

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kc8jwt

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Oh, you poor, uninformed soul. You misread the news article. That's how long it takes to get out of the planning committee. :) Don't worry. It's a common mistake.

Locally, we had a road project that took 47 years to complete. They finished it about 3 months ago.

When I was in high school they were finishing a road from where I live to a bridge that crossed into West Virginia. Ohio convinced West Virginia if they built the bridge, they would have the road waiting when they were done with the bridge. The bridge was finished in 1981. The road met up there in around 2005.

When they did the first part there was going to be an interchange. The road that went through there originally had a slip. ODOT's solution was that when it got rough, even it out with asphalt. When they went to fix the road alignment, they started tearing up that section to fix it and found the asphalt was 45 to 65 feet thick in some places.
 

davidgcet

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first round of rebanding we took more spectrum and equipment to put in some LTR sites in areas Moto would not allow us to use SMR(as a dealer they had a say in where we could use the product). next round we took more LTR stuff and cut off the 2 SMR systems we had. never did have a huge number of subs on any of it, I really wish my parents had just taken the initial offer and run with it as the dollar amount was more than any profit made over the next several years!!!
 

PACNWDude

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Yeah, I agree. Our system was rebanded in 2008. The wonderful Motorola leaky caps got our system controller in 2009. The MSF-5000's were on their last legs.
I ended up replacing the system in 2011.

I should have taken the money and ran.
I remember having the kick off meetings with Motorola, there were 2 or 3 'technical' guys there, and about 5 Motorola sales drones. They were really pushing for us to go P25.

Motorola made a lot of money off this. So did all the lawyers.
I think the Anterix 900MHz thing is "rebanding Part 2", but not as big.
Waiting to see what the next "emergency" is for Motorola to try and save us from.

I had a similar experience with Motorola as well. AS you said, what will be the next emergency that Motorola solutions will deliver us from? I also support a nationwide Trbo based network, as well as P25 Astro, and the new Ion series radios are being pushed heavily. Then there is the Genesis Group, which makes software to interface Trbo to Astro Motorola systems, and we are beta testing the GEnSAC3 for them. It gets old being the test case for many science projects that end up nationwide, as part of an emergency upgrade or change to radio networks for public safety.
 

Project25_MASTR

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I had a similar experience with Motorola as well. AS you said, what will be the next emergency that Motorola solutions will deliver us from? I also support a nationwide Trbo based network, as well as P25 Astro, and the new Ion series radios are being pushed heavily. Then there is the Genesis Group, which makes software to interface Trbo to Astro Motorola systems, and we are beta testing the GEnSAC3 for them. It gets old being the test case for many science projects that end up nationwide, as part of an emergency upgrade or change to radio networks for public safety.

Nationwide TRBO sounds like a pain. I used to have to work with PDV's Connect Plus system (as well as managing one of their competitor's Connect Plus systems in central Texas) on occasion and it was a nightmare if radios weren't around to receive site updates. Capacity Max made some improvements to that as well...but when you get to an extremely large scale with a system that's always expanding P25 just makes a lot more sense thanks to adjacent channels being advertised in the control channel data and the SU's capability to perform spectrum wide scans to search for available channels which may not actually be programmed into the radio.

I still occasionally would be brought old stock radios that had been in storage as spares and were being put into service for a niche event that weren't rebanded.

Reminds me of I35 in Texas...since it was opened to traffic in 1962...construction has not finished due to the ever expanding nature of the cities it passes through.
 

kc8jwt

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Nationwide TRBO sounds like a pain. I used to have to work with PDV's Connect Plus system (as well as managing one of their competitor's Connect Plus systems in central Texas) on occasion and it was a nightmare if radios weren't around to receive site updates. Capacity Max made some improvements to that as well...but when you get to an extremely large scale with a system that's always expanding P25 just makes a lot more sense thanks to adjacent channels being advertised in the control channel data and the SU's capability to perform spectrum wide scans to search for available channels which may not actually be programmed into the radio.

I still occasionally would be brought old stock radios that had been in storage as spares and were being put into service for a niche event that weren't rebanded.

Reminds me of I35 in Texas...since it was opened to traffic in 1962...construction has not finished due to the ever expanding nature of the cities it passes through.
I think it could be possible. When you look at the Brandmeister network for Amateur Radio, that seems to work fairly well. The way they set the talkgroups up via an area, statewide, or section of a state seems to work quite well. Now the issue would be that if you had two folks located in the same town using the statewide talkgroup to deal with something in the town, that would get old quick. I've seen folks on the Ohio Statewide and they be across town, so in using the statewide TG, they end up tying up 40 some repeaters in the state.

It comes down to education to the end user and programming radios in a common sense manner.
 

wa8pyr

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I think it could be possible. When you look at the Brandmeister network for Amateur Radio, that seems to work fairly well. The way they set the talkgroups up via an area, statewide, or section of a state seems to work quite well. Now the issue would be that if you had two folks located in the same town using the statewide talkgroup to deal with something in the town, that would get old quick. I've seen folks on the Ohio Statewide and they be across town, so in using the statewide TG, they end up tying up 40 some repeaters in the state.

It comes down to education to the end user and programming radios in a common sense manner.

As well as the willingness of the goofballs to get on a different talkgroup. I've noticed the same issue with Ohio Statewide myself, but often the Talkgroup Police will pop up and ask them to move to a TAC talkgroup.
 

Project25_MASTR

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I think it could be possible. When you look at the Brandmeister network for Amateur Radio, that seems to work fairly well. The way they set the talkgroups up via an area, statewide, or section of a state seems to work quite well. Now the issue would be that if you had two folks located in the same town using the statewide talkgroup to deal with something in the town, that would get old quick. I've seen folks on the Ohio Statewide and they be across town, so in using the statewide TG, they end up tying up 40 some repeaters in the state.

It comes down to education to the end user and programming radios in a common sense manner.
Looking from a commercial system admin/technician point of view Brandmiester and DMR MARC are just total clusters that really prove the weak points of wide area conventional and DMR systems when you allow users to overload talk resources.

Now looking at something like a wide area (control based) trunking system it is a bit of a different story. The system controller (sometimes called a zone controller or core controller) essentially keeps a data base of what talkgroups are in active use at each site which is populated by the affiliation process. Since the system controller knows exactly what sites a given talk group is in use at...it knows exactly where traffic for the talkgroup needs to be sent. It doesn't need to send it to all sites (unless of course there are subscribers actively affiliated to a particular talkgroup at all sites). As an example, if you have a two site system (Site 1 and Site 2 respectively) and one user on each site on the same talkgroup (Talkgroup A), they will be able to talk to one another through the network. If the users of Talkgroup A at Site 2 roams over to Site 1 where the other user is, their radio de-affiliates from Site 2 and then affiliates to Site 1 and the system will recognize that it no longers needs to send traffic for Talkgroup A over to Site 2 and as a result, when Talkgroup A is keyed with both users affiliated to Site 1, Site 2 isn't tied up with Talkgroup A's traffic.

The big difference (in my opinion) with DMR trunking and P25 trunking is how site and channel information is stored and conveyed. Because information about sites and what channel number correlates to a specific TX/RX frequency are stored in the memory of a DMR radio making changes to sites or adding/removing sites can be a real problem if you don't have a way of updating that stored information in the radio when changes occur. P25 on the other hand operates in a way where it doesn't really matter as channels are assigned differently and the radios have the ability to dynamically learn about new sites (similar to how cell phones search for new towers).
 

mmckenna

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I have an iDEN BR and site controller in my basement. Took it to a guy not too farm from me that has a controller and fired it up. Was cool to see a 2008 Nextel flip phone come to life.

iDEN was pretty awesome when it first came out. My brother was using NexTel before I'd ever heard of it. The NexTel device he carried looked more like a Motorola XTS radio than a cell phone. Real 800MHz antenna, 3 watts, worked really well. I think it was a Motorola R750.

Then NexTel realized they could cram more phone calls in the spectrum, and the audio quality got worse. And worse. And worse. Get a user that liked to talk close to the mic, and the audio was awful. Was glad to ditch my NexTel phone.
 

902

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In case y'alls don't see the pattern, the land mobile radio industry works on manufactured crises, not by careful research and planning.

The FCC doesn't really steward anything and they depend on industry to push them in the direction that creates the most commerce. So, when someone like Morgan O'Brien found a loophole in acquiring spectrum for his ersatz "cellphone" company by buying up SMR licenses and leveraging his connections at the Commission to create a favorable regulatory environment to make an electronic orange (cellular service) out of a banana (SMRs), there was no forethought about the consequences for implementation.

"Rebanding" wasn't the only crisis. "Narrowbanding" was another manufactured crisis that only benefitted UHF, as the entire bandwidth was contained within the channelspace. VHF being centered every 7.5 kHz with signals typically being 11.25 kHz wide still had to protect adjacent channel incumbents because the content spilled over into adjacent channels, turning all the promises of "new channels" into a big lie. But there winners were manufacturers who cried that cranking down deviation and tightening IF filtering would be insufficient to comply with emission standards, so they all sold new equipment to replace functional older equipment. Sometimes that was a good thing, as this culled much low-tier equipment that should never have been used for public safety use. Rebanding was also the gravy train for 800 MHz equipment, which "had to" be replaced wholesale.

The other people who made out good were fee-able services, like coordination and application-handlers/processors, the Transition Administrator, consultants, and land mobile radio industry lawyers.

The T-Band debacle was also a manufactured crisis. Not by the FCC, but by Congress. And the inclusion of non-native technology that has aberrant channel-usage characteristics, like DMR, affecting channels by creating a plateau of interference for simplex frequencies, and repeaters that followed land mobile usage patterns (and often superimposing digital noise onto signals that do overcome the threshold value).

But this also exposed the need for LMR equipment to be "bulletproof" for whatever intrusive technology is placed adjacent to it. Maybe the biggest bamboozler for me was the concept of a "guardband." That was supposed to be a quiet space between active use and critical use (kinda). But that can be sold or leased, and more noise-generators can be put up. And, now, the conversion to power flux density would allow greater signal levels at the street level from cellular carriers, very likely swamping the new 700 MHz band and 800 MHz LMR equipment (again).

Planning and anticipating consequences and taking preemptive mitigation takes too much effort, and it always impinges on someone's bottom line and revenue stream. So they'll just do it and maybe it won't interfere. In the meantime, LMR's stuck in reactionary mode most of the time, with the latest entrant disrupting long-established users. It's little wonder many newer products are including LTE compatibility for radio emulation over LTE. It's probably the only way to escape the big garbage can of poor management the FCC allowed the industry to create.
 

mmckenna

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It's probably the only way to escape the big garbage can of poor management the FCC allowed the industry to create.

With all of low bands issues, it seems like a safe haven sometimes.

And let us not forget about Anterix with their 900MHz stuff. Sort of like NexTel gobbling up systems and then having the FCC rejigger the rules to build an LTE system that no one really needs.

And Ligado trying their hardest to knock GPS over.
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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With all of low bands issues, it seems like a safe haven sometimes.

And let us not forget about Anterix with their 900MHz stuff. Sort of like NexTel gobbling up systems and then having the FCC rejigger the rules to build an LTE system that no one really needs.

And Ligado trying their hardest to knock GPS over.

"43 MHz Its clear DOWN here"

Anterix is again, Morgan Obrien doing what he does.


Maybe Ligado should f*** up GPS it will be such a public disaster that taxpayers and voters will take notice. People will be rushing to buy GLONASS products, even the DOD will have to put strap on GLONASS on their bunker busters.
 
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902

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With all of low bands issues, it seems like a safe haven sometimes.

And let us not forget about Anterix with their 900MHz stuff. Sort of like NexTel gobbling up systems and then having the FCC rejigger the rules to build an LTE system that no one really needs.

And Ligado trying their hardest to knock GPS over.

Ligado is like a bad case of recurring shingles.

Low band is ripe for real "refarming." It's still a very viable band, and if the usual manufacturers won't touch it, I'm sure a Chinese importer can be convinced to commission a quality product that makes it competitive without the baggage of an 18 month product cycle or budgeting a $5k replacement every 5 years.

LTE? Is that the official ("sponsored by the Department of Commerce"), or the competitive (we didn't bid but our marketing guys say we should target the market) - both with spiffy people dressed in 5-11 pants arriving 72 hours after you need them?
(Repurposing a New York Telephone commercial)
"We're all 'connected,'
Public Safety Telephone"
 

902

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Anterix is again, Morgan Obrien doing what he does.
Funny story: When Nextel's road shows were pitching to public safety, I got invited to one in the St. Louis market. The fire chiefs were already enamored with the ability to talk to each other with direct connect as sort of a back-channel intercom, and we were on the way to putting a recorded control station into the fire/EMS dispatch center. This is at a large community center somewhere in St. Louis County and I arrive late, as usual. I open the door, and there is one open chair left at a large square configuration seating. I ask the guy to the right of me, "Anyone sitting here?" He said no, and I sat down. I introduce myself, and he says, "Hi, I'm Morgan." Nice enough guy, but I still had no idea who he was at the time.

Kinda reminds me of the time my uncle met a Hare Krishna guy and said, "Nice to meet you, Harry. My name's George."
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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902 sayeth:

"Low band is ripe for real "refarming." "

Please, No no no!

1616267604540.png

Major Edwin H. Armstrong says no to mandatory narrowbanding

"Working in secret in the basement laboratory of Columbia's Philosophy Hall, Armstrong developed "wide-band" FM, in the process discovering significant advantages over the earlier "narrow-band" FM transmissions. In a "wide-band" FM system, the deviations of the carrier frequency are made to be much larger in magnitude than the frequency of the audio signal; this can be shown to provide better noise rejection. He was granted five US patents covering the basic features of new system on December 26, 1933 "
 

RFI-EMI-GUY

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Funny story: When Nextel's road shows were pitching to public safety, I got invited to one in the St. Louis market. The fire chiefs were already enamored with the ability to talk to each other with direct connect as sort of a back-channel intercom, and we were on the way to putting a recorded control station into the fire/EMS dispatch center. This is at a large community center somewhere in St. Louis County and I arrive late, as usual. I open the door, and there is one open chair left at a large square configuration seating. I ask the guy to the right of me, "Anyone sitting here?" He said no, and I sat down. I introduce myself, and he says, "Hi, I'm Morgan." Nice enough guy, but I still had no idea who he was at the time.

Kinda reminds me of the time my uncle met a Hare Krishna guy and said, "Nice to meet you, Harry. My name's George."

The Hare Krishna took over O'Hare Airport years ago panhandling and harassing travelers in the terminal. Freedom of speech thing. So the chamber of commerce handed out bushels of these mechanical "clicker" toys to travelers and instructed them to click if they were being harassed. It suddenly became very noisy and the Hare made a quick retreat.
 
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