How long will Analog be in use?

[chas0039]

I just got a PSR-800 and I am very annoyed with the way it handles virtually all the digital traffic in my area. Either it just doesn't pick up anything (hard to believe there is no police traffic in the entire city of Minneapolis) or the few things I do get sound like someone is speaking backwards with tons of drop out.

Analog, however works just fine, the same as I remember from years ago. My question is this: is there any point in selling this and replacing it with a PSR-700 or will I find that obsolete in a short time?

I am posting in the MN forum to see if there is anything I am doing wrong so I am not giving up yet on this radio. I am just looking at my options. I hate to pay double for something that has no value in my location.

Thanks

 

[cherubim]

digital radio transmissions are prone to distortion so it's not surprising you are having problems with reception. With digiral it's all or nothing, unlike analog which is still readable even if the signal is weak.

I don't anticipate analog ever going away completely as it's still used by a number of different services (airband, marine, businesses etc) and also as a backup to many digital trunking systems in the event that they might go down - which is more common than people think.

 

[K9WG]

***** Caution - Personal Opinion to Follow ******
.
In my not so humble opinion, I think analog will make a comeback in smaller communities when they realize that they have spent a lot of money on a system that doesn't work nearly as well as analog. Seems all too common for the responding officer to have to repeat themselves because they "went digital" and could not be heard. About the time some officer gets injured or killed because the digital transmission was not strong enough then analog will seem like a better mode.
.

 

[chas0039]

That's kind of what I thought, all or nothing the same as HD TV. What a giant scam that is.

Thanks

 

[wardaddy]

It sounds as though you may be experiencing some multipath issues. People have had some luck with creative antenna installations, but your mileage may vary.

As far as analog communications are concerned, they will likely be shifted to digital over the next decade. The FCC has made quite a business out of the RF spectrum and more "efficient" digital modes mean more available frequencies for the auction block.

 

[gewecke]

***** Caution - Personal Opinion to Follow ******
.
In my not so humble opinion, I think analog will make a comeback in smaller communities when they realize that they have spent a lot of money on a system that doesn't work nearly as well as analog. Seems all too common for the responding officer to have to repeat themselves because they "went digital" and could not be heard. About the time some officer gets injured or killed because the digital transmission was not strong enough then analog will seem like a better mode.
.

I fully agree!! This becoming a common issue in my area as well, on a daily basis.

73,
n9zas

 

[lynxrufus]

***** Caution - Personal Opinion to Follow ******
.
In my not so humble opinion, I think analog will make a comeback in smaller communities when they realize that they have spent a lot of money on a system that doesn't work nearly as well as analog. Seems all too common for the responding officer to have to repeat themselves because they "went digital" and could not be heard. About the time some officer gets injured or killed because the digital transmission was not strong enough then analog will seem like a better mode.
.

There's going to be some push-back against digital.

Digital is quite the fad these days and will make great inroads but when taxpayers figure out what it costs, they may ask if it's really worth it for a system that still has serious problems.

Cost will keep some agencies from being in a great hurry to go digital and horror stories of digital radios not working when they are needed most will slow the spread of what some have called "the digital disease." Fire agencies are justifiably scared of all-or-nothing digital radios being nothing just when a life is at stake.

But the spread of digital will be hard to stop.

 

[frazpo]

Yes. By 2014 our 3 largest towns in Jasper County,Mo will all be digital along with the sheriffs dept. 4 agencies 3 different protocols. P25, NXDN, and DMR. The county population is roughly 100k. This seems like an interoperability nightmare. I am unsure of plans for that. After the Joplin tornado, which is in this county, you would think that there would be something in the works for another disaster situation.

 

[chas0039]

It sounds as though you may be experiencing some multipath issues.

From what I am reading, I agree. And it seems there is no solution.

Question: Does it make any difference which site I pick for a talk group? Should I pick more than one? There must be something relevant, or else we could just ignore the sites if everything comes in on the closest one anyway.

Somewhere there has to be information that tells me what choosing one site or another has to do with anything!!!

Insert massive frustration here

 

[wardaddy]

Are you wanting to stick with handheld operation or would you be open to the idea of using a directional antenna?

 

[chas0039]

I need to stick with the hand held for now, but a small directional might work in the future.

Any ideas on the site choice questions?

 

[JoeyC]

Question: Does it make any difference which site I pick for a talk group? Should I pick more than one? There must be something relevant, or else we could just ignore the sites if everything comes in on the closest one anyway.

Somewhere there has to be information that tells me what choosing one site or another has to do with anything!!!

Insert massive frustration here

Sites are out there to provide radio coverage for a specific area. Obviously due to terrain and distance one site cannot cover a very large area unless massive amounts of RF energy are generated from the site - but this may cause interference for some other user at a distant location using the same frequency. For this reason, site transmitters are limited in the power they put out. So there may be sites scattered around your region to cover all the intended areas.

With that said, Governments can set up their systems in many configurations, one being simulcast situations. In those cases, several, many (or all) of the sites may be linked together and all transmit the same information simultaneously. This in the digital world causes the dreaded digital distortion and issues that our scanners cannot interpret well. Other setups for trunked systems may be that none of the sites are linked (or simulcast) and each operates as an independant transmitter site. For a site to carry talkgroup traffic, it has to have a radio affiliated to it, otherwise it will not transmit the talkgroup traffic.

So, you many have a police force in a county that has say, 3 sites that are not simulcast. If all the police radios are located at one site of town, near site 1, they all may affiliate to site 1 and only site 1 will transmit traffic when someone talks on the talkgroup. Should a radio move to another part of town and affiliate with site 2 or 3, then the talkgroup traffic will go over that site as well.

As a scanner user, you have to keep all this in mind as you program your scanner.

Whether or not there is simulcasting (in that case you may only need to program the site that gives you best reception)
Whether some of the non simulcast sites go silent on occasion (you may need to program to listen to several sites to hear everything on your talkgroup)

There is MUCH more to all of this than this simple explanation, but should get you started.

 

[JoeyC]

As for what people are saying that digital is a fad and stuff, I doubt seriously that it is going away or that there will be a flood of digital ditchers out there returning to analog.
As far as digital voice radio is concerned, it is relatively new technology in the age of radio. In its short lifespan, there have already been improvements that continue to make digital voice an excellent option and there will continue to be improvements. About being all or nothing in digital, that is true. However what the all or nothing crowd doesn't say is that because of error correction in software, the "all" extends to practically the same distance as an intelligable analog signal goes. And the "nothing" is in the same neck of the woods as the analog user would be hearing "10-9 you are weak and barely readable". Analog probably has a small advantage over digital for the human brains ability to interpret very weak signals, but unless you are trying to hear it in a studio or a completely quiet environment, can you really make out what is said in a very weak analog transmission?

 

[commscanaus]

With the deluge of sub $100 wideband TX, analog radios coming out of Asia, to say that analog is dead (or soon to be dead) would be an incorrect statement.
I have seen many of those radios in use everywhere from security to construction.
A company owner can buy 8 of those cheap HT's with accessories compared to one TETRA handset (which has monthly network access fees ongoing) and if it gets trampled or dropped, grab another one!

Certainly for large trunked systems or Government users, analog will become a thing of the past.

There will ALWAYS be some users content to use analog in the commercial/private sector, especially where the cost is the main consideration.

Sure, the amount of interesting traffic to listen to may decline, but it becomes more of a challenge to seek out the good stuff.

Yes digital equipment is getting cheaper with more choices of standard, but analog gear is still the cheapest and easiest to operate!

Commscanaus.

 

[ab3a]

Trunking and Digital

Digital systems are easier to trunk. Trunking has the advantage that one can use many sites easily instead of one very tall, powerful broadcast site. Trunking systems can break in to smaller usable pieces when communications fail. Trunking systems also get better spectrum economy. The reason many places are moving toward trunking systems is because the FCC is encouraging them to do so.

Another big attraction is encryption. Police and fire investigative units need to be able to have private conversations.

So what's the down side? First, trunking systems are heavily dependent on telecommunications infrastructure to work. They can and they do break down in very bad ways. Also, antenna systems design and propagation work is rapidly turning back in to a black art as the older generation that actually learned this stuff are retiring, with nobody but ignorant IT oriented telecommunications nerds to take their place.

Second, the CODEC often garbles the signal very badly. Analog systems degrade gracefully. Digital signals, not so much. In particular, a firefighter wearing SCBA gear is totally unintelligible with P25 modulation, but understandable with plain FM.

Many firefighters and police are now setting up incident command stations with plain analog low power gear.

Until better CODEC algorithms are developed, I predict that analog radio will never completely be gone. I also predict that aviation radios will continue using AM, and that VHF simplex operations for boats, hams, and other critical infrastructure will never completely go away.

 

[wardaddy]

Which site control data is received from is irrelevant to multipath distortion. Once a user gets a channel grant, all radios (including scanners) will tune to a specific frequency. Depending on the setup of the system, more than one (or perhaps all) of the transmitters will simulcast the transmission on the specified frequency. Finding a transmitter site in an ideal location relative to the receiver and pointing a directional antenna at it may alleviate the multipath issues. Turning on attenuation may also help to some degree.

 

[KB6KGX]

“Private Conversations"

[/QUOTE]Another big attraction is encryption. Police and fire investigative units need to be able to have private conversations. [/QUOTE]


Why can’t they just use cell phones? They can get “encrypted” cell phones, can’t they? I can understand Vice, Narcotics and Arson investigators needing encryption, but there really isn’t any need for the normal run-of-the-mill dispatches to be encrypted. Is it any “security” issue to need to encrypt normal generic dispatches? “Hot-Shot” calls? 211 in progress, etc.? I don’t think so.

 

[jim202]

I just got a PSR-800 and I am very annoyed with the way it handles virtually all the digital traffic in my area. Either it just doesn't pick up anything (hard to believe there is no police traffic in the entire city of Minneapolis) or the few things I do get sound like someone is speaking backwards with tons of drop out.

Analog, however works just fine, the same as I remember from years ago. My question is this: is there any point in selling this and replacing it with a PSR-700 or will I find that obsolete in a short time?

I am posting in the MN forum to see if there is anything I am doing wrong so I am not giving up yet on this radio. I am just looking at my options. I hate to pay double for something that has no value in my location.

Thanks

The migration to digital is being pushed from several fronts. The first is from the FCC trying to stuff more users into the scarce resource of the radio spectrum where they can operate. The second is the requirement to have all VHF and UHF radio channels go to narrow band operation by the end of this year for most users.

What this has done is create a feeding frenzy for all the radio vendors and their sales force. It is not uncommon for the sales teams to go into a user and tell them that they need to replace all their radios to meet the FCC requirement to go narrow band by the end of the year. It doesn't matter that the radios they are currently using are able to be programmed to narrow band operation. Nope they are not going to tell the user that. It wouldn't let them fill their fat bank account if they were smart enough to figure that out.

This suckering the radio users to buy new radios also opens up the door to be able to wave the digital flag and tell the users that a digital radio performs much better than the analog system they are currently using. In some cases, the digital operation might actually improve the current radio system. However, in going to the narrow band operation, it will cut the range down in most cases. This causes more transmitter sites to be installed to provide the same coverage as the analog operation provided. Again the sales force are not going to tell the radio customers this up front. Nope, they will sell the radios and sit back. When the complaints start coming in, the sales force goes back and says that for $XX they can solve the problem.

It is a win win for the sales teams and a loose loose for the radio users. If this is a public safety system, the local tax payers take it in the rear. In most cases, the public safety agencies will not bring in an engineer that can tell the agency just what is going on and if they really need to do what the snake oil vendors are selling them.

To give you a simple answer as to the long range outcome of analog to digital will be, we will have to wait and see. Look at it this way, the only people that make out on this move is the radio vendors.

 

[Dude111]

Analog, however works just fine, the same as I remember from years ago. My question is this: is there any point in selling this and replacing it with a PSR-700 or will I find that obsolete in a short time?

Yes well ANALOGUE IS MUCH BETTER! (Sounds better and is more stable/reliable)

I hope its always in use!!

 

[AC2OY]

Our new digital radios are crystal clear and the volume is uncanny and the mics are so sensitive that if a mic is accidents keyed you can hear the person walking and breathing...what I'm not a fan of is digital encrytiption....what in five years all I'm going to be able is taxi cabs?