I would like an answer to that question also. I have an unblocked 8600 and 8200 and regularly let them scan that segment of 800 and never hear anything in South Western Ohio.
R30 Is the IC-R30 SDR based?
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I would like an answer to that question also. I have an unblocked 8600 and 8200 and regularly let them scan that segment of 800 and never hear anything in South Western Ohio.
Ubbe
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DCR in Japan are what FRS/GRMS are in US but theirs are digital. Don't know what use it has outside of Japan, or if any country out of Japan allows it to be used. That's why you never see this mode in any devices except for domestic Japan.
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The blocked range in the US models just contains two very wide digital carriers these days. I think it may be the data carriers used when you can't get a 3G or better signal but I could be wrong on that. Maybe 2G data?
You may recall back in the analog cell days, there were two users allowed in the blocked range. One was the wireline (think AT&T) and the other was your local non-wireline cell company. The two bands were separated by a 1 MHz wide guard range. I think that guard range still exists today.
They called them the A and B bands and you paid dearly if you needed to roam to the other band when you left your area!
So, I also don't really see the deal about having an unblocked model of a receiver these days as long as that is all that is blocked.
Icom's IC-R2500 USA version of their receiver (and maybe the R1500) had some bad blocking. It not only had the normal blocked ranges but due to images and other concerns, Icom also blocked some other small but valid ranges that can be used by today's 800 MHz systems. It was always said they did this just to make sure the FCC would grant the models certification.
I seem to recall one of the GRE made models also took a firmware update that removed a small part of the upper 700 MHz band. Once that FW version was applied, you could not get the range back even with a FW downgrade. I remember them saying it was blocked due to interference inside the radio but in reality, I think it was found that one could hear the mobile side of the old AMPS band via images when tuning the newly blocked range. I don't recall which radio that was but I think it may have just been one of the models sold under the RadioShack name.
As far as I'm concerned, a blocked radio should tune about everything that you could possibly receive with the exception of the few oddballs like what Icom did with the R2500 and maybe the R1500.
The other bad thing is this must have added some cost to the manufacturers by needing two models. I'm sure most of them would prefer to make just one model with just one FW version needing to be maintained.
Today, the ECPA block is just a waste in my eyes. Unless someone has a way to decode whatever rides in the two super wide data channels in the old AMPS band, there is nothing there. Even if they were not blocked any longer, none of today's scanners could tune the wide bandwidth of each data channel. Each channel is roughly 10 MHz wide. At least that's what can be seen on a scope.
I agree on both statements. ECPA is a waste and un-necessary, adding expense to receiver manufacturing. Having it reversed is highly unlikely as the circus in DC would rather waste our money on useless investigations and hearings.
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