ElroyJetson said:
Well, since I never tried to FPP that many channels, it's understandable that I didn't know that limit, Alex.
Actually I only have bothered to set up one zone of 16 channels for FPP in my own radios. It's sufficient for my needs.
I'm assuming that response was meant for me, even though I am Not Alex. In any event, I'm glad to have provided some clarification and it should hold you in good stead if you should ever decide to utilize more FPP zones on your radio.
ElroyJetson said:
But, FPP is so well implemented that anyone who knows the usual ham brands of portable radios (Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu, Alinco, etc) and then tries out the 5K with FPP never wants to go back to his ham brand radio again, or so it seems. It's far easier to FPP program channels into a 5K than it is to edit channels in almost any amateur portable radio I've ever seen.
As convenient as FPP is, there is still one major flaw. The modulation type of the channel is still tied to the personality, so if you change it, you change the setting in the personality as well, and thus every channel that was slaved to it. This was true with the R09 and prior firmware, but if you were carefull to never change modulation type, it offered you much more flexibility. R10 and later made it basically impossible to muck up in this fashion, at the cost of making it much
less flexible. Coincidentally, and since you have one you should be able to see this for yourself, the APX FPP behaves pretty much like a R09 XTS, in that there's no FPP 1-to-1 limitation, and if you change the modulation type, it affects all the channels (options as they call them) that are associated with that same personality.
ElroyJetson said:
At Dayton, it seemed to me that most of the portable radios being used were Motorolas, and of the Motorola portables in use, most of them were 5Ks.
Motorola could stand to do themselves a favor and see for themselves how popular their radio are
in the amateur community, and build radios for that market that are affordable, durable, have the
quality features that we like, and are tailored for amateur needs. I really think that they COULD
take away a lot of market share from the amateur brand companies.
Most amateur portables are based on the use of a function key. Frankly that sucks. Once you try
a radio that uses a menu and softkey operating system, it's tough to go back.
Fanboi-dom aside, there is one very important point that Mark touches on above. There is simply no major profit to be had for Motorola in developing purpose-built amateur radio products. Any money they might make off of such a line, once you subtract engineering and production costs, not to mention licensing fees for any proprietary codecs, pales absolutely in significance compared to their core two-way business. As much as anyone might wish for them to do so, it is not, in my opinion, in Motorola's best interests to move into the amateur radio market. That market is already served very well by a host of companies, and I think you would find that out of the entire amateur community using frequencies and modes that are covered both by repurposed Motorola commercial products and purpose-build amateur equipment, the percent of operators using Motorola gear is not in the majority.
Either which way, many operators out there, yourself included, have found that Motorola gear suits your needs, and since experimentation and innovation are at the core of the hobby, I congratulate you on your adherance to the spirit of amateur radio.
