Boatanchor
Member
- Joined
- Jul 17, 2011
- Messages
- 991
I think you answered your own question - Encryption is the only real benefit to going digital.
That and certain vested interests from the manufacturers and DV vocoder companies.
NFM works fine, complies with all current narrowband mandates and despite some saying that digital gives improved frequency response, that is absolute crap. Yes, digital in theory gives improved bass response below 300Hz, but that is really irrelivent for good voice comms. It is the high end, above 3Khz that provides the nuances and improves 'readability' to human voices, not down around 100Hz. Many digital systems I monitor/use have very limited frequency response above about 2.8Khz. Uniden scanners seem to have a digital audio low pass filter that rolls off sharply above about 2.5Khz, hense the slighty muffled quality of their scanners on digital, compared to other digital receivers.
Also, very little research has gone into the multipath problems that P25 suffers around fires caused by heat induced convection currents and carbon rich plumes. I have done some research into this and the results were not pretty on any commercial subscriber radio. Analogue FM handles such interference much better. This is one reason why various Fire agencies specify reverting to FM/NFM for local comms in wildfire situations. They know that digital falls on it's a#se under such conditions.
