Quantar or ef johnson 3800

[Nextgentow88]

Hello all I have the opportunity to buy two different repeaters.I only need one they are going to be exactly the same price I'm just wanting to know which one would have more features???

I know they both do p25 which I will like but aside from that which is better one is a quantar and one is an EF Johnson 3800 both UHF. Do they have the same trunking capabilities ltr passport capacity plus max? Linking more repeaters capabilities voting?

Is one easier for add ons or upgrades does johnson have a built-in controller? Ive never programmed a johnson repeater how is the interface?

thank you all for your input!!!

 

[mmckenna]

Hello all I have the opportunity to buy two different repeaters.I only need one they are going to be exactly the same price I'm just wanting to know which one would have more features???

I know they both do p25 which I will like but aside from that which is better one is a quantar and one is an EF Johnson 3800 both UHF. Do they have the same trunking capabilities ltr passport capacity plus max? Linking more repeaters capabilities voting?

Capacity Plus is DMR. These repeaters won't natively do DMR. They are analog/P25

Trunking/linking is easily done using the ports on the repeaters to interface to external equipment. Either repeater will do that with the right add on's.

Never used an EF J repeater, but I have several Quantars at work. Only issue I've ever had with them was the power supply going bad. They are really durable repeaters and will run full power non-stop. Accidentally left one of my 800MHz Quantars dead keyed for about 24 hours.

There's often a lot of Quantars on e-bay, so buying an extra for spare parts/power supply would be a good plan.

 

[MTS2000des]

Depends on what your system is. Are you a conventional or trunking? If trunking, MSI, Harris or someone else? FWIW the Quantar is a workhorse, and superior performing station with a well documented history. Had several of them on my old Smartnet system and still have a handful living out their lives as 8-TAC conventional repeaters.

 

[Nextgentow88]

Thanks for your input fellas im leaning towards the quantar only because there so much documented on the web mods add ons.

The johnson is a little newer and claims to have a lot of plug n play type features but ive never dealt with one before.
This will be a trunked system 3 channels.

Trying to use a lot of hardware in a smaller form factor too as i dont have unlimited rack space. Thanks again for your time

 

[Project25_MASTR]

The better question is what kind of trunking system are you attempting to build?

Quntars are great repeaters though as mentioned, they are showing their age. They can also be quite fickle when it comes to getting the correct SCM for what you are wanting to do. The major downside to the Quantar (aside from the fact it's not a Quantar project until someone is bleeding) is that they don't use a standard interface on the digital side. Sure you can hook up a 3rd party controller/interface (such as an Etherstack box, LTR controller, MTC3600, 6809, RIC-M, etc) get a standard interface in place but that's additional cost and effort.

The 3800 on the other hand at least has a DFSI interface as the repeater was originally designed to work with EF Johnson's IP25 controller and later migrated to Atlas. That being said, you don't see a lot of 3800's around and when I was at EFJ while we still had them in the lab (operational) we were removing them as the final customer still running them with Atlas had upgraded to Atlas 4500s (which are an awesome repeater but a completely different beast). Like the Quantar, they were considered reliable workhorses and were dated to the time they were designed. I don't know much about them other than that. Now a Simoco SB2020NT or EFJ Atlas 4200...different story but the 3800s you just don't see a ton with them.

 

[mmckenna]

What kind of trunked system? That'll kind of dictate what you can use.