TRX-1: TRX-1 DMR Coverage

[TailGator911]

So, a ham radio friend of mine came over to watch the Rams vs Cowboys game and he wanted to show me his 'workhorse' DMR radio that he's had for a while now. Much has been said about the TRX-1 not being a 'true' DMR trunk tracker, that the technology is copyrighted and Whistler will not pay for it blah blah. So, I said, "Yeah, bring it over, there's something I'd like to try out" . I've read it many times here and wondered about it, as my TRX-1 tracks DMR very well. So, he whips out his AnyTone AT-D868UV and shows me a list of channels he has programmed into it, security companies, hospitals, transportation, some companies unidentified, and a couple of local DMR ham radio repeaters, and I set up a limit search scan with the parameters to cover those frequencies and we perch the radios side by side and listen.

My TRX-1 did not miss ONE single transmission and lit up every time the AnyTone stopped on a voice transmission, simultaneously. During the 2 hours or so we spent watching the game, munching some wings and pizza, the only time my TRX-1 was not neck and neck with his radio was if it happened to hit a voice transmit before it caught up with the DMR radio's scan, (catching some stuff the dmr radio had missed!) and I would turn the knob to continue to scan and it went right to the same DMR channel that was open on the AT-D868UV. I brought my SDS100 into the last 15 minutes of the race and it was triple conversion and parallel coverage. The TRX-1 might not have 'true' DMR tracking capabilities, but I don't see how it's performance can be denigrated because of it. My TRX-1 kept up with the AT-D868UV the whole time. So what is the big deal that people like to throw that fact out there when comparing other scanners with the TRX-1? Just for spite because Whistler does not pay to play? I find the TRX-1 so dependable on DMR systems that I carry it with my SDS100 and Yaesu FT2-DR when I travel and I dedicate it to DMR/NXDN only, the SDS100 for public safety coms, and the wide coverage FT2-DR for everything else. I don't care what the critics say, the TRX-1 is one bada$$ radio for DMR coverage.

JD
kf4anc

 

[GTR8000]

I'm not passing any judgment here, as I have no dog in this fight, but I'm am curious for clarification purposes...were you scanning conventional DMR repeaters, or trunked DMR systems (specifically ConnectPlus and/or Tier 3)?

To be clear, the Unidens and the Whistlers both scan conventional DMR using the same method, which is to say the same method as scanning any other conventional channel (analog, P25, etc.) It's with trunked DMR systems that the difference lies. Uniden paid the royalties to Motorola so that their scanners can "trunk track" by decoding control/rest channel data. Whistler did not pay those royalties, therefore they scan trunked systems by scanning all of the frequencies conventionally, looking at the talkgroup IDs in the voice data stream when a frequency is active.

Like I said, doesn't affect me whatsoever and frankly I'm sincerely glad to hear when someone is happy with any product they paid good money for. I'm just wanting to get a sense of whether this was an apples to apples comparison after reading your post.

 

[buddrousa]

We are saying what was said by a known Whistler person that the GRE WHISTLER scanners only scan not track by control rest channel ect.

 

[TailGator911]

I know for a fact that one of the systems was a trunked DMR but not certain if it was ConnectPlus or Tier 3, and he mentioned MotoTRBO . I am just now diving into DMR and learning about it, so I am not familiar with any of it. All I know is my TRX-1 follows it just fine and I am going to purchase the same radio Ted had (the AnyTone AT-D868UV) to be able to transmit on his DMR repeater. He doesn't have everything he needs just yet to get it going, but soon.

My purpose for this thread was just to hopefully get someone to comment with some information on DMR and how it works and to understand how the TRX-1 can track it so well even tho it is not technically engineered to do so. Buddrousa stated it scans and does not track by control channel. So, I am thinking it might not do so well on large systems? I also read somewhere that Close Call will not detect DMR transmissions. Why is that? I am in the midst of reading up on DMR on the internet, so I will no doubt answer my own questions here. DMR seems to be a prominent mode in amateur radio and I am just trying to keep up with the technology Thanks for the replies, guys!

More toys to enjoy!

JD
kf4anc

 

[Ubbe]

Whistlers way of following calls on trunked system works better than Unidens if the system have low traffic intensity or fewer channels per site. My Uniden scanner doesn't decode the control channel with 100% reliability and Whistlers way of checking voice channels are bullet proof. If there are a carrier on a voice channel the Whistler scanner will check it for conversations. It never fails. Negative side of it are that it takes a longer time to scan and will make an impact on busy systems with many channels per site, as it could miss the first word of a conversation.

/Ubbe

 

[sibbley]

Absolutely, Whistler is fantastic on systems that are not very busy. They'll give Uniden a run for it's money any day of the week on small systems.

 

[buddrousa]

As I have posted several times each of my scanners has a purpose and each has plus and minus points.

 

[RRR]

I like my TRX-1, because it shows the Mototrbo (or "DMR") information on a frequency right there, as in, timeslot, colorcode, and talkgroup, without having to save it as any kind of special "system" or anything, to analyze it. I can search a range of frequencies, and it will land on a "DMR" freq, and there all the info is. Hard to beat that

 

[woodpecker]

The TRX is very good on DMR systems, although the Unidens will track I've never really noticed much difference in performance, quite often the TRX-1 will beat my 436.