Viavi CX300 vs Freedom 8xxx Series

[The_Operator]

I'm in the market for a service monitor that will be used 90% of the time for testing and aligning Kenwood Viking and Motorola APX P25 subscriber radios. I've spent a little bit of time with the Freedom stuff, but none at all with Viavi. Wondering if anyone has used both and can make a recommendation. Since my primary use case is subscribers, choosing the platform with the better auto test capabilities is probably the most important factor. Thanks!

 

[merlin]

I don't know the range of testing with the Freedom, the Viavi I know does full range testing on the APX. The Viking I am not sure of but probably like the APX.

 

[wsp44]

I'm in the market for a service monitor that will be used 90% of the time for testing and aligning Kenwood Viking and Motorola APX P25 subscriber radios. I've spent a little bit of time with the Freedom stuff, but none at all with Viavi. Wondering if anyone has used both and can make a recommendation. Since my primary use case is subscribers, choosing the platform with the better auto test capabilities is probably the most important factor. Thanks!

I am in the same boat; we will be looking to upgrade before the end of the year. We have been users of the Aeroflex/VIAVI 3920 and 8800, and I lean toward the CX300 or CX200. However, before we end up pulling the trigger on such a large purchase, I plan to ask our reps to allow us to demo both units. I would recommend you do the same. The last time I was around a CX300, VIAVI was still tweaking the auto test.

I am interested to see the new ATS-9000 touchscreen from Freedom.

 

[Alarmguy]

Freedom does auto test for all including Harris. I have experience with the 3920B and 3920. We are trying to convince our upper management to trade in the 3920 and get a Freedom 8000. You dont need every option on either. If you try to option out a freedom, you'll faint. Trying to convince people that its not worth upgrading a Com 3920.

 

[LambdaDriver]

Never been much for auto-tune but I just got my hands on a cx300. Its a neat device but it is much heavier and slower than my freedom I had at my last gig. I terribly miss the actual knobs and buttons as well.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Never been much for auto-tune but I just got my hands on a cx300. Its a neat device but it is much heavier and slower than my freedom I had at my last gig. I terribly miss the actual knobs and buttons as well.

My chief complaint with the IFR/Aeroflex/Viavi is that in the modern era their service monitors are are significantly slower than Motorola/General Dynamics/Freedom/Astronics counter parts which is really strange seeing that Viavi runs on embedded Linux and the R8x00 and new R9000 run on some form of Windows Embeded/IOT (depending on the generation).

The other part is the UI on the 2975, 3920, 8800 and CX-300 is not very intuitive and as a result can be very frustrating to use in the field. I've literally watched trainees in Schaumburg storm out of the lab to go get their R2670's or R8x00's out of their vehicles after fighting with the Motorola supplied Viavi units for 20 or 30 minutes. Now compare that to the Motorola/GD/Freedom/Astronics stuff. The R8x00 UI is largey based off the UI of the R26xx and you can still go back as far as the OG R2001 and still find similarities with the UI. The R9000 is a little different on the UI being full touch with some buttons but I don't have enough time playing with it (simply because I haven't had enough time at trade shows to sit down and mess with it yet).

One thing I will say, today the CX-300 is not approved by Motorola for infrastructure. The R8x00 and R9000 has passed its subscriber approval testing with Motorola and the R9000 is currently at Motorola going through infrastructure approval testing. What's kind of funny, the employee at Motorola who more or less blacklisted General Dynamics in the mid-2000's...has retired from Motorola and now works at Astronics.

I've personally never been a fan of the Aeroflex/Viavi labeled boxes. Still rather have my personal R2670A or a R8x00 and I certainly am not a fan of ever dealing with the actual staff at Viavi because it's always a our turds don't stink type of interaction or let's just bash on everyone else versus actually address customer concerns.

 

[ATK3]

I can't speak to the CX series, but the 3900 series and 2975 before it were really built to be lab instruments first, service monitors second. If you want a machine to sit on a bench all day and do protocol-level work, automated SCPI test setups, or just drive the thing through a keyboard/mouse or remote GUI access from a computer, they're great. But I do find that driving the UI from the front panel is obnoxious at times. Later 3920s are plenty fast (SSD + later CPUs fixed most of the load time issues), but old 3901s and 3902s certainly feel slow in comparison to just about anything else.

I haven't heard many bad things about the R8000 from the standpoint of "just needing an autotest box." They're light, they're fast, and the first-party support network has proven very robust. You can still get old R2600 units fixed at the factory, so I'd expect the full family of R8000s to get similar treatment for a good long while. With that said, there seems to be 0 ability to service them through a 3rd party right now, so if for some reason Freedom CTE was no longer able to service the things, you'd be out of luck. At least with the 3920 and 2975, there's robust service manuals, and any good RF test equipment repair shop should be able to fix them. Plus there are a few experts out there already.

 

[PACNWDude]

I have used the Aeroflex 3300 and 3920 series test sets (as well as much older Motorola, General Dynamics, and other test sets [IFR, Marconi, Rhode and Schwarz}).

Currently using an old HP8920, Aeroflex 3920, and Astronics/Freedom Technologies R8200 (single channel Vector Network Analyzer version). We did test the CX-300 and did not like it. Very flakey on software, changing settings, changing setup for different models of radios, and history with Aeroflex/Viavi. What really made the difference, is that we had both Aeroflex 3920 and 3920B test sets, older Motorola 2000 series and General Dynamics 200 series test sets. The oldest Aeroflex 3920 being 12 years old. We were then told there would be no more repair or support for these units. We were told that we had to buy CX-300's (arrogant presumption on the salesman's part).

Being burned by the 3300A series test sets, where manufacturing defects resulted in many test sets failing while just out of warranty, I did not want my employer going down that road with both the 3920 (3920's use the same 400-450 MHz modules to generate 800-900 MHz for testing, and we have a huge network of UHF and 7/800 MHz radios) and CX-300's (and whatever issues those develope over time). 3300's had some failed circuitry that Aeroflex blamed on the customer abusing hardware, as they were used as portable test sets.

Both the CX-300 and R8200 are "shoe box" sized, run on batteries and are fairly portable, compared to the 3920's, HP8920, and comparable test sets. We need portability to go to remote sites, Linear Sum Modulation, and ability to work on simulcast sites, as well as Autotune or Autotest for subscriber units. Both Aeroflex/Viavi and Astronics/Freedom Technologies can get expensive for their Autotune/Autotest software. We purchased half our R8200's with P25 and Motorola Trbo Autotune, and the other half of them with P25 and Kenwood NXDN. We need updates for N30/50 radios, and R5/R7 Trbo at this point, but will just run manual tests for the time being. Each Autotune is roughly $3-3500 per test set, so similar to Aeroflex/Viavi and their Autotest software, also a la carte style on the 3000 series test sets.

What made the decision came down to support for hardware, and the fact that our old Motorola/General Dynamics test sets are still supported, even though long off warranty, and it is expected that our R8200's will be kept for a decade or more. Being blindsided by Viavi on the 3920 series was rough. After purchasing 3920B variants, we are told a year later that the entire 3920 line will be no longer supported. That units will be repaired only as long as spare parts remain, or other units are cannibalized for parts. We had one 3920B go down right after production/support ended, and it was repaired.....now I see threads on here about who works on 3920 series test sets.

We kept our 3920/3920B test sets, and will use them as an additional check when needed, but went Astronics/Freedom Technologies due to not being Aeroflex/Viavi. Aeroflex 3920's were bought with different combination of Autotest, the one in my picture attached is only Motorola Astro/APX series radios....some have Kenwood, others Trbo DMR. When adding software to either, it adds up quickly, especially when you are purchasing a dozen units for use by a small team, that corporate sees as a "cost" to the company.

In testing the CX-300's needed a Rasberry Pi setup to run an external monitor, the Astronics R8200 does not. We do wish Astronics (ours say Astronics, not Freedom Technologies on them....only the boxes said Freedom Technologies) their test sets had more default menu options when using RLN4460 Motorola test boxes. And they do tend to lock up when changing from Astro to Trbo series radio testing......we were told to add a small USB hub to the USB port connector to make this work better. So, some growing pains. I was also used to using a mouse and external monitor connected to my 3920/3920B.....the mouse does little to nothing on the Astronics, but plug and play for external monitors is there. I use a small monitor switch to change from 3920 and R8200.

I recommend Astronics/Freedom Technologies over Viavi at this point, solely on suspected term of support.

Ok ending my ramble, as this took some time to write, sorry for some incoherence. If I were spending my own money, I would stick with, or go with Astronics/Freedom Technologies instead of Viavi/Aeroflex.

 

[ATK3]

I recommend Astronics/Freedom Technologies over Viavi at this point, solely on suspected term of support.

Ok ending my ramble, as this took some time to write, sorry for some incoherence. If I were spending my own money, I would stick with, or go with Astronics/Freedom Technologies instead of Viavi/Aeroflex.

With the total dropping of the 3900 series, I couldn't agree more, even as someone who just flat-out prefers the older Aeroflex stuff. Viavi does not seem to be taking LMR as seriously as IFR/Aeroflex used to. If I ever stop needing my 3920-specific features, I fully anticipate selling it for an R8000 series.