Why is ham radio not P-25?

[kayn1n32008]

... To each his own....

Most important point.

I love digital voice. I operate two different flavours of digital voice myself. I use analogue lots as well.

Don’t like digital? Don’t use it. At the same time don’t complain about those that do.

Too many different aspects of this hobby to worry about a few modes. Listen to a dual mode repeater and don’t like the ‘digital garbage? Use PL/DPL on your radio. Problem solved.



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[KK4JUG]

You are treating your radios as tools...communications tools. For some amateur radio operators, that's all they need. They want to communicate whether it be with their friends, to distant countries, or to help the public. Radio technology is not the reason they got into amateur radio. They got into amateur radio to communicate. Some folks call these people "appliance operators". I say these people are being realistic about their needs, expectations, and abilities.

OTOH, you have hams who want to experiment, build, and increase their technical knowledge. That's great and I say "more power to 'em". But, don't tell me that I have to buy a digital voice radio just to communicate...especially when I know that there are still plenty of people I can talk to with my analog radios.

Whenever someone comes on here asking about a buying a digital voice radio, the first question that pops into my mind is "why?". What do you hope to accomplish with this purchase? Who do you plan to talk to? Is owning a digital voice radio essential to your enjoyment of amateur radio? Often times, we find folks wanting to buy digital voice radios for the reasons mentioned in previous posts. It's cool. It's new. That's fine, but you still gotta ask yourself "why?".

I think you pretty much nailed it. Actually, the initial impetus for getting my amateur license was because of the ham radios in our local command vehicle. (I'm retired but I'm still the communications officer and driver for the 40' behemoth.) It's loaded with 800 mHz, aircraft, marine, low FM, VHF, UHF radios as well as a Raytheon ACU-1000 and even an on-board communications system with portables and a repeater. Nothing is digital except the 800 mHz. When I travel on my own, I try to program my FR8900 with frequencies along my route. And, of course, I do that to talk with others along the way to help pass the time. I frequently switch antennae between a short rubber antenna for local use with a longer stainless steel one for highway use. But for the trees, parking garages, etc., I would keep the longer antenna on the vehicle all the time. In town, I rarely need more than 10 miles worth of antenna, so to speak. Out of town, I've talked as far as 80 miles. (I think that was in Kansas and the repeater antenna was somewhere on an 800 foot TV tower.)

But you're right. It's a communications device for me and the extent of experimentation is which antenna do I want to use.

 

[N4GIX]

Too many different aspects of this hobby to worry about a few modes. Listen to a dual mode repeater and don’t like the ‘digital garbage? Use PL/DPL on your radio. Problem solved.

I too operate on analog and DMR digital, 2m 1.75m and 70cm. I also work QRP HF from various locations, including public parks, the lakeshore, or basically any darn place I have space to set up and permission to use.

I also enjoy experimenting with various other aspects of the hobby. Lately it has been with MMDVM jumboSPOT running on a Raspbery Pi Zero /WiFi. I also enjoy playing with SDR dongles and trying out various ways to use it. Most recent has been working on ADSB out so I can track aircraft in the Chicago airspace.

There are too many aspects of this hobby I simply haven't gotten to, yet...

 

[kayn1n32008]

There are too many aspects of this hobby I simply haven't gotten to, yet...

Yup. Not enough time left on earth for me to explore every aspect of the hobby.



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[firetaz834]

I was reading the posts and thought I would thrown in my 2 cents on the topic and it is something I keep asking each time I'm in Dayton.

For a platform to be a standard, everyone has to agree to the standard to be of any use. Most public safety agencies in the advent of an emergency has the ability to set up interoperability between systems so that the can talk to each other or if not that capability, then they all just drop off a hand held radio and the EOC to allow command to talk with each agencies.

But, with the different digital modes that Ham has there is not such capability. Think P25 and DMR, if you needed to talk with a club that was running P25 and another was running DMR, how would they talk, and then thrown in fusion and several of the new ABC systems and you can't. But, we all have our analog backbone systems that we can all communicate. And, throw that into the Echoilink system and you can communicate on a very wide scale. I know the EOC in my area is starting to work with DMR.

But, in the end no matter which way you are going to do and be of assistance to the people that need it be it public safety, red cross, or a person that stops us off the streets to get ahold of his family in an emergency we need a common system simular to what we have now ANALOG and untill we figure it out, you stick with what works.

 

[N4KVE]

Well whether you have a P25 radio, DMR radio, or Fusion radio, the common denominator is they all do analog too. Look at all the various 800 MHz analog, & digital trunking systems. P25, Edacs, Opensky, Smartnet, & Smartzone. But when there is a situation where different departments with different formats must communicate, it all gets done on 5 800 MHz analog conventional NPSPAC freq's.

 

[kb4cvn]

Like any new technology, as more surplus P-25 equipment starts to enter the marketplace with public safety systems upgrading to Phase-2 and/or updating their older equipment, the price of used equipment will drop. Simple supply versus demand economics.


I recently purchased a Harris P5470 portable (440-512 MHz bandsplit) with P25 Conventional, Phase-1 trunking, AES-256 in it for $300 including shipping from eBay.


BTW:

We have two P25 repeaters here in town since 2001.

146.610 (input 146.010) $293 or 136.5 Hz

420.050 (input 426.050) $293 or 136.5 Hz

 

[ad8g]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that there is a sizable contingent in the ham community who have the attitude that 20K0F3E should be enough for anybody, and have the same disdain for all things digital that vinyl purist audiophiles have for CDs.

I recently had someone tell me that digital modes are illegal. When I showed him where part 97 lists acceptable emission designators (including P25 and DMR), he called me a liar. Ah, good times.

 

[KB0OXD]

Public safety will never interact with ham radio at the radio level. No need to use P25. I had several police/fire people firmly state they do not want ANY ham radio use on their frequencies at time of disaster or any other time.

This argument has been put out there before many times.

After listening to weather nets, I completely agree with the police/fire officials.

We shouldn't be on THEIR frequencies to use P25 during times of disaster (We don't need to be) BUT there's NO reason why we can't deploy THE TECHNOLOGY on OUR frequencies & equipment (Which we CAN use during times of disaster) though

There's a BIG difference between the two

Between the Ham frequencies & Public Safety frequencies, more traffic gets passed because there are MORE TGs in use passing it

As things slowly return to normal, there will be a lesser need for Hams to be engaged as Public Safety systems return to normal & other systems are brought back online (At which point, Ham Radio will be phased out for the remainder of the disaster recovery time)

This is only NATURAL as it's called NORMAL

So when you heard them say they don't want us on their frequencies, what they're REALLY saying is they want us on OUR frequencies. It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the technology or modes used in which to communicate. That is irrelevant

Just my $.02 worth.....

Cheers & 73

Pat, KB0OXD

 

[g6giy]

I use P25 in the UK and of the digital systems it has the best audio and the equipment is high quality .
We don't have any P25 repeaters but that is not a bad thing simplex can be fun. I tried DMR from the early days but I grew to dislike the audio and the repeater system became over complex and split between competing systems.
The price of P25 equipment seems high for old ex US police gear but if you look at the build quality and performance of a Motorola XTL compared to a Fusion or Dstar radio it seems a bargain.
The Emergency services have used Tetra for years in the UK but soon they are moving to a PTT cell phone system.