Why Yaesu System Fusion?

[WA0CBW]

As in the commercial world you are required to monitor the frequency before transmitting (hence the monitor button on commercial radios). The user could also have their tone squelch engaged and also miss the fact there is a digital conversation in progress. I like others have become lax in looking at the radio to see if there is a conversation in progress before keying the mic. When our club switched to a DMR mixed mode repeater there was a bit of a learning curve but now it hardly ever happens.
BB

 

[Project25_MASTR]

As in the commercial world you are required to monitor the frequency before transmitting (hence the monitor button on commercial radios). The user could also have their tone squelch engaged and also miss the fact there is a digital conversation in progress. I like others have become lax in looking at the radio to see if there is a conversation in progress before keying the mic. When our club switched to a DMR mixed mode repeater there was a bit of a learning curve but now it hardly ever happens.
BB

RX PL isn't used by most hams…but YSF doesn't actually give you the option to turn it off for the repeater. It's used specifically so the 4 level keying isn't heard by analog listeners. That being said, most of the repeater's I'm aware of are AMS in analog out.

As far as the repeater itself goes…the controller still needs work and obviously the build quality could be a little better. I just got done having a QSO on one (using a Motorola Astro Spectra Plus) and that thing was frequency drifting a little as it was warming up…


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[k6cpo]

Does it do cross mode? IOW, digital in/out <-> analog out/in? That seems like the critical piece to grow acceptance and be inclusive.

No, it doesn't.

If I understand it correctly, the Fusion repeaters, when in AMS on both receive and transmit, will transmit whatever the last mode was that they heard.

If you and I are talking on a Fusion repeater in digital mode and a third party keys up in analog mode, the repeater will switch to analog. Assuming that your radio and my radio are also set for AMS, our radios will switch to analog. When the third person is done transmitting, we can switch our radio back to digital and resume our conversation in digital.

The Charlotte Digital Radio Group put together a nice comparison of D-Star, DMR, and System Fusion:
http://www.charlottedstar.org/Comparison of Amateur Radio DV.pdf

Exactly...

In this description how would someone with an analog radio know there's a digital QSO going on? If they are observant they should see the S-meter jumping or maybe hear noise, but it's possible they'd have no idea and just key up, right? Obviously good etiquette would dictate that you check by asking and upon your analog TX the repeater would switch modes. But wouldn't they potentially stomp on an in-progress QSO?

The digital signal comes out of an analog radio as a static burst. The receiving analog radio will also show an S-Meter indication.

RX PL isn't used by most hams…but YSF doesn't actually give you the option to turn it off for the repeater. It's used specifically so the 4 level keying isn't heard by analog listeners. That being said, most of the repeater's I'm aware of are AMS in analog out.

The System Fusion repeaters do give the option of using a Receive PL to mute the static burst for analog users. The S-meter will still give an indication.

Whether a Fusion repeater is set for strictly analog out or analog to analog/digital to digital is up to the repeater owner. When my club first put up our, we had it set for analog out, no matter what kind of a signal it received. That lasted for about a month until the members who had purchased System Fusion radios indicated they wanted the ability to go digital through the repeater. We changed the setting to full AMS and never looked back.

 

[N5TWB]

The System Fusion repeaters do give the option of using a Receive PL to mute the static burst for analog users. The S-meter will still give an indication.

Whether a Fusion repeater is set for strictly analog out or analog to analog/digital to digital is up to the repeater owner. When my club first put up our, we had it set for analog out, no matter what kind of a signal it received. That lasted for about a month until the members who had purchased System Fusion radios indicated they wanted the ability to go digital through the repeater. We changed the setting to full AMS and never looked back.

Our club's new YSF repeater just arrived last week so it's not on the air yet but the above info is good to know as we implement operations. There's already another YSF machine on the air in the Tulsa metro area.

 

[N8OHU]

C4FM is four level FSK. There are no audio tones.
It's not like feeding audio tones into the mic jack of an FM tranmsitter.

Sure it is; there are guys working with homebrew DMR repeater as I type this.

 

[mrweather]

A lot of the clubs in San Diego County (CA) took advantage of the excellent price on the Yaesu System Fusion repeaters. Most of them went up in AMS mode. When the repeater is in this mode, it will transmit in whatever mode it hears. In other words, if the repeater hears an analog signal, it will respond in analog and if it hears a digital signal, it will respond in digital.

My club finds this to be an excellent way to operate. It allows those who don't have fusion radios to use the repeater and still allows digital communications. Since our local CERT uses our repeater and their radios are all analog, operating in AMS is an advantage to them as well.

My club took advantage of the program as well, getting two Fusion repeaters. The UHF one has been on the air for a few months and is working well. It's in AMS mode. We also run PL on analog transmit so those users without Fusion radios can set a receive tone and not be annoyed by the digital noise. We've been amazed at the analog receive sensitivity. I guess the old GE MasterII that it replaced slowly grew deaf over the ten years it's been in service because nothing else has changed (same feedline, same duplexers, same antenna).

There is at least one Fusion repeater in my area that receives analog and digital but only transmits in analog. I never understood using such a mode?

 

[AK9R]

There is at least one Fusion repeater in my area that receives analog and digital but only transmits in analog. I never understood using such a mode?

The people who configured the repeater may not have a clear understanding of how it works. Or, they do have a clear understanding, but either were afraid that analog users would complain about "that digital racket" when the repeater was transmitting in digital mode or they tried AMS in/AMS out and a few analog users complained.

There is a lot of resistance to change in the amateur radio community.

 

[N8OHU]

The people who configured the repeater may not have a clear understanding of how it works. Or, they do have a clear understanding, but either were afraid that analog users would complain about "that digital racket" when the repeater was transmitting in digital mode or they tried AMS in/AMS out and a few analog users complained.

There is a lot of resistance to change in the amateur radio community.

There is also the fact that Wires-X didn't used to work properly when the HRI-200 was connected to the repeater; you had to have fixed out for it to work.

 

[N4KVE]

There is at least one Fusion repeater in my area that receives analog and digital but only transmits in analog. I never understood using such a mode?

Simple. You can not alienate the people on the board who must listen to every transmission on the repeater, but they are still using Icom 02 AT's. Sure, it's great to get a new repeater for $500, but unless they get another pair for digital, the analog users will not want to be left out.

 

[k6cpo]

My club took advantage of the program as well, getting two Fusion repeaters. The UHF one has been on the air for a few months and is working well. It's in AMS mode. We also run PL on analog transmit so those users without Fusion radios can set a receive tone and not be annoyed by the digital noise. We've been amazed at the analog receive sensitivity. I guess the old GE MasterII that it replaced slowly grew deaf over the ten years it's been in service because nothing else has changed (same feedline, same duplexers, same antenna).

There is at least one Fusion repeater in my area that receives analog and digital but only transmits in analog. I never understood using such a mode?

We do the same with our repeater. I wish the other clubs in the area would do the same.

It's a must our repeater stay in AMS as it is used by the CERT team in the city and their radios are strictly analog.

 

[mancow]

Does it do cross mode? IOW, digital in/out <-> analog out/in? That seems like the critical piece to grow acceptance and be inclusive.

Yes, you can set it up to transmit analog with digital or analog in.

 

[w2txb]

...Icom had an advantage with D-STAR, just because they were the first.

ICOM saw serious potential when the JARL developed the D-STAR, and started making radios for it within a very short time. Then, Internet Labs jumped on the bandwagon to offer some really cool and effective ways to do D-STAR. Kenowood offered a D-STAR radio a few years ago, but it was (reportedly) one model and only for the European and Japan markets... I know of none that ever made it to the US. Now, the word out there is that Kenwood is working on releasing some D-STAR stuff.

The Yaesu Fusion stuff, when introduced, has some rather vague, and sometimes confusing, promotion. They did not present their case will for yet another protocol, other than "you can send and receive pictures with it" and "it's digital". They were smart in offering repeaters for $500.00/ea. to any club that wanted one (or two...) but many of them primarily run analog. The automatic mode switching has been a bit buggy for many, while others have made it work OK.

One local club has an ICOM UHF D-STAR repeater that has a fair amount of activity; more people are getting on D-STAR here lately. Another club (60 miles from me) has three D-STAR repeaters, and all work great. Both clubs also have analog FM repeaters that are also busy and cover wide areas.

It all boils down to what one wants to do, and what is available in the areas in which they want to do it.

 

[mrweather]

Simple. You can not alienate the people on the board who must listen to every transmission on the repeater, but they are still using Icom 02 AT's.

Bingo! You should have heard the kvetching from the old farts when we put PL on the repeater input.

 

[N9NRA]

No, it doesn't.



Exactly...



The digital signal comes out of an analog radio as a static burst. The receiving analog radio will also show an S-Meter indication.



The System Fusion repeaters do give the option of using a Receive PL to mute the static burst for analog users. The S-meter will still give an indication.

Whether a Fusion repeater is set for strictly analog out or analog to analog/digital to digital is up to the repeater owner. When my club first put up our, we had it set for analog out, no matter what kind of a signal it received. That lasted for about a month until the members who had purchased System Fusion radios indicated they wanted the ability to go digital through the repeater. We changed the setting to full AMS and never looked back.

I have a question that`s been nagging at me ever since i started hearing about YSF, and some of it may have been answered by this post, but i`m still wondering about this as a radio user, will the Fusion system allow me to use it in mixed mode (switching between digital & analog based on what type of siginal it hears) wherein i have the analog side set to use a PL (RX & TX as needed to access the analog side of the repeater) while still allowing me to hear the digital stuff too, or will it not recieve/transmit a PL/DPL when in "mixed mode" for lack of the proper name for it? If that were possible i just might be comming home from Dayton with a YSF radio in my carry-on bag, if not then i`m boarding the train with mabey an ID-51A or mabey that new Kenwood HT i`ve heard about . N9NRA

 

[N8OHU]

I have a question that`s been nagging at me ever since i started hearing about YSF, and some of it may have been answered by this post, but i`m still wondering about this as a radio user, will the Fusion system allow me to use it in mixed mode (switching between digital & analog based on what type of siginal it hears) wherein i have the analog side set to use a PL (RX & TX as needed to access the analog side of the repeater) while still allowing me to hear the digital stuff too, or will it not recieve/transmit a PL/DPL when in "mixed mode" for lack of the proper name for it? If that were possible i just might be comming home from Dayton with a YSF radio in my carry-on bag, if not then i`m boarding the train with mabey an ID-51A or mabey that new Kenwood HT i`ve heard about . N9NRA

That's what AMS (Automatic Mode Select) is for. The catch is that if you transmit on digital and it hears an analog transmission, your next transmission will be analog.

 

[wb0wao]

Our club has two of them - one running AMS and the other is analog/analog until we get a board in it to allow AMS to work with our S-Comm controller. A couple clubs across the river have a couple and will be set up in AMS mode shortly. There was a bit of a learning curve for some, but as of now, it runs smoothly and everyone co-exists.

As a side note, Yaesu learned from Icom's mistake of not having dual mode on the D-Star repeaters. They were OK for clubs that could add a D-Star repeater without having to take down an analog machine. If you think there are issues running a dual mode repeater, just imagine what would happen if you changed over from an established analog machine to an D-Star only repeater!

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Our club has two of them - one running AMS and the other is analog/analog until we get a board in it to allow AMS to work with our S-Comm controller. A couple clubs across the river have a couple and will be set up in AMS mode shortly. There was a bit of a learning curve for some, but as of now, it runs smoothly and everyone co-exists.

As a side note, Yaesu learned from Icom's mistake of not having dual mode on the D-Star repeaters. They were OK for clubs that could add a D-Star repeater without having to take down an analog machine. If you think there are issues running a dual mode repeater, just imagine what would happen if you changed over from an established analog machine to an D-Star only repeater!

There aren't the issues many think there are with running mixed mode. I can list several hundred Texas/New Mexico/Colorado Sheriff's offices that have been "transitioning" from analog to P25 for the last 10 years and have had their repeaters running in mixed-mode operation the entire time. However, if it's not setup properly from the get go...it'll have issues that people associate with mixed mode operation from the get go.

 

[N1GJB]

Yaesu extended the promotion again, this time from 1/1/16 to 3/31/16, but bumped the price up to $600. All things considered, where else can you get a brand new digital repeater for just $600?

 

[beischel]

Kicker is how many are used for fusion? I know a few repeaters bought cheap and only get used in analog mode.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yup, our club bought three of them to replace old repeaters. Just using them for FM. Not a big fan of mixed mode. From what I can tell, most of the repeaters are used for FM only and those set up for mixed mode have almost no digital use.

 

[N5TWB]

Yaesu sent me an offer to do a presentation at a future club meeting about YSF since we recently bought/installed a VHF version. I took them up on it and have it scheduled in April. I'm anticipating a good turnout that evening for the club meeting. I'd say that any club that bought a repeater and got an offer of a Yaesu presentation ought to get it scheduled.