Will Hytera Ever Make A Dual Band Radio?

[JacobWohl]

I know I can't be alone in wondering if Hytera will ever produce a dual band radio. I would especially love to see a version of the PD782 or PD982 that has both UHF and VHF capability. And certainly I'd like to see a mobile rig from them that does the same.

I understand why they haven't gotten around to it as of yet, but I know that it would be very useful to me and many other end users to have dual band capabilities in a single radio from them.

I'm a huge fan of Hytera's products. I've used just about every one of them over the past couple of years and found them to be reliable, effective and very rugged.

 

[surfacemount]

Do you think they will exist after the smoke settles from all the legal action?

 

[JacobWohl]

Do you think they will exist after the smoke settles from all the legal action?

It would seem most likely to me that they simply settle the allegations from DOJ out of court, pay a fine, etc. and go on doing business as usual. That's the only way that DOJ can walk away from their actions against Hytera with something that they can call a win.

 

[surfacemount]

Hytera is in trouble because core features of their product line are alleged by MSI to have been taken from them, by people that worked for them, that then went to work for Hytera. How are they going to reinvent that wheel? It appears they've dropped a significant amount of product line; whether from this or from component logistics issues, I can't say. I'm merely curious, is all

 

[dazey77]

Highly unlikely as they do not make products aimed at the Ham market. If you look at others in similar markets such as Motorola, they don't make dual bands either. The market for a high quality dual band is small, even if it could be popular amongst Hams, there isn't a lot of us. They had a go at marketing the PD68x by cutting the price and firmware features in the AR series but I don't think it was a successful experiment.

Regarding dropping product line, with the current chip shortages, most manufacturers face the decision to either re-design older products with newer chipsets or to replace with a new product. Chip foundrys are so stretched that they are only making newer, higher profit margin chips and older ones are no longer made.

 

[KevinC]

Hytera is in trouble because core features of their product line are alleged by MSI to have been taken from them, by people that worked for them, that then went to work for Hytera. How are they going to reinvent that wheel? It appears they've dropped a significant amount of product line; whether from this or from component logistics issues, I can't say. I'm merely curious, is all

Actually Hytera admitted they stole the IP.

 

[mmckenna]

That's the only way that DOJ can walk away from their actions against Hytera with something that they can call a win.

It was Motorola that went after them for pretty blatant theft of IP. Motorola isn't going to let up on that. DOJ is simply doing their job. Motorola will keep pushing them. How Hytera thought they were going to get away with that in the USA is pretty odd. Shows the "Chinese" mentality of ignoring patents, copyrights and intellectual property.

Hytera makes some pretty decent stuff, but they've got a lot to do for recovery in this country.

And as other said, ham radio really isn't their market. Maybe some day they'll have a dual band, but most manufacturers aiming at the North American LMR market know they need 700/800MHz if they want to compete. EF Johnson did some dual band radios, but they were VHF/7-800 or UHF 7-800. They quickly learned (with the help of Kenwood) that they needed tri-band radios to play with the big boys.

The market for non-ham VHF + UHF radios is pretty small. For a company like Hytera, that has essentially been cloths-lined by Motorola, the chances of them trying to play in the North American LMR market with 2/3rd's of a radio isn't going to win them much in the way of business. They are late to the game (there's about to be a lot of multiband radios on the market), and they don't have the footing in the North American public safety market to get very far.
As for low budget users, there really isn't a market for a tri band radios. Small users rarely need 700/800MHz. There isn't much of a market for dual band radios, either.