WiNRADiO now offers APCO P25 Decoder

[iMONITOR]

WiNRADiO is now offering an APCO P25 Decoder for their WR-G305 series of communications receivers.

WiNRADiO
http://www.winradio.com/index.htm
http://www.winradio.com/home/g305-apco25.htm

Grove Enterprises is a distributor for WiNRAiO
http://www.grove-ent.com/winradio.html
http://www.grove-ent.com/winradiosoftware.html

Has anyone tried this?

 

[vince48]

GreatLakes
The decoder has been out for 6+ months. I was going to purchse one for my 305i, but deceided not to when I converted to Vista. I saw very little if any interest for this decoder when is frist came out.
I have since put my 305i back in the box. Great wideband scanner if ypu are running XP as your OS. Vista is another story.

 

[crayon]

Same goes for the WinRadio Moto and MPT control channel decoders. I was not impressed.

 

[KC1UA]

It's my understanding that all of the P25 decoding is done in software for Winradio. I've had no experience with it, but the Icom IC-PCR2500's P25 option, despite the quirks of the radio, is outstanding. It is a plug in hardware board.

It is interesting that Winradio has managed to decode P25 entirely in software, and it makes me wonder if there are other possibilities along those lines.

 

[iMONITOR]

It's my understanding that all of the P25 decoding is done in software for Winradio. I've had no experience with it, but the Icom IC-PCR2500's P25 option, despite the quirks of the radio, is outstanding. It is a plug in hardware board.

It is interesting that Winradio has managed to decode P25 entirely in software, and it makes me wonder if there are other possibilities along those lines.

That's what makes the WiNRADiO's so interesting! They are truly SDF (Software Defined Radios).

 

[iMONITOR]

Same goes for the WinRadio Moto and MPT control channel decoders. I was not impressed.

Have you had any hands-on actual experience with them?

 

[iMONITOR]

GreatLakes
The decoder has been out for 6+ months. I was going to purchse one for my 305i, but deceided not to when I converted to Vista. I saw very little if any interest for this decoder when is frist came out.
I have since put my 305i back in the box. Great wideband scanner if ypu are running XP as your OS. Vista is another story.

Have you considered going back to XP? Apparently MS is offering that option for free. Or setting up a used computer with XP, dedicated to the 305i?

If not, are you considering selling the 305i?

Thanks

 

[N_Jay]

That's what makes the WiNRADiO's so interesting! They are truly SDF (Software Defined Radios).

No they are not!

They are a combination of computer controlled traditional radio and SDR technologies!

 

[N_Jay]

It's my understanding that all of the P25 decoding is done in software for Winradio. I've had no experience with it, but the Icom IC-PCR2500's P25 option, despite the quirks of the radio, is outstanding. It is a plug in hardware board.

It is interesting that Winradio has managed to decode P25 entirely in software, and it makes me wonder if there are other possibilities along those lines.

It is easy if you get a license and implement it in a way that is acceptable to DVSI.

 

[crayon]

Have you had any hands-on actual experience with them?

Yes, that is why I mentioned "I was not impressed".



I still have my WinRadio and I keep thinking one of these days I'm gonna drag it back out and fire it up ...

 

[KC1UA]

It is easy if you get a license and implement it in a way that is acceptable to DVSI.

Ayup. Without looking, I'd expect that the WinRadio P25 option is a few hundred bucks at least. The Icom board is about $180. The AOR ARD25 is way overpriced at $400 or so. AOR also has an add on board for their AR8600 which is about $180 also, but is not plug and play as the Icom is. I've used them all except for WinRadio, and the Icom setup wins hands down. I'd love to hear a WinRadio doing the job though. Maybe someone can provide a recording.

 

[n2pqq]

I just bought a winradio 305e on ebay . I use windows vista and have no problems at all.

I really like this radio and find it is easy to use.

I have no apco P25 in my area so the plug in would not work for me.

https://www.robogroup.com/directdownload/
Price is just about a hundred dollars for the plug in.

The radio is a keeper.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I got a 305e with the P25 option and had trouble with decoding P25. I finally figured out what it is.

I tried receiving Lexington MA police on 471.1875 and found I had to tune to 471.1855 for a decent P25 decode when I first turned it on. During the first hour the receiver drifted and I had to retune after about 20 Minutes. It became stable after about an hour and I got decent P25 decode tuned to 471.1870. So the radio is 500 Hz off in frequency.

Doing some experiments I found that decoding degrades if you are 200 Hz away from the best decode spot and decoding stops at 400 or 500 Hz away. The 305e receiver has a 10 ppm frequency stability which means the frequency can drift up to 4711 Hz at 471.1875 and 8600 Hz at 860 MHz.

The decoder has some neat squelch features but the decoding sweet spot seems too narrow for the 305e and even the 315e.

73 Eric

 

[SCPD]

During the first hour the receiver drifted and I had to retune after about 20 Minutes. It became stable after about an hour and I got decent P25 decode tuned to 471.1870. So the radio is 500 Hz off in frequency.

I'm greatly disappointed to hear this on the newest WinRadios. The '1550s would wander around based on heat - 4 khz or more. It made them temperamental to use from a desk and unusable in mobile operation.

Oh well. Thanks for the report.

 

[KC1UA]

I have a G305E on the way and I'll follow up with a report. I plan on obtaining the P25 option. These have been around for about a year now I think? I wonder if later versions have any improvements. I've been through the Yahoogroup and didn't see anything about drift, but there's no doubt that Eric knows what he's talking about.

I'll try to report as I best can with my usual layman's terms. Looks like mine will be here Friday.

 

[br0adband]

Any chance someone could do a small sample of the decoded output (a wav file or a small mp3) so I could get some idea on the quality of the decoding? Someday I hope to get a card like one of these, and the APCO decoder would definitely be a must have item if it's functional and does what it claims.

Thanks...

 

[KC1UA]

I'll be glad to do so once I get mine up and running. If someone beats me to it that's fine as well.

I'm switching to this receiver from an Icom IC-PCR2500 that also had P25 (hardware based of course). I was never happy with the software Icom provided, 3rd party software had to be reverse engineered as Icom doesn't release their code, and then there was the quirky cellular block that amazingly started at 867 MHz. I will be using this for searching, not for scanning, and it'll be very interesting to hear how the P25 stacks up. I expect the Icom might be better, but time will tell. The software for Winradio seems FAR superior to that of Icom. We'll see how well they handle decoding P25. I've got plenty of activity close by at an Air National Guard base so I should be able to provide some good audio.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I got an answer back from WinRadio that was not too helpful other than to say the frequency can drift 4000 Hz at 471 MHz. So with narrow 6 KHz filtering the signal can go out of the passband. I tried to follow the frequency correction procedure for the reference oscillator and it did not seem to work.

I am beginning to think that this is just a HF receiver with VHF/UHF tacked on. The first IF is at 109.65 MHz but I am seeing some images from strong UHF T Band signals at other places on the UHF T Band.

BTW I am running the 1.06 version of APCO P25, which is the latest. There is a newer version of the G305 software so I should upgrade. If Winradio was able to increase the frequency error the P25 decoder can tolerate then it would make it an acceptable decoder. You can not turn on AFC or change the bandwidth when using the P25 decoder so as of right now the P25 decoder is junk software not worth the money.

I like the 305e as a DRM and HF receiver but I think it is a very poor VHF/UHF receiver. I think the Icom PCR1500/PCR2500 works better. So I feel I wasted my money on both the 305e and APCO P25 decoder and I should have just gotten a 303e or maybe the RF Space SDR-14.

73 Eric

 

[KC1UA]

Disappointing to hear. Well, I'm committed at this point. If it doesn't work out it'll be just another receiver that passes through the revolving door that is my radio room. The PCR2500 was a good receiver, but I hated the software and never really warmed up to the remote head. The Winradio software demo I've been running seems to have an incredible ease of operation with everthing right at the user's fingertips, easily accessed and manipulated. Of course if the hardware doesn't cut it there's a significant issue.

I'll be running the latest software, both base application and P25, and will provide info. P25 will be a smaller part of my overall use, but it will have its moments, so it'll be interesting to see what will happen here. I had hoped that AFC use might help, but you've answered my question there Eric.

Ah well, that's why new software versions are released...we'll see how it goes with this whole thing, but I have to say that the control software for the G305E appears to be a thing of beauty...to me, anyway.

 

[EricCottrell]

Hello,

I followed the help file instructions to calibrate the reference oscillator but it did not work. I sent another message to WinRadio. I was thinking of using the offset feature but that seems to be a fixed offset and the frequency drift gets worse with frequency. Keeping P25 on 800 MHz tuned in looks like it would be impossible.

I will see if I can get an P25 audio sample tonight. You really need to be within a couple of hundred hertz for the decoder to work well.

What amazes me is the lack of problem reports on the net about the P25 feature. It does not seem like I have a bad unit otherwise WinRadio would mention it. Likely it is because I and Scott are the only ones to buy the Apco P25 option so far.

To me there is something wrong when a company sells a Apco P25 decoder that needs to be tuned within 500 Hz for it to work and it is only (yes, only) a software option for the 305 series receiver that can drift 8000 Hz on the most popular band for P25 (800 MHz). The Apco P25 option is not available for the 315 series which has somewhat better frequency drift but still only has a tuning accuracy within 800 Hz on 800 MHz.

Scott, I think you will sell the WinRadio within 6 Months unless you only use it for HF. The software may look neat but there are some serious performance and hardware issues.

73 Eric