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Zastone and other dpmr radio ambe+2c vocoder

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princo

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Hey guys,

I bought a pair of Zastone zt-9908 radios. For those of you not familiar with them, they are digital radios using the dpmr standard. I did a little digging (ok, a lot of digging) and found some dirt on the vocoder used. It uses a new flavor of vocoder developed by a few people from Tsinghua University. The vocoder is called ASELP. It is more specifically, Advanced Sinusoidal Excitation Linear Prediction.

This vocoder apparently outperforms the ambe+2 vocoder.

And for those of you interested, I have found the university research document with the vocoders' guts. I'm not sure if it is what can be used to create a decoder, but the algorithms are there.
And as far as I know, the vocoder ambe+2c (not the actual ambe+2) is actually just ASELP.

But hopefully, we can get some use out of this for something, so I'm attaching the pdf of the vocoder. *warning it is in Chinese.
 

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princo

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Anyone have the know-how to take a mathematical formula and turn it into useable software?

(Sorry for the self bump)
 

rescuecomm

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Travelers Rest, SC
How does the DPMR radios work? Have you used them in mixed mode? (Some FM channels and some digital). I was definitely interested about getting these for the church operations (with proper licensing of course).

Bob
 

princo

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Well, they are an interesting breed of digital radio. They use a digital vocoder and a very narrow bandwidth (6.25khz)

The trouble I've been having is that unlike DMR (MotoTRBO) radios, the dPmr radios have several vocoders to choose from and that causes issues with interoperability. For example, DMR uses AMBE+2. But dPmr can use AMBE+2, ASELP, SELP, RALCWI and the chinese market the cheapest ones with AMBE+2c (Which in the limited testing I've done, it's just their clever name for ASELP)

There is little known about ASELP and what I posted above is about the only available information I've been able to find. I know who wrote it, but just like the guy who invented AMBE and IMBE and AMBE+2, they are keeping it a trade secret.

RALCWI is supposed to be an open standard and the vocoder chips are easily available from CML Microcircuits. And they are a great company. Providing samples and great support. But it's just less attractive than the plain old DVSI crap.

So, for your application, I would recommend just using some cheap baofeng radios and using them on MURS or GMRS.

But if you do go the dPmr route, stick to buying the same radio every time. And I'm not sure how much it would cost to get a license that fits that emission designator.

Or you could just get some cheap DMR radios and then you can have a channel for your church and even program it to work on the world-wide DMR-MARC network. the Zastone 9908 dPmr radios I have can do 32bit encryption and can selectively call one radio but not another, and you can even send short text messages between them. And the two radios cost me 193 bucks on amazon. So really it's about budget, compatibility and features.

I am however currently working on a cheap usb dongle that will act as a low power hotspot between the dpmr radios so you theoretically could be in one state and have an internet connected link to another. Or where ever you choose. I actually plan to use three stationary hotspot dongles, and a mobile one connected to a 4g modem in my car, that way I can use the radios across the state and not pay through the nose for a repeater system.

Let me know if you need anything specific answered. :)
 

rescuecomm

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Jun 20, 2005
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Travelers Rest, SC
The business radio license was $460.00 for two channels about three years ago. That is with me doing the application and sending it to the MRFAC coordinator. I would prefer not to be on FRS/MURS freqs for various reasons. I'll keep the Zastones in mind when the time comes.

Bob
 
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