Hams With Digital Capability?

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Scott
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Post by Scott »

Interesting. I'm curious as to what the thought was in Taunton to go with IDAS. Seems like the same "issue" with interoperability that exists in public safety could become an "issue" for hams? :D

I'm going to be putting my last XTS2500 FPP P25 up for sale pretty soon, as it sits here doing nothing 99% of the time. I'll just stick to analog 2M and 900 MHz for the little I'm on the air.
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Post by n1oty »

Scott/SNE Webmaster wrote:So are they moving away from DStar or is this just a new name for its second generation, and does the original DStar equipment work with it? I haven't gone to look yet, but it sounds interesting.


Icom has taken many of the good points of D-Star, mated it to a newer vocoder, lowered the cost of the equipment and improved the specifications of the equipment. The AMBE vocoder that D-Star adopted a few years ago was a second generation DVSI product. The IDAS radios use a third generation vocoder, AMBE+2, which has also been recently selected as the new vocoder for future P25 radios. This particular vocoder was developed as an answer to the criticism of the noise handling problems of IMBE and AMBE vocoders.

Icom markets the IDAS system to business users and public safety users. It's been on the market for about a year now. Interestingly, many of the strengths that are marketed to businesses also offer intriguing possibilities for amateurs. For example, mixed mode repeater use, bandwidth selection, multiple radio vendors, MDC1200 signalling on analog, GPS position reporting, messaging, etc.

What is most remarkable is the cost savings of IDAS versus D-Star. For what a single D-Star 2-meter voice repeater costs, we can buy three 2-meter IDAS repeaters.

John
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Post by AJ1L »

n1oty wrote: What is most remarkable is the cost savings of IDAS versus D-Star. For what a single D-Star 2-meter voice repeater costs, we can buy three 2-meter IDAS repeaters.
It's too bad the two systems aren't compatible. The linking capabilities of D Star seem to be it's most popular feature. I've never used it myself, but based of what I've heard from people in CT. The 145.260 repeater in Vernon down there seems to be very popular.
Jeff Lehmann - AJ1L (Formerly N1ZZN) WQDJ863
Rockland, MA
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

Scott/SNE Webmaster wrote:Interesting. I'm curious as to what the thought was in Taunton to go with IDAS. Seems like the same "issue" with interoperability that exists in public safety could become an "issue" for hams? :D

I'm going to be putting my last XTS2500 FPP P25 up for sale pretty soon, as it sits here doing nothing 99% of the time. I'll just stick to analog 2M and 900 MHz for the little I'm on the air.



I can tell you exactly what the motivation was because I was one of the guys putting up cash for the equipment for the Taunton IDAS repeater. There had been some talk in the past about doing some form of digital voice in the area. We had discussed D-Star, but ultimately dismissed it due to its huge infrastructure expense (many thousands of dollars). We were trying to obtain P25 IMBE equipment. Anyone who has worked with P25 repeaters knows that the equipment is not cheap, even if used and without a warranty. The final nail in the coffin was round 2 of the Pave Paws mess. I had a potential deal cooking on a UHF P25 repeater, but I'm not going to waste money on an essentially useless band now.

We re-examined our options and looked at IDAS because some of our people are using this professionally and were impressed by it. I just used it for the first time this weekend and I'm impressed by it. How impressed? One of our members was mobile in Plymouth (Rt 3 at Rt 44) and was talking full quieting to another mobile in Fall River, just like they were right beside each other.

If we could have purchased the D-Star controller and the D-Star 2-meter DV module for $1000, we may have gone that route. Unfortunately, $3000 was about the cheapest price I saw for D-Star 2-meter. IDAS's stock went even higher with us once we realized that the IDAS mobile with the UT-126 digital module costs about $300 LESS than a D-Star mobile with the D-Star module, and our contact saves us even more.

John
N1OTY
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

N1ZZN wrote:It's too bad the two systems aren't compatible. The linking capabilities of D Star seem to be it's most popular feature. I've never used it myself, but based of what I've heard from people in CT. The 145.260 repeater in Vernon down there seems to be very popular.



Interestingly, all of the IDAS radios (mobiles and portables) have two daughter-card slots to expand their capability. One slot is filled with the IDAS digital card, leaving one open. Icom has some other cards available now for that second slot. Some of these additional cards are of no use to amateurs, such as the various flavors of encryption. However, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Icom could produce a card for P-25 and/or D-Star. Supposedly, each new generation from DVSI is backwards compatible. So, we may see a time where an IDAS radio could work on the D-Star network, but not vice versa.

IDAS also has some interesting networking via IP capabilities, although I'm sure it is not as developed as some of the third party D-Star offerings due to the fact that D-Star has been around longer.

John
N1OTY
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Scott
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Post by Scott »

Is this repeater active, John? I would think I'd be able to hear it from here but nary a peep all day.
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Post by n1oty »

Scott/SNE Webmaster wrote:Is this repeater active, John? I would think I'd be able to hear it from here but nary a peep all day.



It is active, but only a couple of guys have radios for it at the moment. That should expand over the next couple of months though. It is most active in the late afternoon/early evening/weekend timeframes.

John
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Post by Scott »

I figured it was not overly busy yet, but I was not even hearing ID's, which surprised me. I've got some pretty respectable VHF-HI coverage from here and was using my IC-R8500 with a Comet GP-15 antenna, but caught nada.
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Post by n1oty »

Scott/SNE Webmaster wrote:I figured it was not overly busy yet, but I was not even hearing ID's, which surprised me. I've got some pretty respectable VHF-HI coverage from here and was using my IC-R8500 with a Comet GP-15 antenna, but caught nada.



I'll try to coordinate some activity with you this Sunday. You should detect the 4 level FSK when voice comms are active and the ID shortly after in analog CW.

John
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Post by n1das »

N1ZZN wrote:A new system developed by Icom and Kenwood called NXDN. IDAS is what Icom calls it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NXDN


N1DAS Dave here,

VHF: Kenwood TK-5210K3 portable (P25) and Kenwood TK-5710H 110W mobile (P25, not in vehicle yet).
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... -5210-5310
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... -5710-5810

UHF: Kenwood NEXEDGE portables and Kenwood NXR-800 (UHF) NEXEDGE repeater (5W exciter strip only so far).
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... NX-200-300
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... XR-700-800

NEXEDGE is Kenwood's brand name for their NXDN digital radio product line. Kenwood does 12.5k and 6.25k NXDN and Icom's iDAS does 6.25k NXDN. NEXEDGE and iDAS are compatible in 6.25k conventional mode only. They did their own thing with trunking formats for trunked systems. Kenwood also did their own thing with 12.5k NXDN as an interim step toward 6.25k to help promote NEXEDGE.

I've posted some audio samples up on http://nxdn.mygmrs.com so be sure to check them out too. The weak signal tests were done with encryption (not on Amateur radio) and I found there is a subtle but very slight degradation in the NXDN audio when using encryption. When the signal is weak enough to be "going digital", the encryption algorithm has a hard time dealing with it and results in more munged up audio when that happens. I found clear mode NXDN works slightly better under weak signal conditions.
David Sterrett, N1DAS
Nashua, NH
Ham [HA] = N1DAS (2/1984)
GMRS [ZA] = KAE9013 (12/1992)
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

n1das wrote:N1DAS Dave here,

VHF: Kenwood TK-5210K3 portable (P25) and Kenwood TK-5710H 110W mobile (P25, not in vehicle yet).
UHF: Kenwood NEXEDGE portables and Kenwood NXR-800 (UHF) NEXEDGE repeater (5W exciter strip only so far).

NEXEDGE is Kenwood's brand name for their NXDN digital radio product line. Kenwood does 12.5k and 6.25k NXDN and Icom's iDAS does 6.25k NXDN. NEXEDGE and iDAS are compatible in 6.25k conventional mode only. They did their own thing with trunking formats for trunked systems. Kenwood also did their own thing with 12.5k NXDN as an interim step toward 6.25k to help promote NEXEDGE.

I've posted some audio samples up on http://nxdn.mygmrs.com so be sure to check them out too. The weak signal tests were done with encryption (not on Amateur radio) and I found there is a subtle but very slight degradation in the NXDN audio when using encryption. When the signal is weak enough to be "going digital", the encryption algorithm has a hard time dealing with it and results in more munged up audio when that happens. I found clear mode NXDN works slightly better under weak signal conditions.


Dave,

We've already got one 2 meter IDAS repeater operational in Taunton, MA. It looks like a south coast group that was considering D-Star has halted plans to go that way and may purchase two IDAS machines. They can get two IDAS machines and still have money left over from their contemplated D-Star purchase. Additionally, the Taunton group is considering putting one up in the Plymouth area in the future, but that is just at the talking stage right now.

I can appreciate your comments regarding encryption. I recall that Motorola had problems years ago with DES encryption causing problems on the fringe of coverage, including reducing the effective range of the repeaters. DES-XL improved that, but I don't know if it completely resolved the problems.

I can say that our testing indicates that the 6.25 khz digital voice mode without encryption does result in an approximate 15 to 20 percent increase in coverage versus analog FM. We also intend on doing some noise testing in digital mode soon, just for the sake of testing. As you probably know, the codec used in NXDN is the same codec selected for the next phase of P25 and was supposedly selected for its superiority in noisy environments. We intend on testing that out.

I'll be at Near-Fest for both days and would love to compare notes with you regarding IDAS/NXDN.

John
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Post by n1das »

n1oty wrote:
I can say that our testing indicates that the 6.25 khz digital voice mode without encryption does result in an approximate 15 to 20 percent increase in coverage versus analog FM. We also intend on doing some noise testing in digital mode soon, just for the sake of testing. As you probably know, the codec used in NXDN is the same codec selected for the next phase of P25 and was supposedly selected for its superiority in noisy environments. We intend on testing that out.

I'll be at Near-Fest for both days and would love to compare notes with you regarding IDAS/NXDN.

John
N1OTY

I concur with your findings of 15-20% coverage improvement with 6.25k NXDN. I've noticed it too.

Regarding analog vs. digital audio, while some may argue they prefer plain old analog instead of digital audio, I've found one case where digital blows analog away any day. It's when you're trying to hear someone thru a repeater and they are just barely being heard by the repeater and you're just barely able to hear the repeater. You're hearing a noisy signal that's rebroadcasting someone's noisy signal. It's essentially noise X2 and real tough to hear the person on the repeater. Digital totally cleans this up 100% thanks to the FEC provided by the repeater. As long as the data is recovered correctly the digital audio will be perfect.

You can easily find me at NEAR-fest. I'm the dude on the Segway with the cargo bags and you've probably seen me at past NEAR-fests.
David Sterrett, N1DAS
Nashua, NH
Ham [HA] = N1DAS (2/1984)
GMRS [ZA] = KAE9013 (12/1992)
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

n1das wrote:I concur with your findings of 15-20% coverage improvement with 6.25k NXDN. I've noticed it too.

Regarding analog vs. digital audio, while some may argue they prefer plain old analog instead of digital audio, I've found one case where digital blows analog away any day. It's when you're trying to hear someone thru a repeater and they are just barely being heard by the repeater and you're just barely able to hear the repeater. You're hearing a noisy signal that's rebroadcasting someone's noisy signal. It's essentially noise X2 and real tough to hear the person on the repeater. Digital totally cleans this up 100% thanks to the FEC provided by the repeater. As long as the data is recovered correctly the digital audio will be perfect.

You can easily find me at NEAR-fest. I'm the dude on the Segway with the cargo bags and you've probably seen me at past NEAR-fests.



Yup, I remember the Segway!!!!

John
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Post by n1das »

n1das wrote:N1DAS Dave here,

VHF: Kenwood TK-5210K3 portable (P25) and Kenwood TK-5710H 110W mobile (P25, not in vehicle yet).
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... -5210-5310
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... -5710-5810

UHF: Kenwood NEXEDGE portables and Kenwood NXR-800 (UHF) NEXEDGE repeater (5W exciter strip only so far).
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... NX-200-300
http://www.kenwoodusa.com/Communication ... XR-700-800

NEXEDGE is Kenwood's brand name for their NXDN digital radio product line. Kenwood does 12.5k and 6.25k NXDN and Icom's iDAS does 6.25k NXDN. NEXEDGE and iDAS are compatible in 6.25k conventional mode only. They did their own thing with trunking formats for trunked systems. Kenwood also did their own thing with 12.5k NXDN as an interim step toward 6.25k to help promote NEXEDGE.

My future digital plans: All future commercial radio purchases shall have digital capability. No more analog-only equipment going forward. Given the higher cost of digital equipment, the purchases will have to be fewer and farther between.

My current VHF P25 Phase 1 radios are likely my last. I'm not going to bother with P25 Phase 1 equipment on UHF (440) because I've already got UHF NXDN (Kenwood NEXEDGE / Icom iDAS) capability. I'm also holding out for P25 Phase 2 equipment later on. Bye bye IMBE, hello AMBE+2. :D :cool:

I also have a 444.000(+)/PL141.3 repeater in White River Junction (Town of Hartford) VT. It's up on a good hill at my Icom / Kenwood dealer's house. The repeater was homebrewed from Icom commercial mobiles. The repeater provides saturated coverage in the West Lebanon NH area. Someday this repeater may get replaced with an iDAS repeater offering 6.25k NXDN digital and analog modes of operation.
:cool:
David Sterrett, N1DAS
Nashua, NH
Ham [HA] = N1DAS (2/1984)
GMRS [ZA] = KAE9013 (12/1992)
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

Anyone in southeastern Mass interested in using the Taunton IDAS repeater, we are starting a group buy for Icom F5061 50 Watt VHF radios. We got pricing of $540 per radio delivered, including the digital module pre-installed from the factory. The order goes in sometime next week. The units must be paid for in advance. The Taunton group has the programming equipment already.

These are 512 channel, 50 watt, commercial grade mobiles that will do analog, NXDN digital, LTR trunking, etc. Frequency range is 136 to 174, so they are useful for something other than ham radio. I don't even think that Motorola has their AMBE+2 stuff out yet.

John
N1OTY
K4QHR

Icom IDAS Digital

Post by K4QHR »

Though this new form of Digital in Ham Radio sound great to me.. I have a couple questions, being a Die-Hard Motorola Astro Fan.

I noticed looking at their website, that the IDAS repeaters are only rated at 50 watts at 50% duty cycle, and 25 watts at 100% duty cycle. Is this in fact true or is their site outdated? I have a 110 watt Quantar on the air now, and that is 100% duty cycle. I would love to explore the IDAS equipment, but I really don't like the 25 watts... eh.

Also, how much is the programming software/equipment?
I'm looking at at least getting a portable and or mobile to play with, since I frequent the CT/MA/RI area at least twice a year.

Almost forgot...

As far as digital goes:
Motorola UHF Quantar @ 500' in Jacksonville Florida
Motorola XTS 5000 VHF FPP w/OFB
Motorola XTS 5000 UHF FPP w/OFB
Motorola XTS 3000 UHF M1 w/OFB
Motorola XTS 5000 UHF M1 w/OFB
Motorola Astro Saber II VHF w/OFB
Motorola Astro Spectra VHF w/OFB
Motorola Astro Spectra UHF w/OFB

Like I said.. I'm a Die-Hard Motorola Fan


73, Pete
K4QHR
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

We run the repeater on low power into a TPL amplifier giving us about 100 watts out. It works great.

We also have a lot of Motorola gear. Moto makes a lot of good stuff. They also charge a lot of money. For instance, my legitimate Motorola programming software for the MCS2000/MTS2000 products cost me about $400 or so. The software for doing both the mobile and handheld Icom IDAS radios costs about $40.

Let's talk about that Quantar. I'm sure you paid a pretty penny for it. Even used Quantar's cost at least $1500, and even more if P25 capable. We got the IDAS repeater and the amp for less than that, and the repeater is brand new.

John
N1OTY
K4QHR

Icom IDAS Digital

Post by K4QHR »

John, I seen your post on the Mobile radio being around $550.
How much are the portables?
I think I seen you post that the IDAS repeaters are about $1000...??

The concept seems pretty impressive... I like it.

And your right, the Quantar was around $2500 alone. Not counting the Antenna ($750), and the Duplexers ($250).

I have been debating buying another Quantar for my VHF site in GA, but I may look into this a little more. What did you pay for the 100watt Amp?

73, Pete
K4QHR
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

K4QHR wrote:John, I seen your post on the Mobile radio being around $550.
How much are the portables?
I think I seen you post that the IDAS repeaters are about $1000...??

The concept seems pretty impressive... I like it.

And your right, the Quantar was around $2500 alone. Not counting the Antenna ($750), and the Duplexers ($250).

I have been debating buying another Quantar for my VHF site in GA, but I may look into this a little more. What did you pay for the 100watt Amp?

73, Pete
K4QHR


I got lucky and managed to purchase a used Icom branded, but TPL manufactured, amplifier. It cost me $231 for the amp, including shipping to me. It is current production equipment that Icom puts into their $5000 commercial VHF repeater. You know how it is, you have to jump on the good deals quickly and that one just fell into my lap. It even included the optional internal power supply. Hooked up a standard computer cord and plugged it into the closest 120 VAC outlet. Well, we also re-tuned the amp for the ham band. The bottom line is that it works great.

I feel your pain regarding the cost of the Quantar's. They are not cheap. That is really what made this move to IDAS so easy. Yes, the repeater cost us less than $1100 (about $1050), but we lucked out and managed to get employee pricing this one time. Nevertheless, there is a guy selling the IDAS repeaters on Ebay for around $1500 and I'm sure you can get him or someone else to come in below the $1500 level through negotiation. Even at $1500, you are still talking half the cost of a 2 meter D-Star digital voice repeater.

The handhelds look like they'll cost about $100 more than the mobiles, but I think you can reduce that too by careful negotiation.

You'll still have the costs of an antenna and duplexer to contend with. There's no getting away from that.

John
K4QHR

Icom IDAS Digital

Post by K4QHR »

Well, When I add the figures up in my head, I would probably be better off buying a VHF quantar. After I buy a repeater, and Amp, a Mobile, and a Portable... there is my quantar. And I have about 5 friends that have astro equipment. I do like the IDAS concept. I'm gonna keep my open on this one. And who knows, maybe I will get me a Mobile rig, just to play with, when I come up there for a visit around the New Year!
n1oty

Post by n1oty »

Well, look at it this way. Astro Spectra's with a digital flash do not sound nearly as well as the xts3000's and 5000's equipped with the latest flash. If you ever decide to purchase a newer xtl2500 or xtl5000 with a digital flash, you'll pay nose bleed prices compared to these mobiles (and these are new with a factory warranty, not a $1500 ebay special that you hope will work correctly).

Speaking of ebay, I purchased 3 xts3000's and one xts2500 over the past couple of years. One of the four was found to have a defective PA, so had little output power. Then there is the fact that none of the available Motorola P25 stuff is phase 2 compliant, nor will it be ultra-narrowband compliant. The IDAS equipment is cutting edge and 6.25 khz compliant.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my P25 stuff too, but I've decided to sell a couple of them off while I can still recoup my money. If you want to examine this equipment in the future, look me up when you are visiting the area.

John
n1das
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Post by n1das »

Now that I've been bit by the digital bug, I need to unload my analog-only commercial gear. I've got a pair of UHF high-split (450-520MHz) Moto HT1250 portables (limited keypad model) to unload plus a pair of Kenwood TK-3170 portables. All are in mint condition. I've used them on GMRS and the Kenwoods also work well on 440. I'm not sure what's the best way to proceed. Ebay 'em, advertise them on Batlabs, bring 'em to NEAR-fest, etc...not sure how to proceed.

When you start acquiring digital radios you start wondering what to do with your older analog-only equipment. All future commercial radio equipment purchases of mine shall be digital radios. No more analog-only equipment going forward. :cool:
David Sterrett, N1DAS
Nashua, NH
Ham [HA] = N1DAS (2/1984)
GMRS [ZA] = KAE9013 (12/1992)
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Post by N1BHH »

Deerfield is just around the corner. I'm sure you will find someone to take that stuff off your hands.
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Post by n1oty »

I would suggest listing on batlabs first. You will probably get better money for mint condition radios there.

John
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Post by n1das »

n1oty wrote:I would suggest listing on batlabs first. You will probably get better money for mint condition radios there.

John

That's what I was thinking too. That's why I'm sort of in a quandry about how to proceed. On to Batlabs with the HT1250s. Thanks. No more analog-only radios for me going forward. Only high quality digital commercial radios from now on. :cool:

At NEAR-fest coming up, I'll have my Kenwood TK-5210 VHF portable on me plus a Kenwood NEXEDGE UHF portable. My g/f will also have one of my UHF NEXEDGE portables, we'll be able to demo how they sound.
David Sterrett, N1DAS
Nashua, NH
Ham [HA] = N1DAS (2/1984)
GMRS [ZA] = KAE9013 (12/1992)
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