First...what does it tell you about a company that's changed hands five times in 15 years?
You don't sell your winners.
You DO sell your LOSERS.
I'm going to be really fair and honest about the relative quality of various radios I've had direct experiences with.
First, most of M/A-Com's EDACS trunking radio models are actually made by Japan Radio Corporation. JRC makes a GOOD
radio. The workmanship and quality of manufacturing are generally excellent. Though they're now pretty much obsolete,
the Rangr mobile radio and the M-PD and M-PA portable radios are about as well made as any radio ever has been, and their
performance is excellent as is their reliabilty.
But in later years, frankly it looks like the "name of the moment" company chose to ask for less in the way of quality
manufacturing from JRC...if JRC is even actually making some of the crap I've seen with the GE (whatever...) name on it.
A fundamental observation: I've never once felt any need or desire to modify a Motorola radio in order to improve its
performance in any respect. But I have a short list of "must do" tweaks for some M/A-Com radios which are often
needed in order to bring some specific characteristics of M/A-Com radios (like the speaker audio quality) up to
something resembling acceptable performance.
Specifics: The LPE-200 is a popular smaller sized radio. It has weak, usually tinny audio quality and is not capable of
being heard clearly in a noisy environment. The speaker is tiny and the radio just doesn't have much audio output,
and what quality there is in the audio output rapidly turns to crap as you max out the volume control.
The Jaguar 700P generally sounds quite tinny and often has a speaker rattle, as does the newer 7100 portable.
For both of these radios, I take the speakers out, apply electrical tape to the speaker cones, and reinstall them,
which makes for a substantial improvement in audio quality.
The best of any of these radios, even modified for better sound quality, doesn't come close to the audio quality
of an HT600, MT1000, or any Saber or any Astro radio.
I've had the chance to play around a little bit with some XTS5000s lately. I don't own one...yet...but I've been able
to check them out. These are seriously impressive radios. Their solidity and quality feel is remarkable, and their
audio quality is noteworthy, particularly on digital transmissions. I've been able to do side-by-side comparisons
between a M/A-Com 7100IP (modified for better audio) and an Astro Saber, and an XTS-5000, all tuned to the
same digital (P25) modulated signal, and the 7100IP lags FAR behind the nearly 10 year old Astro Saber in audio
quality, and the new XTS-5000 sounds noticeably better still than the Astro Saber.
I have other criticisms of the M/A-Com radios, but I'm not going to air an entire laundry list at this time,
particularly when I'm not quite sure where to start anyway.
M/A-Com DOES have some good ideas. Some are even good enough that Motorola should have thought of them
first. But overall, Motorola's radios are uniformly of better quality.
I think that possibly the main reason for this is simple: M/A-Com is more likely to find a suitable off-the-shelf
product and work with it. Motorola is more likely to have optimized parts custom made for them. Case in
point: the speakers in the portable radios. I'm SURE that M/A-Com uses stock item speakers from one or
another vendor like Foster, just as I'm sure that the speakers made for Motorola's portables (at least the
higher end Astro models) are custom designed and built only for this application.
The best single idea that M/A-Com offers: Their programming software: It supports EVERY model of radio
that they currently support, in ONE software package. And you can read from a low end radio and write it
directly to a high end radio of a different model and series. The software will automatically make adjustments
to ensure that it works. And you can read a full-featured codeplug out of the highest model radio they make,
and use it to directly program a much simpler radio with few features, and not have to do any of the editing
yourself. The software does it automatically but will advise you that you'll lose some functionality and will
detail it. But the type of radio the codeplug came from or is going to simply doesn't matter.
That's a SMART feature there. Motorola should have figured that one out a long time ago.
And, you don't need "special" software to change a radio's configuration. Changing most radios in terms
of their configuration (keypad, display, etc) is a built-in capability of the regular programming software's
radio maintenance program.
I observe that since M/A-Com took over, they have made some definite improvements to the build quality
of their radios compared to the earlier days. But they've got a long way to go if they really want to make
a radio that truly has the same level of quality as Motorola's been making all along.
Elroy
