Mototrbo / Console / Voting / Etc

[nmfire10]

So this Mototrbo thing would be great for us here. Two channels for the price of one sounds great plus digital audio quality and all the other little features. Right now we have a Quantar and two SpectraTAC receivers on a SpectraTAC voter connected to a Centracom Gold Elite console. Can this thing support voting and console connectivity? If not, no go.

Also, can the mobile and portable radios scan a mix of digital and analog channels?

[nmfire10]

Never mind. I read the system planning documentation and got my answer. No Centracom, no voting, no wireline, no nothing. But the portables can scan mixed. In other words, cool but useless to me.

[RKG]

One of these years I will probably have to learn MotoTrbo in detail; from what I have gleaned so far, it is not intended for public safety or dispatch radio functions, but rather for commercial applications.

[wavetar]

They unveiled the most detailed roadmap I've seen yet for MotoTRBO today at the Toronto Roadshow. The plans are for this platform to eventually do everything. Today was the first time I've heard them specifically say it will eventually to SmartNet-type trunking. There will be a Scholer-Johnson board for analog LTR trunking supposedly before the end of '07. There will be a Midian encryption board 2nd half of '08. The plans call for the series to be fully digital trunking capable by the end of 2009. I believe they said Passport trunking will be a feature before the end of '08. The next major firmware release in Q4 '07 will enable the accessory connector in the repeater to allow connecting to all sorts of legacy devices such as phone interconnects & Trident controllers. Oddly enough, analog DTMF won't be enabled in the field radios until sometime in Q1 '08. The latter half of '08 will see the ethernet port enabled & multi-site capability will be introduced. There really is a lot going on with the product line. They claim every engineer involved with the R&D and launch of the product (numbering in the several hundred) has been retained to further develop the series, as opposed to the regular modus operandi of moving most of them onto newer projects. So eventually, there will be console & voting capabilities, which only makes sense considering they are fully IP based units & that's the way consoles are going as well. The radios are better built physically than the Professional series radios, and Motorola considers them "public safety" grade, but not "homeland security" grade, which they leave to the P25 capable line of radios.

[mr.syntrx]

They unveiled the most detailed roadmap I've seen yet for MotoTRBO today at the Toronto Roadshow. The plans are for this platform to eventually do everything. Today was the first time I've heard them specifically say it will eventually to SmartNet-type trunking.

I've speculated about this being the eventual plan for Motorola in the past. Trunking support is already included in the ETSI specifications.

The specifications allow for SmartZone-esque multisite functionality, but whether Motorola will implement this in their infrastructure products remains to be seen, and I'm sure that'll prove to be a hit for a lot of MPT-1327 customers outside North America, such as transit services and utilities. A lot of P25's features are there, except most notably support for crypto or OTAR.