Motorola to sell 220 MHz in US

[xmo]

MOTOROLA TO ENTER 220 MHZ BAND EQUIPMENT MARKET IN U.S. Motorola and Aerwav have announced an
agreement through which Motorola will design, manufacture and market infrastructure, portable and
mobile two-way radio products for use in the 220 MHz band in the U.S. "This event marks Motorola's
first-ever entry into the 220 MHz band," said Ken Notter, Motorola Communications and Electronics
Inc. vice president. Said Robert J. Shiver, Aerwav chairman and chief executive officer.
"Motorola's dedication to innovative and quality two-way radio products, coupled with the spectrum
'pipeline' that Aerwav will provide, opens up significant new opportunities for wireless services
nationwide." Read the full press release at
http://www.corp.mot.com/cgiss/marcom/pr ... ge1898.htm <
http://www.corp.mot.com/cgiss/marcom/pr ... ge1898.htm> .

[jim]

In other words, "M" and UPS are in bed together. Maybe they'll make a radio that actually works! Nah...what was I thinking?

[Jonathan KC8RYW]

I'm confused.

Is Motorola making gear for us hams to use in the 1.25 meter band, or are they tring to take over 220 with business users?

[jim]

Commercial.

[Batman]

We'll see mods soon to bring them up to 1.25m ham band.

Batman

[N9CZV]

They are trying to peddle 220 to the utilties industry. I have had several calls this month.

[xmo]

There were guys wandering around Dayton last year with GP280XL 220 MHz portables on the ham band (obviously imported).

[Jonathan KC8RYW]

On 2002-01-21 18:04, xmo wrote:
There were guys wandering around Dayton last year with GP280XL 220 MHz portables on the ham band (obviously imported).

Importing radio's isn't really that much of a bad idea (minus shipping and taxes.)

I think most hams forget that certain ham bands (aka: 2meters, 1.25 meters, 70 cm) have diffrent users and bandlimits in the two other ITU regions.

In fact, the ideal HT on a frequency split which the USA uses for hams, could be in use in England by a taxi-cab company.

No out-of-band tinkering required.

Imagine that.

[Tom in D.C.]

Importing your own radio to the US from outside the US is not thought by many people to be a really smart idea, unless you want to undertake the warranty yourself. As an example, don't send a GP68 to the Motorola Depot for repairs because the radio is not currently supported in the US. Also, don't ask them to do warranty work on a GP300 which was made in China, because they don't (in my personal experience) support that model if it comes from China to the US. There are a number of current Motorola radios which are available from independent sources in the US, but these particular radios don't use the USA RSS, and Motorola won't fix 'em for you under warranty.

Tom, W2NJS
...in D.C.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tom in D.C. on 2002-01-21 22:30 ]</font>

[Jonathan KC8RYW]

Yippe. Just think, 15 years from now, there will be a surplus of 220 MHz radio on the market. These should be a breeze to re-program a few MHz over into the ham band. That is, of course, if ham's still have the 1.25meter band then...

[Tom in D.C.]

Most if not all of the "new" commercial spectrum space is likely to be digital, which we hams don't use much of - yet.
If and when it happens someone will have to decide what kind of system will be the "standard." There is currently an amateur repeater in Texas which is using APCO 25. See the February issue of QST if you want to read up on the ham view of this question.

Tom, W2NJS
...in D.C.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tom in D.C. on 2002-01-23 18:06 ]</font>