Batboard

No D* for Yaesu....looks like they are betting on C4FM for amateur radio.

http://www.yaesu.com/indexVS.cfm?cmd=Di ... Archived=0

Surprised? Given that D-Star is an ICOM/Kenwood creation and Yaesu is owned by the big /\/\ I'm not.

escomm wrote:Surprised? Given that D-Star is an ICOM/Kenwood creation and Yaesu is owned by the big /\/\ I'm not.

Not for long...

http://www.arrl.org/news/view/yaesu-s-a ... &mid=56586

http://bit.ly/rR2Qmt

Yaesu sold off Vertex Standard to Motorola.

Alex

The point remains. Look at whose name is plastered on the last page of the document. And surely you didn't miss the notes on page 14 about the two slot TDMA radio they'll be releasing after the C4FM FDMA units come out.

Again, is anyone surprised that Yaesu is going the DMR route?

what is interesting is that Yaesu USA will be strictly amateur and marine, and has transferred Vertex-Standard solely to Motorola.

The implications are interesting.

We've come full circle, and Ma M got what they wanted: to eliminate a key competitor.

MTS2000des wrote:We've come full circle, and Ma M got what they wanted: to eliminate a key competitor.

You mean the NYPD radio contract.......

exactly. V-S was a thorn in ma M's side in NYC. Now they can make US city number 1 a Bat town.

I can't blame them, and the got it for a song. Anyone recall what the price paid was? Profit for a week maybe?

When Yaesu talks about C4FM FDMA, they are saying P25, right?

KE7JFF wrote:When Yaesu talks about C4FM FDMA, they are saying P25, right?

That is what the slides say....

So will the new digital handheld, that Yaesu has been promoting, be Phase 2 or Phase 1 P25?

Marshall

rc50won wrote:So will the new digital handheld, that Yaesu has been promoting, be Phase 2 or Phase 1 P25?

Marshall

Or will it be capable of both and analog?

Doesn't a Phase 2 P25 radio revert to Phase 1 when it hears a Phase 1 signal? If that's correct then a Phase 2 radio has to be capable of both types of P25. Be nice if it did analog as well, but we'll all have to just sit and wait for Yaesu to announce the details. I'm thinking of a price in the $500 range, probably a bit more.

Tom in D.C. wrote:Doesn't a Phase 2 P25 radio revert to Phase 1 when it hears a Phase 1 signal? If that's correct then a Phase 2 radio has to be capable of both types of P25. Be nice if it did analog as well, but we'll all have to just sit and wait for Yaesu to announce the details. I'm thinking of a price in the $500 range, probably a bit more.

If the photo on page 14 is to be believed, dual band for ~$500...?

I know I will follow the developments of a P25 Yaesu transceiver. I, too, am concerned about differing digital standards in the amateur community, but I have had some of those same concerns in the public safety area as well. I think 2012 will be an interesting year. If I understand this correctly, they will first have APCO P-25 transceivers, but then later also offer MOTOTRBO transceivers, or am I misunderstanding this?

They are saying they will offer transceivers utilizing a digital mode, 4-level FSK signalling, 12.5KHz channel spacing, and either FDMA or 2-slot TDMA.

They've said nothing about the format of the data stream, nor of the vocoder to be employed. Vertex Standard is a member of the P25 PTIG, but Yaesu Musen is not. Considering the price, they could easily be using a different vocoder without the patent encumbrances and cost of IMBE/AMBE (such as Speex), and it could be a different data format altogether. Also, any implementation would need to properly conform to the standard to officially be called "Project 25".

I think it's way too early to say that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they are releasing ham radios that are P25-compatible...

Thanks TVSJ, I read that the same way. Doesn't seem like they are doing anything to stop speculation though. Should be interesting to see what way this goes. Plain old FM is good enough for me, so I won't be buying one of these. In my area there isn't a need for more repeaters, the ones we have are barely used. The argument that they can fit two voice paths on a single TDMA system is nice, but I don't really see the need for that, at least not around these parts. Maybe it's different in the big cities.
I never saw it as "one standard" for amateur, though. We have lots of different standards to choose from, one of them just happens to be D-Star. I never saw it that they were trying to dominate the market. They were just the only mass produced product on the market. I like the few Yaseu radios I have, so no ill feelings towards them.

As for data communications, I didn't think we could use HAM for general web surfing, so while having the high speed data function is nice, I'm not understanding the need. Maybe for photos or live video, but what else. Am I missing something?

They'll no doubt push the ARES angle for the ability to send back pics and video to "command". That is no doubt useful, but if you look at most (not all) ARES groups, they won't be using that technology for years, if ever.

Hope that they are also going to sell P25 and MOTOTRBO capable repeaters. Can't use TDMA mode without a repeater anyway. The local M dealer wanted me to look at MOTOTRBO handhelds, but unless you buy or pay airtime on a community repeater, the handhelds only work in analog FM mode. We'll have to see how this pans out.

Pierre

AL7OC wrote:Hope that they are also going to sell P25 and MOTOTRBO capable repeaters. Can't use TDMA mode without a repeater anyway. The local M dealer wanted me to look at MOTOTRBO handhelds, but unless you buy or pay airtime on a community repeater, the handhelds only work in analog FM mode. We'll have to see how this pans out.

Pierre

You can use any of the Motorola XPR series in simplex with Trbo in use. Text messaging, talk groups, etc all work fine. Just keep in mind it is a single talkpath on a 12.5khz allocation. You will not get two talk paths without a repeater as that is what performs the synchronization of TDMA.

I would expect the same is true for the Vertex cousins but I have never programmed one.

Alex

Thanks for straightening that (TDMA) out for me!

Let's see how the rest pans out.

PL

You know, this may be the first manufacturer produced documentation (anywhere) that admits that analogue FM can actually have the edge over digital modes in weak signal areas. This is amazing!

Good on you Yaesu for telling it like it is..

Finally, a vendor that doesn't spruik the usual <careful> about how P25 and other digital modes always provide greater range and voice clarity than analogue when advertising it's 'digital' products. If only the other big digital radio players would be as honest..

Yes, D-Star is dead in the water. I feel for those clubs and individuals who invested so much money into the equivalent of Betamax.

I am still doubtful that (voice) digital radio will take off in a big way in AR until a single (open) standard is settled on and equipment prices are reduced considerably. The problem is that digital systems, standards and technology are changing every ten years or so. So, why would any club invest tens of thousands of dollars on a digital repeater network to service just a few select operators, when that technology is likely to be obsolete within ten years?

The only way it will work, is if there is one 'open source' digital voice standard that can drive down the cost of the end user equipment/terminals.
It makes sence, at least in the US, that P25 become that standard as there will be plenty of surplus P25 LMR equipment coming onto the market in coming years. One of the main hurdles at the moment, is the licensing costs of the vocoder software. We need an open source vocoder suite that is compatible with P25 and which can be installed into radios from all manufacturers, including the Wouxun's of the world. Sadly, it is unlikely that DVSI will permit that to happen.

Live in hope though..

sparktastic wrote:You know, this may be the first manufacturer produced documentation (anywhere) that admits that analogue FM can actually have the edge over digital modes in weak signal areas. This is amazing!
Good on you Yaesu for telling it like it is..
Finally, a vendor that doesn't spruik the usual <careful> about how P25 and other digital modes always provide greater range and voice clarity than analogue when advertising it's 'digital' products. If only the other big digital radio players would be as honest..

A better description would be "greater useable range". That last little bit at the end of the graph is totally unusable for communication. Digital is 100% no noise until the last 10%. This gives digital a much greater useable range.

sparktastic wrote:Yes, D-Star is dead in the water. I feel for those clubs and individuals who invested so much money into the equivalent of Betamax.
I am still doubtful that (voice) digital radio will take off in a big way in AR until a single (open) standard is settled on and equipment prices are reduced considerably. The problem is that digital systems, standards and technology are changing every ten years or so. So, why would any club invest tens of thousands of dollars on a digital repeater network to service just a few select operators, when that technology is likely to be obsolete within ten years?..

You can blame Icom for the failures of DSTAR. The equipment is expensive and poor quality. A repeater and controller combo is over $3k and the repeater is nothing more than two unshielded mobiles with an output of 20 watts. The shielding is so poor that out of the box the repeater desenses itself. I have benched a 2820 mobile ($900) and a 92AD handheld ($500) and can tell you that a $100 Wouxon has a better receiver.

sparktastic wrote:The only way it will work, is if there is one 'open source' digital voice standard that can drive down the cost of the end user equipment/terminals.
It makes sence, at least in the US, that P25 become that standard as there will be plenty of surplus P25 LMR equipment coming onto the market in coming years. One of the main hurdles at the moment, is the licensing costs of the vocoder software. We need an open source vocoder suite that is compatible with P25 and which can be installed into radios from all manufacturers, including the Wouxun's of the world. Sadly, it is unlikely that DVSI will permit that to happen.
Live in hope though..

There is used P25 and TRBO equipment out there easily available for $400. TRBO repeaters are out there for $1,300. New MotoTRBO handhelds can be purchased for under $650, in the box complete with Impres charger, with a multi-year factory warranty.

As the trustee for 3 analog, one mixed mode P25, and one MotoTRBO repeater, I support over 50 users and face these issues daily. The biggest issue is not cost but the unwillingness of people to embrace something new. These people will find any reason to say no. Those folks stay on analog and complain they have to program a PL to access the repeater. They are also the first to complain that the repeater is noisy. Generally they are the first to complain about anything.

The guys that have embraced digital are just the opposite. They expect a few hurdles and revel in the effort it takes to overcome them. Imagine that? Hams that actually experiment and learn new things. What an epiphany.

Right now TRBO seems to be the digital mode choice. The cost is reasonable and the repeaters are easily networked. Audio is crisp and clear. Handheld battery life is excellent. They are easy to program. We are networked to two other local systems which has increased our handheld coverage to 3 counties. We can hop over over to the local Motorola TRBO system, in Plantation, and talk to over 80 systems around the world.

Marshall

A major factor that many embrace digital modes is just because it is a new frontier, and there are many intriguing possibilities for building networks and leveraging other features. The reason that I dabble in D-STAR is because that was the only AR manufacturer supported DV mode available. P25 is great for experimenting, but how many average hams are going to mess around with the intracacies of learning about CPS, FLASHport, etc... Like it was noted, we have to deal with whining about old technology like PL tones. Too many appliance operators, and not enough experimentors anymore. Tried to hold a club session for rebanding surplus LB M radios to 6M - nobody wanted to get their fingers dirty... They gotta have instant gratification, I guess. Started off with re-purposing old tube radios for ham use in the '70s, and still doing it today, albeit with new technology.

Suppose that Yaesu makes decent P25 AR stuff available - how will that affect this community for better or worse?

PL

AL7OC wrote: Too many appliance operators, and not enough experimentors anymore. Tried to hold a club session for rebanding surplus LB M radios to 6M - nobody wanted to get their fingers dirty... They gotta have instant gratification, I guess. Started off with re-purposing old tube radios for ham use in the '70s, and still doing it today, albeit with new technology.

No doubt....way to many that were "licensed by assignment" and even though the # of licensees topped 700K, the amout that are expiring due to non-interest is an eye opener at 30K.

http://www.qrz.com/i/expired.html?1325535260

A bit off topic, but very important as to where the hobby has gone in the last 10+ years.

One another forum someone was hoping that BOTH P25 AND MOTOTRBO might be available in one unit, but I don't think that is even available in an APX7000 yet is it?

AR radio needs an el cheapo (read that Chinese) SDR radio supporting all of the popular digital formats. Just download new protocols and vocoders implemented in DSP as time goes by and things change. They don't worry about our lawsuites---they can simply threaten to call in our debt if it gets a bit warm in the big kitchen.

Jim1348 wrote:One another forum someone was hoping that BOTH P25 AND MOTOTRBO might be available in one unit, but I don't think that is even available in an APX7000 yet is it?

No, and from what I've heard it won't be happening any time soon.

Regards,

Since Yaesu Munson no longer has any ties to Mother M, I wonder if they will lose interest in their disguised MotoTRBO technology? Kind of like what happened when Mercedes dumped Chrsysler---no more interest on Chryslers' part to put a nice Merc diesel in their Jeep Wrangler. I bet we Hams are in for a bunch of competing and non-interoperable flavors of digital whilst waiting for the battle to end. What a mess, and who wants to buy any digital Ham radios until this is sorted out? Might have a bunch of $'s wasted on the various losing technologies that will soon go to the boneyards. Meanwhile, none of the Big 3 will have any way to grab a significant enough of a foothold to make their flavor catch on. Might take Wouxun to do it the cheap way. Who knows...

This stinks.
It's just another way to convince amateurs that they need a bunch of new equipment. God forbid that some ham couldn't operate on every mode, every frequency at any time of the day or night. Gotta have the latest toys...

Analog is pretty dang interoperable. Play with whatever digital mode you want. When you want to talk to another, switch to analog.

And what's this about running out of frequencies? Switch to narrow channels for pete's sake! No reason that Ham's can't start doing this now. Most of the newer gear will do 12.5KHz. No need to go to digital to do that.

Apologies to anyone I offended, I just get tired of hearing the ham radio community whine about something new.
And, yes, I do have a ham ticket.

mmckenna wrote:
And what's this about running out of frequencies? Switch to narrow channels for pete's sake! No reason that Ham's can't start doing this now. Most of the newer gear will do 12.5KHz. No need to go to digital to do that.

But what about all the repeater owners running Mstr 2 repeaters, or similar "M" equipment? I'm sure they don't want to shell out $2000 for a narrow band repeater. A simpler solution would be to go to 20 khz spacing on UHF like they do in LA. That would up the count by 20% in heavily congested areas without going to narrow band. GARY N4KVE

Correct, however if Yaesu's solution is we should all buy TDMA radios, then they'd have to replace the old GE equipment anyway.
Not looking to argue, just poking holes in the marketing smoke that Yaesu was using to justify why digital was needed on the ham bands.

No need to go to 12.5 kHz channels to free up frequencies. A more efficient way would be to dump all of the paper tigers, which would free up about 90%+ of the repeater channel assignments. Even the very few repeaters that are active have maybe 2 transmissions/day. Cellular has sadly killed Ham 2m/440 repeater use.

ASTROMODAT wrote:No need to go to 12.5 kHz channels to free up frequencies. A more efficient way would be to dump all of the paper tigers, which would free up about 90%+ of the repeater channel assignments. Even the very few repeaters that are active have maybe 2 transmissions/day. Cellular has sadly killed Ham 2m/440 repeater use.

This is a bit off-topic but for the paper repeaters, no doubt. We have done a lot in FL to clean that up, but unfortunately it is a never ending battle. For every 3 or 4 that we coordinate, one goes dark and if it is something that is barely used it usually goes unnoticed and unreported for quite some time. The local Directors and Asst. Directors, like myself and Marshall, do what we can but we are volunteers and only have so much time to dedicate to the hobby/position.

As to those that are coordinated but barely used, there is no ability for ANY coordinating body to remove a coordination due to lack of activity if a repeater is operational and conforming to FCC rules. We went round and round in the FRC trying to come up with a decent balance of fairness and yes while we did come up with a State-wide narrowbanding concept for the state, it doesn't go into full effect until 2020.

http://www.florida-repeaters.org/FRC_Co ... Policy.pdf

The digital non-D* boxes are taking off down here and the AR users are really enjoying the capabilities.

Perhaps the narrowband marketing speel if more for ITU regions 1 and 3? Channel availability may be more of a problem in Europe where they only have 144-146 MHz allocations?

The protocol (P25, D-STAR, MOTOTRBO...) That is going to succeed is going to be the one that delivers the best digital services to the end users (read common ham) at a reasonable price. P25 equipment, which has been up to now commercial/PS grade, is hands down better when it comes to receiver performance and durable packaging. It also is relatively difficult to obtain, and expensive. On the other hand, most of my OTC D-STAR gear is not up to the same level of receiver performance and is certainly not as durable.

Even if Yaesu makes a killer handheld that does P25, there is still the problem of finding decent P25 repeaters and justifying the cost. You need to set up some sort of P25 network that doesn't require a huge investment in infrastructure. What do most people use their cell phones for? Voice and texting. If you want to put some utility in AR gear, you'll need "subscriber" equipment the supports basic digital services. Think something like a smartphone with a keyboard of sorts. The network would have to support P2P texting and voice, as well as talkgroup addressing. Maybe some hybrid cross between an HT and Nextel PTT phones? Pipe dream, I know, but you need some digital applications to make switching to digital AR equipment worthwhile.

D-STAR does have the advantage of being able to link repeaters without a central system controller. Gateways are supposed to register users locally, and then update and synchronize other gateways user databases real-time as to the location of the system users. This allows P2P calling and text messaging over a D-STAR network. Come up with a network that uses P25 CAI, and that has a gateway tied to each repeater in your network without the need for a central controller, and then you have a somewhat useful AR network.

Great if Yaesu makes a P25 handheld, but unless you have some sort of cost effective system to support basic P25 features, why is the average ham going to buy one? As mentioned above, at first it's like the kids with their Christmas Wilkie-talkies, but after the novelty of talking to the same few folks wears off, where do you go from there? Hope that Yaesu is also going to offer some AR P25 repeaters to support their product, and maybe some gateway PC software so that you can make a network using an ISP, or your own home-brew microwave link.

Digital voice alone doesn't buy you anything over analog FM voice for AR. You need to include other digital features and services to make the change to digital worthwhile.

PL

On the topic of useful digital LMR papers, this one from Tait is excellent:

http://tait-utilities.taitradio.com/__d ... er_eng.pdf

Note the honest reference (for a digital vendor) to the assessment of analog vs digital by the Phoenix FD.

The Tait paper is good becasue it looks at the infrsatrucutre ecosystem behind the various standards.

N4KVE wrote:But what about all the repeater owners running Mstr 2 repeaters, or similar "M" equipment? I'm sure they don't want to shell out $2000 for a narrow band repeater.

You can go narrow for a whole lot cheaper than 2 kilobucks, but that rock-solid 100% duty cycle and brick-wall front end from a MSF, MSR, or Micor is hard to let go of. Give it another half-decade or so for Quantars to come down in price and this will be a moot discussion.

When the Waris bandsplit hack finally became known I built two CDR repeaters for the 220 ham band. Rather than try to figure out how to make the CDM radios do wideband we just threw them up as narrowband repeaters and instructed everyone to use narrowband. So far so good; most if not all of the current generation of hammy rigs support narrowband out of the box, and the CDMs seem to have fairly tolerant receivers for people who insist on blasting it with wideband. We even managed to get the audio balanced on a hard-link to a wideband UHF MSF5000 so you couldn't even tell which repeater someone was talking on aside from the different hang times.

Our local club is running a pair of VHF & UHF Quantars in dual mode so we are all set. Hope Yaesu comes out with something soon!

It will be nice to have a dual band P25 mobile

Mototrola APX7500 110watt vhf & uhf R1.......

What I don't understand is where people make the jump from "Yaesu believe C4FM is the future and will release a C4FM digital radio" to "Yaesu will release a P25 HAM radio"

RD-LAP is C4FM, so is MotoTRBO. Whats to say that their Digital protocol for HAM use wont be based on that!?

This is one of my pet peeves. People will use C4FM or AMBE as synonymous with APCO-25, and then when somebody talks about some other protocol that is implemented using C4FM as the modulation scheme or AMBE as the vocoder, those people think that must mean APCO-25.

That's why I encourage people to say what they mean: if you mean P25 say P25, if you mean only the vocoder say AMBE, if you mean only the modulation coding scheme say C4FM (and many of the protocols people talk about may be using 4 level FM, but not necessarily C4FM, which also specifies things like the TX and RX shaping filters).

I'm wondering why Yaesu did all of that very public hoopla about a digital voice Ham radio some 5 months ago, whatever its digital flavor might turn out to be, it was clear it would not be dstar, to be released in early 2012. Here we are now approaching mid-year 2012, and no Yaesu digital voice Ham radio(s), not even a peep out of Yaesu. I guess we'll believe it when we see it, if ever.

I suspect that they are waiting for the Dayton Hamvention next month. They have stated that they will have both FDMA and TDMA transceivers.



http://www.hamvention.org/

Dayton makes perfect sense, and seems like it might be consistent with a reasonable timeframe since their Dec 2011 announcement. Sure would be nice for us Hams if they would come out with a 2M/440 box that does dstar, P25, and perhaps other varieties. Seems like the technology is available to support such a goal, and the big 3 could do it cost effectively enough to allow it to succeed in the amateur radio marketplace, although I suppose the license fees for entities like DVSI are somewhat of a barrier. Then, too, hopefully us Hams will not expect such a fabulous gizmo to be priced in the Wouxun pricing arena.

I can only hope that my sources are correct, and that APCO is looking into other (Free) vocoders (specifically, Codec2) for future protocols.

Cosidering the total optioned-out cost of a high tier radio like an APX7000, I wonder if the vocoder cost (including the DVSI license fee) is essentially lost in the noise? But, if we ever do see a 2M/440 Ham box with multiple digital voice flavors, perhaps in that case the DVSI license fee would represent a painful portion of the total cost?

It's not the cost, it's the license - hence Free, not free.

If you have to license the vocoder from somebody like DVSI, not only do you pay for the vocoder, you pay for all the accounting of what devices it went in, pay for the accounting to be sure you aren't using it in an unapproved manner (e.g. you licensed it under the FRAND terms of APCO-25, but whoopsie! you are using it for another protocol? That's not covered under the APCO license - you have to renegotiate), etc.

Moreover, you will NEVER see a program for your PC that implements D-Star or any of these other protocols that doesn't require you to use a dongle for the decode, as DVSI will not license the vocoder as a pure Windows PC DLL. Sure, you can try to write your own implementation of AMBE, *if* you are a vocoder guru - and you will STILL be infringing upon DVSI's patents, so when you distribute your program, if it gets big and they find out - PATENT ATTORNEY HULK SMASH LITTLE MAN!

Got it now. I had misunderstood Free for free! My mistake, and thanks for the correction. Makes sense, and now I get your point!

What's the scoop from Dayton on the Yaesu digital voice release for AR?