Astro or APCO25 Ham repeater in Arizona

jjbond · Post by **jjbond** » Thu Jun 23, 2005 10:44 pm

Anyone know if there are any repeaters in the Phoenix area that support Motorola Astro APCO25 technology? I'd love to start up a local group of people that want to play with this exciting stuff.

PS: I'm not sure if this should be in the ASTRO section or this one so forgive if it's in the wrong spot.

Jennifer

mike m · Post by **mike m** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 7:46 am

I have a UHF/VHF P25 to 29.6 link in Prescott, it's all cross band simplex P25 UHF/VHF in to a 29MHZ analog FM remote base link. It's down right now for antenna and radio changes. So far I haven't heard of any in the Phoenix area.

Mike

jjbond · Post by **jjbond** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 9:59 am

Thanks Mike.... bummer, wish there was something down here but then with what I'm heard on 440, I'm not surprised. When you get to a new town (I've just moved here), monitoring 440 is usually indicative of the tech/activity level of local hams and this town is DEAD on UHF. My $1,000 Astro Saber III UHF is a HUGE waste of money in this town. Two meters is hardly active at all, what a waste for a town in such great shape geographically to take advantage of repeaters and technology. I spend most of my time on simplex with a few neighboring hams.

Jim2121 · Post by **Jim2121** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 10:57 am

In the Phoenix plus area...2 meters is so crowded you can't get a repeater in Coordination its too crowded. 70cm has a good deal of repeaters also... for the current listings go to:
http://www.azfreqcoord.org/listings.htm
repeater owners do change PL's..and/or have more than one..
I've heard some people wonder why a repeater is not working after they buy a repeater guidebook thats 2 years old... things change very fast!
good luck. jim
_______________________________________
just my 2 cents

jjbond · Post by **jjbond** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:55 am

Wow there's two of you from this board that live up north eh, I had no idea that Prescott was such a hotbed of Batlabs supporters

fire_master_21 · Post by **fire_master_21** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:57 pm

I think there is also a p25 in kingman az well not real sure but i can check into it

jjbond · Post by **jjbond** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:59 pm

HA... I LOVE the sig.....

Mine use to be "Happiness is seeing your mother in laws picture on the side of a milk carton.

mike m · Post by **mike m** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 9:26 am

Mine is a Wulfsberg P2000 panel mount P25 Avionics radio, operating in simplex crossband mode, when it's on the air the digital radio is on 446.55 using NAC 293. It's crossbanded to the mixed mode side of the P2000 on 146.42 FM to a 29.6 FM remote base. As I said it's off the air at this time for antenna replacement work.

I've talked to several stations on the east coast and Ohio with it thru the 29.6 remote, never had any complaints aside from the typical comment that it sounds nasally from the guys on 29.6.

Mike

jjbond · Post by **jjbond** » Sat Jun 25, 2005 10:18 am

DAMN...what a waste of a HOT radio http://www.fmesales.com/p2000.htm

Where did you get it and if what kind of price did you pay? It sounds awesome.

Jen

mike m · Post by **mike m** » Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:05 pm

I had one P2000 left over in my lab but that one disappeared several months ago.

I designed the RF/transceiver section of the radio. Unfortunately some of my boards have been canabilized by other engineers for other projects so while I wait on new antennas I also have to wait for some new boards to get my remote back on the air.

I Just looked at that picture in the link you posted, the one in that link is an early early prototype, the radio now has a much better and more vivid color display on it. I'll see if I can have our web page updated with the newer display. The radio works great in the relay and relay simulcast mode, it's very easy to x-band a trunking system on radio 1 to a conventional system on the radio 2 side and vice versa.

mike

USGOVTECH · Post by **USGOVTECH** » Thu Jul 07, 2005 5:45 am

There are 3 Repeaters operating P25 in the Mohave County Area. These repeaters provide coverage in Kingman, Lake Havasu, Bullhead City, Laughlin and all outlying areas. These have been on the air for 6 or 7 years and were the first in Arizona to be operating P25. They are linked as well. The first generation radios were VSELP, and within the last two years have converted to IMBE, the repeaters have been upgraded to Daniels and ADI.

USGOVTECH

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:22 am

mike m said: " I designed the RF/transceiver section of the radio."

Uh, I don't get it, unless you used to work at Motorola, and even then, the XTS3000 involved a huge design team, as opposed to one guy.

We use P2000's in our helicopters, and I know for a fact that Chelton's Wulfsberg P2000 uses Motorola's XTS3000 VHF and/or UHF transceivers (sans their keypads and LCD displays, and that's it) inside of the P2000 chassis. Last time I checked, Motorola designed the XTS3000 transceiver. The Wulfsberg P2000 simply adds the front panel keyboard, display, and the audio interface to the aircraft's audio buss, etc. The RF component that Wulfsberg designed is the RF PA deck, as the P2000 operates at a higher power output level than the XTS3000. Even the CPS for the P2000 is 100% identical to the CPS for the XTS3000, as we use our same CPS that programs our XTS3000's portables for our P2000 sets. In a year or so, the new P2000 will incorporate the XTS5000, as the XTS3000 eventually goes out of production.

N4DES · Post by **N4DES** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:03 pm

I'm looking to do an upgrade to some of the Amateur repeaters that the County has deployed and are under my supervision. They are showing their age and may look into adding satellite receivers to at least one of them. Should be a nice project next year.

mike m · Post by **mike m** » Thu Jul 14, 2005 12:31 pm

Larry,

Your actually slitting hairs, we consider the XTS module just like a FPGA IC only larger and designed around it using the SB9600 bus which gave us nmore options such as the RELAY mode of operation.

The actual XTS3000 would never survive as a continuous duty PA even at 1 watt that's why we decided to use it as a .5 watt exciter/receiver module and design our own RF PA sections around it.

You are correct in that they use XTS3000's in them with a slightly different flash than the standard motorola XTS3000. There are some basic changes made to the flash for HIGH/LOW power control since it uses an external RF PA.

Actually They used to use xts3000's now they will be using XTS5000's as the FCC testing was completed a few weeks ago. I don't know when the first XTS5000 versions will ship nor when the XTS5000 version of the Rt5000D will ship either but I just finished the mod's to use the XTS5000's in the RT5000D line.

You are correct in that The VHF and UHF modules have external 10 watt power amps in them along with lots of added external RF filtering to make the newer XTS based line DO-160 compatible so there was a lot more to the radio than the basic XTS module.

I designed the external RF power amps/ transmit receive switch/ added filters for the RF boards which if you want to split hairs makes it a better transceiver than using an XTS radio alone.

More important is the fact that we do not use the motorola RIB box either, we use an XLINX Up to mic all the features of the moto SMART RIB where you plug your PC directly thru the HIROSE connector on the radios front making it much easier to program with only a laptop PC.

Now I kinda wish we didn't base them on the XTS line but it was a choice that had to be made at the time to get something to market fast while our limited software resources were coming up on trying to design a P25 mod/demod board of our own. At the time the radio was in the concept stage, the choice of using an existing exciter or oaying DVSI big bucks was a major factor in going with the XTS line as a low power exciter.

Mike

AEC · Post by **AEC** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 10:06 pm

Greetings all:

I'd love to toy with P25 systems, from the core equipment to the full blown simulcast systems TRS users 'play' with in cities like Milwaukee, WI.
and Greenfield.

From a personal perspective, this is not a reality here as the user loading on P25 is quite low and would not be financially wise to construct such a system than will only have a handful of users.

If $$ were no barrier, I would think about it but only on a statewide level, full simulcast, remote sites, trunked....the works.

Implementation of MDC status for user access and 'roaming' throughout the network, radio check to see how many radios are 'on' within the network...the list goes on as to what can be 'toyed' with to make it a 'killer' amateur system, free of lids, kids and space cadets of ilk.
Membership would be mandatory as would the use of a 'commercial' radio be required as well(for rogue-control).

A period of time could also be set aside for 'membership drives' to allow open access to the core system functions by non-members, but control would be accessible only to members.
30 days free to try out the system and see if this is for you, then provide the signup sheets for membership.

There is nothing within the FCC regs. that disallows for trunked amateur use at 440 and above that i have read, and I know many have indicated certain 'troubles' that could arise with IDs and the like, but even that is not a trouble spot I see being a barrier to the implementation I have stated.
It's the very heart of ham radio...EXPERIMENTATION, who knows, we may even stumble upon tricks we could teach the 'big boys' on trunking.
Sinc enobody knows all there is to know, this would be a superb learning and training tool for future admin types to get their feet wet with(to a limited degree).

Well, there's my take on the subject, feel free to contact me on or off the list, I'm usually listening to 449.625, 447.650, 442.200(the elevator), and even some 2M machines...146.660, 145.330, 147.120, 147.080, 147.360...You get the picture......I'm listening.

And yes, these are all HT usable systems, and you know where I'm located, so let's do coffee and talk!

73! KA9UCE

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 11:18 pm

I'm afraid that Icom's D-STAR product line may serve to side track, or certainly impede, any implementation of P25 on the Ham bands. I have a commercial P25 UHF conventional system in operation for my business, as well as a P25 system that I operate on Ham 440. Both involve Quantars, with XTS-5000 portables and XTL-5000 mobiles. A small number of Hams are on my ASTRO system, as P25 gear is still very pricey. I've talked to a lot of local Hams who are toying with buying D-STAR gear instead of P25, as they wonder if this will become the Ham digital voice standard, and perhaps will eventually become fairly affordable. The problem is that D-STAR is not catching on at all, thus far, with very, very few units sold, and those have been sold to a very tiny number of early (and maybe only) adopters. Hams don't much care for 1.2 GHz, and yet the high speed data feature touted by Icom is way too little, and much too late, what with Verizon now offering 750 kb/s to 3 Mb/s cellular HSD. Verizon gives you true broadband data coverage everywhere that their voice towers cover in their HSD designated markets, and yet D-STAR limps along at a sluggish 80 kb/s (it doesn't actually support the advertised speed of 128 kb/s). The only thing left for Icom to tout about D-STAR is that Hams may have some sort of HSD capabilities in horrible emergencies (I bet the cell systems will hold up better in emergencies than D-STAR Ham systems, but hey, that’s just me.) Meanwhile, Icom has introduced their $1,700 list price (street price is $1,200+) stripped down, bare bones P25 handheld, while Motorola's much superior P25 XTS-1500 and XTL-1500 P25 radios now garner a street price as low as sub-$900, and falling (and Yes, that’s IMBE equipped!). $1,279 for a rice rocket P25 vs/ $890 for a Motorola P25? EASY choice, bro! It's a strange world. One wonders if Icom will even be around 5+ years from now. Unless Ham sales do a 180 turn around and overnight, I think they may be a shadow of their former self, if that, but that's just my opinion. I hope I'm wrong!

AEC · Post by **AEC** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:50 pm

Too bad it's the old rule of supply and demand, somewhat in reverse.
Circle-M has the supply, but the demand just isn't there, at least not yet.

prices remain inflated due to market demands, and PS isn't a huge market, as the ham community isn't either.

If the demand rose and the suppliers were all playing with the same types of equipment, I could see Circle-M developing a P25 radio that is comparable in price to the popular rice bricks so vastly popular with the cheap-o-ham dollar.

But we all know the high brow planners at Rancho Del Moto, they want max buck for everything they market, no wonder why they are stagnant in the ham community, hams don't easily fork over 2 grand for a portable while the IcoYaeWood's of the world are reliable, somewhat durable and cost far less.

A young ham isn't going to be able to spend kilobucks when he's making B/K burger bucks, so the IcoYaeWoods look better to his wallet's finances, and hence, what he spends his money on.

The Japs learned about pricing from taking over the auto biz in the 70's gas crunch years, and they continue to outpace us daily.
They learn and use it against us, we only look at what we can get today, not down the road.
P25 is too much, too late, too costly for most, myself included to invest in strictly as a hobby, and most certainly too costly for a house based operation.

No market, no sales....simple.
Not even Rancho Del Moto can argue that point.

As far as D-Star goes, I never toyed with one, and have no interst in a toy that costs more than it's perceived value.
Again, barely enough, too late, too costly, too bandwidth restrictive to serve a wide need........No market, No sale.

jcobb · Post by **jcobb** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 4:42 pm

Talked to a moto guy at APCO, and complained about the pricing of
equipment vis-a-vis the volunteer FF, etc. He said that that "was not
their market", and that's why the price was not lower.

If every volunteer FF, SAR, etc., person bought a radio, it would not
come close to the value of 1 system for a state/muni.

They are not interested.

Jack

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:48 pm

"PS isn't a huge market.."

Huh?! What are you talking about?

PS is the largest sector of the 2-way land mobile commercial market. Keep in mind that the old commercial 2-way land mobile sectors like plumbers, electricians, construction, etc. have 99.9% dumped their trunked 800 MHz radios LONG ago and replaced them with Nextel DirectConnect.

It is true that PS is butt a pimple on cellular's bottom, but given the crumbs left over for 2-way after Nextel man handled most of the 2-way market away, the PS sector is the single largest piece left, by far-and-away.

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 6:52 pm

"They are not interested."

And, you can't blame them. Like all entrepreneurs, Motorola has one, and only one, moral obligation as a firm in a capitalistic marketplace: to MAXIMIZE profits. Remember, Motorola is not a philanthropist, so it is not their responsibility to make firemen happy with underpriced P25 gear.

jcobb · Post by **jcobb** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 7:32 pm

ASTROMODAT wrote:"They are not interested."

And, you can't blame them. Like all entrepreneurs, Motorola has one, and only one, moral obligation as a firm in a capitalistic marketplace: to MAXIMIZE profits. Remember, Motorola is not a philanthropist, so it is not their responsibility to make firemen happy with underpriced P25 gear.

I fully understand business imperatives. That doesn't help us, though.

And it may not be that FFs need "underpriced" P25 gear - maybe Moto's
current pricing is "overpriced"...

Jack

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:06 pm

If Motorola's P25 equipment is "over priced," then how come Icom's (inferior) P25 junk is a good 40%, or more, HIGHER than Motorola's P25 prices? Does this mean that Motorola's P25 gear is "over priced," and therefore Icom is "Ultra over priced?"

jcobb · Post by **jcobb** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:13 pm

ASTROMODAT wrote:If Motorola's P25 equipment is "over priced," then how come Icom's (inferior) P25 junk is a good 40%, or more, HIGHER than Motorola's P25 prices? Does this mean that Motorola's P25 gear is "over priced," and therefore Icom is "Ultra over priced?"

It could be - or, they are trying to recoup engineering/R&D in fewer years than other products/services do, rather than staged over the full life of the product.

And there are probably other factors that neither you nor I know anything about.

But it remains that the equipment is high-priced - and will remain so until some market pressures (competition, innovation, etc.) change that.

Jack

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:25 pm

I guess I'd like to speak for myself, thank you, and I have put my money where my mouth is, and I own and operate a fairly large Motorola P25 system. IMHO, I do not believe Motorola has over priced their P25 gear at all. I'm totally satisfied with the price and performance, as well as the excellent customer service I have received throughtout many years as a Motorola customer. That's been my personal experience over many years, but it's only one person's viewpoint and my anecdotal, non-scientific results, and I'm sure many others have expereinced various mileage.

jcobb · Post by **jcobb** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:45 pm

ASTROMODAT wrote:I guess I'd like to speak for myself, thank you, and I have put my money where my mouth is, and I own and operate a fairly large Motorola P25 system. IMHO, I do not believe Motorola has over priced their P25 gear at all. I'm totally satisfied with the price and performance, as well as the excellent customer service I have received throughtout many years as a Motorola customer. That's been my personal experience over many years, but it's only one person's viewpoint and my anecdotal, non-scientific results, and I'm sure many others have expereinced various mileage.

I am not sure what you mean by "speaking for yourself", I certainly wasn't trying to put words in your mouth.

It just is simply too expensive for me to afford +/- $7K for 1 mobile and 1 HH radio for volunteer duty. That's all.

And, yes, I have used Motorola products for many years and will continue to do so. I am not in the league of having my own system nor will I likely ever be in that position, so I am speaking as a simple single-user.

Jack

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 9:00 pm

I concur and understand that $7k for a P25 HH and mobile is way too pricey for one individual to shell out for volunteer FF service use. No argument there.

You may want to look at Motorola's new XTS-1500 P25 HH, and/or their new P25 XTL-1500 mobile. No encryption (but that's not needed for FF use), and they cost around $850 street price (if you can get access to a large department's discount). That's much less (when adjusted for 2005 dollars) than the old venerable HT-220. Heck, a low tier Icom FM HH is around $400, so I don't think $850 is all that bad for a great P25 Motorola radio. We are using them in those cases where we don't need DES-OFB, and they work essentially as good as the top tier XTS-5000/XTL-5000, so long as you don't need a huge number of zones, channels, encryption, and various other high end features.

MTS2000des · Post by **MTS2000des** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 6:42 pm

the XTL1500/XTS1500 are limited (last I checked) to only ONE system key. Kind of a joke as far as interoperability is concened...how can you have end user interoperability when you are limited to only ONE system? so I must go out and buy the 5 grand portable.

Larry, reality check here...the majority of US Fire Services are not big cities with big bucks...they simply can't afford the ASTROnomical cost of Motorola P25, not to mention the high cost of ownership. Motorola is pricing themselves out of alot of users' budget. There is a reason why Kenwood's 5210 is selling faster than any dealer can stock them. And you get alot more for your money.

as far as a digital standard for ham radio, P25 would be the more likely candidate because there is more infrastructure available than any other digital air interface. D-Star is overpriced, not practical (at 1.2GHz) and while a novelty I don't forsee it being a mainstream reality. Besides, does ham radio really NEED digital? Most of the 2 meter and UHF repeaters around here are DEAD. And gathering from the piss poor attitude of some of the ham community it is no wonder why. People have moved onto other things it seems.

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:20 pm

As far as encryption is concerned, the XTS/XTL-1500 are actually less capable than just being limited to one key---they have no encryption capabilities whatsoever. But, I'm not generally aware of any FD's that use encryption anyway.

As to price, $850 for a XTS/XTL-1500 in today's 2005 dollars is WAY less (in adjusted dollars) than the cost of an HT-220 in the old days, so I can't see where it is accurate to call these low end P25 sets overpriced.

MTS2000des · Post by **MTS2000des** » Sun Aug 28, 2005 7:33 pm

Larry I wasn't referring to encryption, I was referring to a TRUNKED SYSTEM key. The XTL-1500 IIRC was limited to only a SINGLE trunked system key meaning it was limited to only able to be programmed on a single system ID. if that is the case, it flies in the face of interoperability.

You can't compare the 1500's to full tier radios like the 5210 which have full features and AES-OFB so let's compare apples to apples. A 5210 is around half the cost of a comparably equipped XTS-5000. It is just as much (if not more) radio. The US Forest Service sees the light, and that is, they can buy two Kenwoods instead of one XTS5000. This means more radios for more users and thus a better spending of their budget.

As was said before, Motorola's prices are absurd and artifically inflated just like stuff on Ebay is. The only reason they charge what they do is the lack of education on part of the buyers. If you can buy two or three of something from someone else and it works just as good and meets all the specs, you would be a fool not to.

Back to the topic of P25 and ham radio, I don't see P25 or any digital standard going anywhere. Most hams around here just now are getting around to what "PL" is and using it to silence the intermod on their 25 year old Micor or Specrum/Hamtronics repeaters. And it almost (literally) took and act of Congress to get the useless old farts to adopt that.

mr uhf · Post by **mr uhf** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:19 am

Just a quick note regarding D-star. A few of the new Icom rigs are now coming out with a D-star module. It is called the UT-118. The 118 will allow for a 4800bps digital voice signal using ambe on a standard vhf or uhf channel. You can get up with D-star voice on 144 or 440 for $500 or less with portables or mobiles.

Dave

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 10:17 am

Regarding Kenwoods for P25 use, I'll worry about my Motorola stock when I see even one major metro PD Dept buy an all Kenwood P25 system, or even a bunch of portables and/or mobiles on a Motorola P25 infrastructure. Until then, (yawn...) I won't hold my breath, or sell my Motorola stock.

D-STAR looked interesting at the get go, but Icom sat on it for 4 years. Now, having 80 kb/s in my car is slow as a dog, compared to Verizon's HSD service which can run as fast as 9 MB/s, with guaranteed sustained minumum speeds of 750 kb/s, and coverage throughout their entire cellular service area (in those Verizon markets configured with HSD, which includes my markets and travel areas).

MTS2000des · Post by **MTS2000des** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 12:02 pm

there aren't any Kenwood P25 radios on PROPRIETARY Motorola trunking systems because of just that: Motorola trunking is PROPRIETARY. Kinda defeats the purpose of "interoperability" among radios from different vendors if you are locked into a proprietary system.

The US Forest Service who use conventional digital have been very happy with their Kenwood TK-5210's as is the TSA who just bought some to work with their VHF XTS's. They like getting more for their money and not having to be locked to a single vendor.

I think this horse has been beaten to death. The bottom line is at the end of the day not everyone needs nor can afford the latest P25 offering and being that Motorola tries to shove Smartnet/Smartzone trunking down everyones' throats they force alot of agencies to run the other way. The rebanding scam plan and Nextel interference has taught some a hard expensive lesson about not researching your options when buying such radio systems from a single vendor.

Cipher77 · Post by **Cipher77** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:55 pm

ASTROMODAT wrote:I guess I'd like to speak for myself, thank you, and I have put my money where my mouth is, and I own and operate a fairly large Motorola P25 system. IMHO, I do not believe Motorola has over priced their P25 gear at all. I'm totally satisfied with the price and performance, as well as the excellent customer service I have received throughtout many years as a Motorola customer. That's been my personal experience over many years, but it's only one person's viewpoint and my anecdotal, non-scientific results, and I'm sure many others have expereinced various mileage.

I think ASTROMODAT is really Chris Galvin incognito ;o)

All in fun!!! -- had to bust yer nutz because you sounded like a marketeer for moto..........

Post by **batdude** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:42 pm

ok, had my fill of this...

it's going nowhere, and has nothing to do with the subject line of the post.

move along.

doug

Astro or APCO25 Ham repeater in Arizona

Astro or APCO25 Ham repeater in Arizona

APCO in Phoenix

in phoenix plus

Apco systems..

P25, D-Star....Hams and the market..

D-Star

..