Batboard

Anyone out there seen a Daniels Electronics repeater in amateur service? I am looking for a P25 repeater that we could install on a mountain top site that could run off of solar or wind power. Dual mode FM/P25 would be super. We don't need trunking or anything else fancy - just a plain dual mode conventional repeater.

How are these to maintain versus a Quantar or similar repeaters? It sounds from many posts like they are reliable and that's what we need. Some of our amateur repeater sites are on remote mountain top sites accessable only by helo or ATV. Ideally, we would like something that would not require frequent site visits and that has low power consumption.

Any advice or recommendations on D.E. repeaters would be appreciated. Alternately, if there is something better suited to this type of repeater application, please let me know. We have some aged conventional repeaters, and when they finally go belly up, maybe we can upgrade to something more modern.

Thanks for any input!

-Pierre

AL7OC wrote:Anyone out there seen a Daniels Electronics repeater in amateur service? I am looking for a P25 repeater that we could install on a mountain top site that could run off of solar or wind power. Dual mode FM/P25 would be super. We don't need trunking or anything else fancy - just a plain dual mode conventional repeater.

How are these to maintain versus a Quantar or similar repeaters? It sounds from many posts like they are reliable and that's what we need. Some of our amateur repeater sites are on remote mountain top sites accessable only by helo or ATV. Ideally, we would like something that would not require frequent site visits and that has low power consumption.

Any advice or recommendations on D.E. repeaters would be appreciated. Alternately, if there is something better suited to this type of repeater application, please let me know. We have some aged conventional repeaters, and when they finally go belly up, maybe we can upgrade to something more modern.

Thanks for any input!

-Pierre

The last Daniels class I was in (2 or 3 years back) the instructor did talk about a ham club that had one (IIRC it was VHF) that had gone down the side of a cliff and the agency that owned it did not want to try salvage it. After Daniels confirmed that he ham club did own the unit they were glad to sell them some parts to repair it. I don't think they sell one in the 440 ham split, they did not at that time.

We maintain some for state and federal agencies both and they are well built and seem to be very reliable. On the downside the cost of them is high . I have never seen a M-4 on the used market, so finding a used one may be hard. I would check with them directly to see what they say. Also some of the earlier P25 units were double vocoded, I would stay away from them.


Jim

From looking at the Daniels site, it appears that the following pieces are available that would cover the amateur bands:
Transmitters 136-174, 380-470
Receivers 136-174, 430-450
Amplifiers: 132-174 (20-30w), 144-152 (60-110w).
There appears to be a hole in the UHF amplifiers from 430-450, but it may be worth a call/email to see if the 406-430/450-470 20-30w unit will work (it looks like the same stock number..)

I called them a few years back when I was researching for my first P25 box. What I found is that their 10 watt exciter/receiver system was very reasonable in price, but what they wanted for a 50 to 100 watt brick was a bit much. Before I stumbled upon a used Quantar I was debating on utilizing an existing 100 watt VoCom amp that was currently in service, but I never got around to researching to see if there were any control issues between the two.

Motorola will most likely replace their PDR-3500 (Quantar with its boards mounted horizontally inside a Zero One suitcase, with a mobile duplexer) at some point, given that the Quant has been announced as ending (it's red in the current eCat). Since the Daniels P25 repeaters are similarly priced as the Motorola P25 offerings, I'd want to see what The Big M comes up with, before I'd spring for a Daniels product. However, that 8 watt Pelican cased, solar powered P25 Daniels repeater is a very nice looking machine, no doubt about it! I guess it depends on whether you have the stomach to endure a potentially long wait to see what Motorola does with their PDR-3500 replacement, and what their timing is. The basic GTR-8000 conventional Mixed Mode repeater/base station is still some ways out (sometime in 2011?).

ASTROMODAT wrote:Motorola will most likely replace their PDR-3500 (Quantar with its boards mounted horizontally inside a Zero One suitcase, with a mobile duplexer) at some point, given that the Quant has been announced as ending (it's red in the current eCat). Since the Daniels P25 repeaters are similarly priced as the Motorola P25 offerings, I'd want to see what The Big M comes up with, before I'd spring for a Daniels product. However, that 8 watt Pelican cased, solar powered P25 Daniels repeater is a very nice looking machine, no doubt about it! I guess it depends on whether you have the stomach to endure a potentially long wait to see what Motorola does with their PDR-3500 replacement, and what their timing is. The basic GTR-8000 conventional Mixed Mode repeater/base station is still some ways out (sometime in 2011?).

Who mentioned anything about a suitcase repeater? A PDR3500 or the Daniels equivalent would be a piss-poor option for a fixed, long-duration repeater at a permanent site.

Basically, you know nothing about the Daniels repeaters but felt it necessary to say something, like normal, regardless of its usefulness.

For the OP, I know of one Daniels repeater on the air for ham use (2m) in mixed-mode service. It's currently on long-term loan to the club from a public safety entity. From my admittedly limited experience, it works flawlessly in analog and digital modes (although digital ops tend to confuse the C.O.F.s!) I know very little about the hardware itself, other than that it's pretty expensive but quite bulletproof, especially in later iterations.