ICOM Digital Mobile & Repeater

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 5:51 pm

Check out the Spring/Summer 2003 AES catalog and the new ICOM digital voice mobile and repeater! They look GREAT!

Larry

tom IL · Post by **tom IL** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 6:40 pm

What page is it on (trying to go thru the pdf catalog

)? Thanks

Pat · Post by **Pat** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 7:33 pm

It's a full-page ad on page 56.

Pat

tom IL · Post by **tom IL** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 7:53 pm

Thanks!

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Wed Apr 16, 2003 10:25 pm

It's interesting that they decided to have a separate repeater for digital voice vs/ data. Previously, it was supposed to be an IVD repeater, but I guess things changed. Their 10 GHz digital microwave is sick!

Larry

fireradio · Post by **fireradio** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 12:21 pm

Hmmm, it does look very cool, but too bad they're not going with a P-25 product. The other slightly annoying thing is that it is only on 1.2 and 10 GHz... aside from those two problems, sweeet! At least ham radio is FINALLY catching up with technology.

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 9:50 pm

i agree with you 100%, fireradio. However, the 10 GHz microwave frequency is for a 10 Mb/s backbone. That is one of the microwave Ham bands.

I sure wish they had put the digital voice on the 450 MHz UHF band w/IMBE. I had spoken with ICOM about this and they said the reason for the 1.2 GHz band is that the entire DStar system was (and is) a commercial venture in Japan for Japanese Government agencies that wanted a private high speed data network (128 kb/s). ICOM won the RFQ, and now they are trying to leverage it on the Ham bands in the US.

They claim they are currently looking at P25 IMBE for US application, and they are in the exploratory phase right now. So, best case it will likely be a long time (if ever) before they might be able to give Motorola a run for their P25 money. Even then, I don't think they have any decent trunking software that could realisatically compete head-to-head against Motrorla for the large metro agencies' dollars. Too bad.

Larry

Jonathan KC8RYW · Post by **Jonathan KC8RYW** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 7:27 am

Don't mind me being pessimistic... BUT I don't think 1.2 GHz will become popular anytime soon. The reason why: you can't use a 100' run of RG-58/U on the repeater.

ASTROMODAT · Post by **ASTROMODAT** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 9:20 am

The new ICOM repeater is housed in a completely weather-proof fiberglass box (rubber seals and positive air pressure, etc) so it is intended to be moubted a foot or so from the antenna. Same deal with the microwave backbone radio. Of course, that still leaves the issue of running power, but the output is pretty low so I suppose this won't be a huge issue.

Larry