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One of these day's someone is going to have to work real hard to prove that to me. The WSP guys Im working around would call you a liar. And the Wiztronics stuff we had couldn't touch the analog stuff for coverage sitting right next to it. Though I do agree that NXDN is better for spectral efficiency. I am not drinking that cool-aid!

My counterpart shops lead tech wants to come along for that proof as well.. :)

Nothing can yet beat the human ear for understanding the audio through the noise.

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"A well regulated breakfast, being necessary to the healthy start of the day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed."

I'll admit, it's less that stellar when moving down the road at 60 miles an hour, but I've seen 6.25 VHF NXDN out perform analog a few times now. Were you on Wiz's 800 or UHF NXDN?

We worked on a VHF NXDN system for a sheriff's office. They wanted to do some testing with the product before they bought (One thing the state didn't do. There are also plenty of other reasons why their stuff isn't working.) They took a couple portables into two cargo containers and removed the antennas. They were able to talk between the containers without the antennas connected in digital with nothing in analog. We setup a repeater for them and stuck the antenna literally in the dirt on the hill and they were talking on portable in areas where they didn't have coverage in wideband.

Another VHF NXDN system we put in just this last summer for a pair of city PD's is a great example. PD A dispatches for PD B and of course themselves. PD A's repeater is on their water tank across the river from PD B. Portable coverage for PD B was marginal at best; PD B didn't even have coverage in their own office. We replaced their portables last year; no improvement. We replaced their MTR2000 with an NXR-710 and let them try digital and they were amazed -- all of their known bad dead areas were gone, their words not mine. Both PD's replaced all their portables and mobiles and went 6.25 NXDN digital. The officer working with me doing the acceptance testing for PD B the day we moved to digital found a fruit warehouse in town that he had portable coverage in but no cell service. Finally the radios work better than their cell phones.

One other thing we've done in the shop is setup a NXDN radio on a dummy load and a step attenuator. We then setup a 2nd NXDN radio on a dummy load across the room and turned the TX Power down to less than milliwatts. We stepped in attenuation on the 1st radio until it couldn't hear the 2nd one anymore. We then reduced the attenuation 1 dB at a time on the 1st radio until it could hear the 2nd radio again. We found that the 1st radio would still pass audio with 3 dB more attenuation after the radio quit breaking squelch in analog. Basically put in layman's terms, the radio on a digital channel received and passed audio at -123 dBm where in analog it wouldn't receive anything less than -120 dBm. I see this time and time again when aligning and prepping NXDN repeaters. I generate my Aeroflex 3550 at -125 (the lowest it will go) and I still hear the 1033 pattern out of the front speaker with little to no BER blips.

Another example, is the dealer in Spokane put in his UHF NXDN trunk system and ran it at 12.5. After converting it to 6.25 KHz he found that he could drive 10 miles further west on I90 before he lost it. It has to be something with 6.25. IDAS and NXDN are the only digital formats that operate at true 6.25. In my experience, I wouldn't expect 12.5 TDMA to operate better then 12.5 analog. I've seen 6.25 FDMA outperform 12.5 analog time and time again.

If anybody wants to come by the shop and play with radios and service monitors, let me know. It's neat stuff!

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Interoperability is an attitude, not a technology.

Lies. :-p

A metric #(%& ton (not an imperial #(%& ton) of 800 Mhz equipment is surplused, with very few legitimate users. XTS5000s on 700/800Mhz are HALF the price of similar VHF or UHF models...

I'm getting a very weird 'tacticool mall operator' vibe from the OP, but that aside....

XTS5000 can be programmed for RX only on most area trunked systems outside of Pierce county...Good for 'interop', you can also program in 700/800 nationwide interop freqs, IF you're allowed to use them (probably not).

ADP is standard, AES is an option. You don't need AES, or ANY encryption really....

Regardless of equipment, you need someone who knows how to set it up, operate it, manage it, etc.

If you're posting on a web forum asking how you do it, you're probably not the guy to set up a site controller (just saying).. I would also look into any restrictions on power output and frequency, as such limitations will probably exist in your environment..

That doesn't even take into account licensing issues...

800 Mhz XTS5000s will set you back about $300 ea, plus around another $100 for benching (calibration). Batteries and other accessories are inexpensive, as the market has dropped out from underneath of them with the prevalence of the APX series.

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Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!

Truth.

Sometimes people are amazed when you can pick up enough of a conversation to understand the message with a signal that's barely above the noise floor. Modern DSP sure can help though. :D

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Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!

...with the prevalence of migrations to 700

XTS5000 is 'dual band' 700/800 :D

Doesn't do type 2 though..

But you already knew that, didn't you?? ;)

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Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!

Sigh.

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President-in-Exile, Seattle Area Radio Communications And Scanner Traffic Intercept Crew (SARCASTIC)
Don't feel bad if you can't use your STD100/200; there are still people using Digital Frequency Search!
Bunnery definition for the under-fives

Not the case; trust me.

Not the case; trust me.

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President-in-Exile, Seattle Area Radio Communications And Scanner Traffic Intercept Crew (SARCASTIC)
Don't feel bad if you can't use your STD100/200; there are still people using Digital Frequency Search!
Bunnery definition for the under-fives

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" SILENCE IS CONSENT "

Made to Government Specs:
1) Measured with a micrometer.
2) Marked with a chalk.
3) Cut with an axe.

Jim N7UAP - Bellingham, WA / InterceptRadio.com

Wow- called a liar by a..

Since Im actually a Motorola dealer with a real working dealer account I stand by my statement.

Since Im talking new radios here as I dont sell used stuff your examples mean exactly squat.

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"A well regulated breakfast, being necessary to the healthy start of the day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed."

Apparently you're not familiar with :-p

It's a guy sticking his tongue out....

It's an indicator that what's being said is in a joking manner, haha funny. Not serious. You might be too old to get that though, but it's OK... :-p



Used radios are always viable options, this is why I made sure to toss the benching in there as part of the cost, as a radio that's not verified to be 100% operational and 'on frequency' is not to be used for (semi) critical applications. Just because YOU don't sell them doesn't mean what I said is invalid.

No one said 'they had to be new radios' or 'NEW radios are cheaper in UHF than 800'....The statement made was that UHF subscriber equipment was cheaper than 800, as a blanket statement, with no qualifiers. This is not true. Sure you can find examples of it, but it's not the rule. Now, if you QUALIFIED your statement in saying that it's cheaper to buy business quality UHF stuff NEW than setting up an 800 Trunked system with public safety grade equipment NEW, then yes, I'd agree.. But no such qualifier was made.

My statement is not invalidated by your failure to articulate your position.

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Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!

Used radios are not "always" a viable option.

There are cases, believe it or not, where used equipment is simply not an option.

Further, when introducing "used" anything as an alternate to "new" - viable or not, we are now in an apples to bananas comparison.

I get it. We (most of us) are HAM's. It's (some of) our nature to think this way, but it's not always the way to go.

For many reasons

Sigh....

I remember going to the Yakima Hamfest last year and watching guys walk out with 20-30 year old NMO end fed half wave antennas and thinking to myself, jeeze I must be sitting on millions with all of those that I take off and throw away and screw on a new $28 antenna...

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Interoperability is an attitude, not a technology.

No Parks.. I am but I don't do l33t speak. Even if I did someone else coming along here browsing might not understand your particular form of humor.

See comments above but also to add- Once you take someone else' discarded used equipment on you now have to support it. Try getting an HT1000 fixed these days.

While I might pick up a used lowband HT1250 for myself (because Motorola no longer does lowband) I have to be very cautious about what I sell. Selling things we can't support or stuff just breaks allot can be bad for reoccurring business.

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"A well regulated breakfast, being necessary to the healthy start of the day, the right of the people to keep and eat food shall not be infringed."

I'm aware of this. It's why you buy spares. :D

It does factor into the equation, clearly. But we are talking about a radio that, while no longer officially supported by /\/\, was only recently discontinued. I haven't looked at MOL, but I would suspect most parts other than the FDNY vol knob are still available.

Even so, the OP specifically mentioned both XTS2.5K AND XTS5K as options, and clearly is OK with used radios. So quoting or discussing only new equipment doesn't make sense. While it should be an option, it should be compared with other options available, so it's not an apples to banana comparison in this context. With that in mind, it's clear the OP is looking for a budget minded solution that's still robust. We can talk about generalities and other situations all day long, but my comments were geared to the OPs situation...as yours should be.

I would pass on the XTS2.5K unless weight was an issue. The XTS5000 has superior audio, higher capacity battery options, and a much wider repair path (more were made). In addition, you don't have to worry about AN/BN and HOST/DSP issues (AN has limited space for firmware).

Not trying to engage in a pissing contest, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Optimally, I would suggest UHF for in building coverage, but without knowing the size of the building, how many stories, etc. it's hard to get a clear picture of what additional resources may be needed. Might be fine on simplex, or you might need a repeater and leaky coax.. dunno.

But there are other things on his mind other than JUST coverage... being able to monitor local agencies comes into play.... which he mentioned being on VHF. .so, does the want to monitor outweigh the need for coverage? If he has a small area to cover, if it's a small hospital, then it'd work fine....but of course, higher signal losses in building for VHF vs UHF...

Then we come to 800, where the equipment would be cheaper than VHF or UHF (in most cases), and would gain the in building coverage benefits over VHF, but would lose direct monitoring capabilities (OP stated VHF rx). There is, however, no reason why the hospital couldn't get permission from the agencies involved and use a secondary rx on a dedicated TG. Ie set up a scanner locked onto LERN that pipes audio onto a trunked TG.. but that's of course, a little more involved situation that costs more money... One could even hook up a mobile, linked to that TG, and have crossband functions if there was a freq. on VHF (or UHF) that you absolutely had to be able to talk on, but at that point, the complexity ($$$COST$$$) of the system IMO would outweigh the advantages of 800, and going with the band you need for interop would be a much better option.

I would prioritize your needs, and the solution should be clear.

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Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!