I am curious if anyone has any experience with DMR? I am trying to find out if it is worth getting involved with it. I already use Yaesu's System Fusion.
2m & 70cm (440) DMR
- Thread starter Clyde
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DMR is mostly business oriented and repeaters are located in larger metro areas, the advantage is being able to use MOTOTRBO but Motorola is insane about costs of software and tend to discontinue things without warning
I use HF digital and Im looking into VHF digital now, but Im hesitant to jump one way or the other since Im in a remote area.
I use HF digital and Im looking into VHF digital now, but Im hesitant to jump one way or the other since Im in a remote area.
1 Whats DMR ?
2 Ham Preppers over here have started sending their calls via the internet as a back up so they dont have to rely on repeaters, dunno if that snippets any use?
2 Ham Preppers over here have started sending their calls via the internet as a back up so they dont have to rely on repeaters, dunno if that snippets any use?
Never worked with Fusion. I'm an Icom kinda guy, myself. And their D-Star system is absolutely phenomenal. Each time someone keys their mic, you see their call sign, and a compass telling you which direction their signal is coming from. You can explore deeper and see their GPS coordinates, etc. I would really like to see a 1 to 1 comparison, using the same distance, output power, and antenna. If you're lucky enough to live around a D-Star repeater, then you can use the internet to pull up repeaters and reflectors worldwide. Not sure how Fusion works, but a "reflector" is like a "chat room", with different repeaters as members.
Is it worth getting involved with? Definitely!
To answer your questions:
1. DMR stands for "Digital Mobile Radio". Basically all it does, is it takes your voice, and sends it out with a digital signal instead of analogue. Think of televisions. Remember when the old "rabbit ear" public access broadcasts stopped working and you had to buy a little box to get it to work again? Now, when you adjust the ears, instead of getting rid of static, you're getting rid of pixelation. Well, this is kinda the same thing, only for radio communications.
There's a couple of advantages to doing this:
- With analogue radios, as you start to fade out of range (let's say, you're driving away from the person you are talking to), you get more and more static mixed in with incoming voice communications, until the person on the other end is unreadable. With digital radios, you either hear them crystal clear, or you don't hear them at all (there is a very small "in between" that some describe as hearing R2D2, just before you lose contact). That means your range is a little bit longer than an analogue radio.
- If all you have is an analogue radio, and you hear a DMR conversation, all you hear is the sound of data. So, it's kind of an "encryption" method as well. Kind of. Lots of people out there have DMR radios nowadays too though, and can listen in.
2. This is something relatively new. If ham radio operators were cars, these people would be the overly complex BMW or Mercedes, with windshield wipers on the headlights and such. I'm more of a Jeep kinda guy - that is to say, I am less complex, easier to repair, and I can see at night without having to wipe my headlights. Oh, and I can drive through mud and pull a boat too
Not much interest so far over in Europe, We do have digital Commercial stations over here but DMR doesnt appear to have much following.
If you're hooked on Yaesu, that might be the case. Icom's D-Star network is growing fast over there, however. Here, take a look at the coverage:
http://www.jfindu.net/DSTARRepeaters.aspx
Thanks mate but my own comms needs are only very local, I dont need Ham licences or repeater systems, my Uv5s on PMR446 nd my scanner more than meets my needs.
