The Motorola Monopoly

[Eclipse]

Not the first time I've heard this issue...

http://www.androidauthority.com/motorola-monopoly-radio-systems-362920/

[Slim]

Been going on for years.

It's become more pronounced since the technology has gotten so advanced with P25 and trunking systems in general, but it's always been about selling the latest and greatest.  And it's not just Motorola either, all of the LMR manufacturers have made tons of money off of the narrowband mandate and the switch to digital signalling.

[a2capt]

OTOH, if the mandate was "here is a system/technology - use it/it must work with this" then the buyers are free to take whoever gives them the best deal.

[Slim]

OTOH, if the mandate was "here is a system/technology - use it/it must work with this" then the buyers are free to take whoever gives them the best deal.

Which is exactly what APCO Project 25 was all about, a common, industry wide standard.  Everyone makes equipment that is P25 compatible.  But, everyone also makes their own proprietary standard as well.  Motorola has their MotoTRBO system, Harris has OpenSky (but they aren't selling it anymore), there's also tetra, DMR, and D-Star that I know of. 

The problem is that everyone tries to sell their own proprietary systems first, and they use security as a selling point.  Because P25 is open and available, it was easier for the scanner manufacturers to design scanners that will decode it.  Which is why Motorola is pushing encryption on their P25 systems.  On the other hand, TRBO and OpenSky are proprietary to Motorola and Harris, and they don't make the technology available to Uniden, and GRE so they can make scanners capable of decoding those signals.  It seems trivial, but M/A-Com/Tyco/Harris used that specific argument as a selling point with OpenSky, and people fell for it. 

[lordmonar]

Maybe the reason why people stick with Motorola is that it is easier to build on an existing system.

This article was so biased I don't know where begin.

Interoperability is not an issue with different manufacturers....my EF johnson talks just fine to a Motorola base station.

Now integrating other companies equipment into an existing network may be a pain......but that has always been true with communication systems and other systems.......anyone remember the old network LAN/WAN wars....(Thinnet, coax, pierced Coax, eithernet). 

But every system has that problem.....if you want to change suppliers.....then you got to gut your whole system and replace everything.   Not something anyone wants to do if all you need to do is add capacity or upgrade your oldest modules.

[Brad]

Meh, we bite the Motorola bullet and use this: http://www.cio.sc.gov/palmetto800/Pages/default.aspx

Statewide linked, trunked system that almost every agency uses, or at least has a mutual-aid radio on a PAL800 channel for those agencies that still use their own county system. We even have radios in NC and GA for coordination.

In addition we (speaking for CAP now) even load up an airborne repeater to assist with hurricane evacs, etc., in case the ground towers go down and to give aerial traffic reports to supplement SLED, DNR, and SCANG since SCHP got rid of its Cessna about 5 years ago.

P.S. Did anyone else notice the Kenwood charger in the background? I find that ironic.

[skymaster]

OTOH, if the mandate was "here is a system/technology - use it/it must work with this" then the buyers are free to take whoever gives them the best deal.

Which is exactly what APCO Project 25 was all about, a common, industry wide standard.  Everyone makes equipment that is P25 compatible.  But, everyone also makes their own proprietary standard as well.  Motorola has their MotoTRBO system, Harris has OpenSky (but they aren't selling it anymore), there's also tetra, DMR, and D-Star that I know of. 

The problem is that everyone tries to sell their own proprietary systems first, and they use security as a selling point.  Because P25 is open and available, it was easier for the scanner manufacturers to design scanners that will decode it.  Which is why Motorola is pushing encryption on their P25 systems.  On the other hand, TRBO and OpenSky are proprietary to Motorola and Harris, and they don't make the technology available to Uniden, and GRE so they can make scanners capable of decoding those signals.  It seems trivial, but M/A-Com/Tyco/Harris used that specific argument as a selling point with OpenSky, and people fell for it.

At least on the MotoTRBO side there is a way to monitor it if you own a GRE PSR-800 scanner configured for IF output, a Linux laptop with a stereo sound card, a Linux program called DSD+, and a stereo patch cable connected between the IF OUT on the PSR-800 and (depending on the sound card) either the stereo input or line input jack. While not exactly "plug-and-play" in one unit, it absolutely DOES allow someone to monitor a (non-encrypted) voice data stream.

[Devil Doc]

I dont like how there going with this whole "Trunk" system, My 10-15 year old Radioshack Scanner cant pick up as much things anymore as it use to, because it is not an Trunk tracker. Why would thye not want us to "Scan" in on there systems?

[Spaceman3750]

I dont like how there going with this whole "Trunk" system, My 10-15 year old Radioshack Scanner cant pick up as much things anymore as it use to, because it is not an Trunk tracker. Why would thye not want us to "Scan" in on there systems?

It doesn't have to do with scanning, it has to do with interoperability and ease of use. My home area is on the state 800 trunk and their cops can talk to their own dispatch anywhere that is on the state system. They can also talk to anyone else on the same system, including the county and state agencies they work with all the time.

[Brad]

It's also an issue of available frequencies for agencies. CAP uses a conventional repeater system, where you have a receive frequency and a transmit frequency but they remain consistent. This usually is not an issue for spread out operations such as ours, but with multiple agencies in close proximity sharing the same physical resources (repeater towers), sometimes you get overlapping traffic. Case in point, two adjacent counties I know of both dispatch their fire departments on the same repeater pair. The only thing that keeps their traffic separated is a CTCSS (PL) tone. If they both key up at the same time, vital traffic could easily be walked on.

A trunked system on the other hand solves this problem. When you key up a trunked radio, a data burst is sent out at the beginning of your transmission on the designated "control channel" frequency. It sounds like any other data traffic, just a bunch of noise to us. This data burst identifies the radio and which virtual channel it is on, called a "talkgroup". They're virtual channels because there are no consistent frequencies, simply a bank of frequencies. When the control channel receives a PTT request from a radio, it looks through its list of available frequencies, finds one that is not busy, and sends a data burst response to the requesting radio and all other radios on the talkgroup to shift to the selected frequency, and the repeater does the same. This all happens in the span of about 1-2 seconds, the end result being the familiar chirp followed by the mic keying up and the transmission being the same as a conventional system from then on out.

The advantage of this system is obvious: with repeaters no longer having to factor in frequencies being used by multiple agencies, the likelihood of overlapping / outside agency traffic is lessened. It still happens from time to time due to sporadic propagation, but it's not as common as it used to be.

The other thing that a trunked system offers (as does CAP's P25 system) is the ability to identify who is transmitting by flashing an id code on the displays of radios that support this feature.

Also as Spaceman mentioned, with enough agencies on board and utilizing a statewide linking system, talking to any agency you need to is as easy as finding the proper zone and channel.

[Panache]

Another big advantage is that you don't need as many frequency allocations for any particular agency if they're using a trunked system.

With most agencies, the majority of the time the frequency is idle and not being used.  So, if the county system has, say, twenty channels, you'll need twenty repeater pairs (one in, one out) for a total of 40 separate frequencies. 

With bandwidth in the radio spectrum become more and more valuable, a way to cut down an agency's "radio footprint" was sought out.  With a trunked system, the system will automagically shunt you and anybody listening in your talkgroup to an unused, idle frequency.  More advanced systems can prioritize a certain frequency based on your location (for example: you're in the northeast section of your county.  Experience has shown that Frequency #3 & #6 work best in that area.  The system will try to prioritize your radio to use these frequencies during the length of your discussion while you're in that area).   This drastically reduces the actual number of frequencies needed, freeing up bandwidth for other users.

[Brad]

Yea what we have are 800 Mhz sites which actually host multiple repeaters as a subset of the full PAL800 frequency list. So the Charleston site for example has 19 frequencies (1 control, 1 alternate, and 17 voice) assigned to it, and a bunch of repeaters there. All of the radios automatically use ssid signaling to determine that the Charleston site is the closest one in this case, so agency A can talk at the exact same time as agency B, on the same system, in the same proximity to each other! The only issue is when more people are talking than there are idle channels available, then you get a busy tone.

[Panache]

Another feature is, depending on the radio system used, it's usually possible to use "private chat", or user-to-user.  If you know the ID of the person you want to talk to, you can page that person's radio and talk to them without everybody on the talkground overhearing your discussion.  "Private" is a misnomer because, unless it's encrypted, anybody with a trunk-capable scanner can still listen to your discussion.