Digital radio, it is new and soon everyone will be talking about it, it will offer many features that will make business communications much more efficient, but businesses aren’t like the general consumers so there won’t be the sudden rush to the digital radio market like there was to digital mobile phones, it will be a considered migration as the benefits begin to outweigh the cost of change. There are several different digital formats and AA Radio are able are able to offer solutions with virtually all of them.
Several years ago the Association of Public Safety Communications Officers in America decided that there was a real need for a common approach to radio communications in America. With many emergency services there were disparate radio communications systems with no intercommunication capabilities. As a result they formed a committee and developed a project to have a common digital radio system designed specifically for their use; the result is the P-25 radios available today.
AA Radio are pleased to be able to offer products to this standard and they are now being used widely here in Australia. We can offer products from Tait, Simoco, Icom and Vertex Standard all of which have their own unique features to offer against this common standard.
IDAS - the Icom Digital Advanced System - Developed from a European standard the IDAS products operate on a very narrow channel spacing of 6.25 KHz so licencing costs are much lower and yet the features of the IDAS system offer far more than exisiting radio systems. Individual calls, group calls, messaging, GPS location and many others are part of this digital radio system. Like most other systems, the IDAS system will offer better audio quality in noisy environments and also offer better received audio in the weaker signal areas. For localised communications such as in-plant systems the IDAS system offers some very real benefits as well as the better security of digital transmissions.
For more information on the Icom Digital Advanced System visit:http://www.icom.co.jp/world/idas/index.html
The Kenwood Next Edge in digital communications - Similar to the IDAS system, the Kenwood NexEdge system was developed initially in Europe and then refined in the USA. The result is a system that now suits wide area as well as smaller localised systems. The basic NexEdge system has the capacity for up to 16 radio sites linked together and operating in a trunked radio format to give functionality not unlike the older MPT trunked systems. With operation on 6.25 KHz channels the licencing fees will be significantly lower than current systems and the ability to expand the radio system to multiple sites means that NexEdge offers real benefits to users, and all this is in conjunction with the individual calls, group calls, messaging and GPS location that can run on most digital radio systems.
For more information on Kenwood's NEXEDGE range visit:http://nexedge.kenwood.com/products.html
i2Way - The real ‘next generation of digital radio technology’ - Developed by Digital Wireless Corporation of America, the i2Way radio system offers features and benefits way above other digital radio systems. Scalable to any size and able to communicate between systems on different continents, the i2Way concept offers features that others will have difficulty matching. Individual call, group call and GPS location are included as in most digital radios, but when you consider email to and from radio terminals, the abilty to have an RS232 communications port on the radio, touch screen terminals for vehicles and a ‘voicemail’ feature on the radio, then it opens up many options to improve business communications. With repeater connection via the internet it means that systems can be expanded to suit a requirement for an individual business - it truly is the way of the future.
TETRA - The European common standard for digital trunked radios - designed to be the digital replacement for the MPT trunked radio technology, TETRA systems are now becoming more popular and as such the terminal prices are reducing. For major network providers with wide area systems, TETRA is the common choice and we will see more and more systems opening up. At present the Motorola ZEON system is the forerunner of such systems, but as the terminal prices reduce there will be many smaller systems available as well. Like the other ‘commercially oriented’ digital radio systems, TETRA offers individual calls, group calls, messaging and GPS location information, with the advantage that terminals can be very similar to mobile phones and no doubt in the future will include the usual gimmicks associated with the mobile phone market.
