I suspect in a few years I’ll be selling customers based on facilities vs price, and probably won’t even need to mention analogue or digital.
@zap_p25 - From what I dug up, looking deep into C4FM based systems, despite being at best a hobby interest mode for hams on 2m/70cm repurposed - I am inclined to agree with your P25 sentiments - it’s kinda, due in part I guess again to USA ham interest one of two widely accessible DV modes on a wide spread of repurposed LMR commercial kit much like DMR is in Europe. It’s partly possibly an availability of cost effective options like DMR has, or from a ham viewpoint - there being many options from regular commercial grade kit through enhanced P25 mode stuff you may come across as ex-service surplus (like the ex-military item I’m waiting on apparently stuck in Customs ■■■■). Ironic that I had to buy it from the USA when I used to be able to get decommissioned US military non-workers direct from a UK side USAF base I had regular residential instructor status at.
Mind you, that predated the service use to digital systems.
@paulears - none of the diversity mudded by proprietary garden walls or minority enhanced ‘modes’ makes selling any easier or clear cut, so I’m glad I have nothing to do with supply and retail of LMR (did my spell in the old world of LMR previously and learnt both the good and bad sides unfortunately).
So you could well be right, people buying based on price with little interest that a given mode may actually be more use to their needs, but penny pinching to the current gen seems to matter more than long-term usability. Not much interest I guess to buyers of a few/handful of units only used group simplex, but when you get into group simplex and site or remote repeater use as well and gateway interlinking, you really need to think about the qualities and viability of each system and equipment because we’re then not talking small quantities of kit and end users who vary from the conscientious who looks after their kit through abusive uncaring gorillas.
So it’s definitely getting interesting, worrying and a bit of a roller coaster ride for dealers/retailers in the UK.
Add in the potential complexity of when we relinquish EU rules compliance on equipment and the LMR world could be a messy place full of surplus unsellable kit and a lot of potential replacement system sales. Now that could be double edged sword with a razor sharp hilt for dealers or it could be heaven - time will tell.
I’ll benefit if there becomes a surplus of no longer TA compliant kit, but I don’t like to think parasitically unlike some hams and eBay ‘no knowledge’ vendors who would exploit it commercially to death to whoever has the cash, ■■■■ the reason for buying or acting responsible enough to ensure the buyer has a license or is able to get licensable usage.
But I guess in this interconnected digitally focused ‘all about me and freedom‘ mentality world we’re caught in, none of the responsibility aspects mean anything any more. Kinda makes you want to quit and opt out of life sometimes.
Still, what happens happens - because it’s not end users who end up defining the future of radio communication systems, we just get stuck with whatever crazy ill thought out ‘experinents’ the industry lets us beta test at our cost so they can then supercede it and (in digital context) shut down the access to the ‘old’ versions as far as networked gateways go. Add in crazy I’ll thought out half out of date licensing practises and it’s a miracle we have any kind of licensed use structure in any context.
Yes, because I’m no selfish parasite, I actually give a ■■■■ about how things affect other User Service categories and their end users - which seems to make me a virtual mutant demon seed in the ham world.
I suspect OFCOM will simply continue to use EU CE labelling to provide the gatekeepers function, but there is nothing in their documentation or emailed reports to suggest there actually is a standards issue to fix? MPT approval is thankfully long gone. Frequency stability that used to cause them real problems in the densely packed parts of the country is not an issue, I’m told, so if frequency accuracy and bandwidth is under control and the cheaper radios fit in the gaps properly, which they seem to, I can’t see them wasting any resources on tougher gatekeeping. They’ll just continue using CE marking until the civil servants can do a find and replace in Word to whatever our version of it will be called.
@paulears It’ll probably be a case of leaving well alone (however irrelevant and legally not justifiable when existing EU specific regs aren’t actually enforceable any more) on OFCOM’s part until they get the proverbial thunderbolt from the HO to get their house in order - add in the current ‘we have left, but we still want to be inclusive trading’ stupidity negotiations going on and we may as well never even bothered with the referendum as voters.
Yes, indeed there’s a notably lack of indicators and any real solid guidance over where things are going TA and if we’ll (all groups considered here) be operating under CEPT national variant licensing (which we are in fact) schedules until they see fit to create a new UK only license set - and if recent motivation is any guidance, they probably just quick-win it and rebrand the existing licenses as UK specific ones where we’ll be stuck with irrelevance as well as existing CEPT freedoms in as far as having easier reciprocal licensing goes.
It all adds up to chaos and disorganised red tape holding together a license system which is really a bodge at best where they’ve bolted on to existing licensing that’s too complex to instigate replacements for, new ‘simpler’ frameworks which actually are fit for purpose and crossover with existing (some category groups are still under the old PMR licensing, because of there continued necessary use of older systems which aren’t covered in the more up to date structures) and so on.
Even the ‘new’ ones are half-baked putting it politely and the guidance written by someone who never touched the rituals of LMR/PMR licensing and the legacy hangovers that haunt the novices and veterans of licensing.
I’m sure the UK guidance for dPMR and DMR was given about as much consideration as the original and later CEPT inclusive CB licenses - I.e. ■■■■■■ all, just rolled out a sort of structure to look like it was a managed licensed system but underneath the backbone that pulls it all together is very dubious ‘fit for purpose’ wise.
Sometimes I actually believe that the only remaining old school license that isn’t a trainwreck is the Full/Advanced ham license and schedule - as they’ve put a lot of time in lately putting in tweaks to give it an illusion of being compatible with modern license thinking (thinking meaning anarchy).
So if they can’t even get off their back sides long enough to sure up the bolted together licensing ■■■■, the odds of them actually making digital specific licensing and subsequently aiming to kill analogue two-way comms is a potential bloodbath and torture chamber experience that’ll benefit nobody. And they’ll justify it with some kind of pseudo communist (refering to Marxism rather than the mutations of it) pacification to the effect that because everyone is in the same ■■■■, equality had been achieved in the radio world.
In general - I’m actually getting to the point where I’m just inclined to take a ‘sod this’ attitude to the whole concept of what’s destined or likely to happen over if digital modes will eventually be the sole modes in two-way communications. After all, end users don’t really have any input on the survival (as in legit operational use of) any radio system destined to be made operationally obsolete and not license inclusive - the representative bodies have little interest beyond (notably in the ham world) presenting arguments that pacify the people who never left 1940-odd lifting of radio comms restrictions and whatever supports commercial interests outside of the ham world.
If it was put to a formal vote - I’d say let the framework of usage and allocated radio use be put back in the hands of ITU as the judicial and legislative maker of the core structure, leaving national PTT’s manage implementation.
After all, on the grand scale, no matter how out of date ITU world regs may have been at times, they were effective - it was governments and their PTT’s and executive agencies who created the overlapping and often contradiction laden national/multi national regional frameworks ■■■■.
I know a lot would question that observation, but given the history and how well the ITU ratifications actually stood the test of time, and created actually strong compliancy standards the world actually depends on for communications that matter, I’ll happily give ITU recommendations and the underlying studies more credibility than that of any PTT ever.
And ultimately, given that all true digital operating modes are pure and unquestionably telegraphic, is digital is destined to wipe the floor radio systems wise, at least if it’s done under ITU frameworks it’ll be a fit for purpose evolution not a ■■■■ like exists in diversity and forked mutations that muddies and pollutes D modes at the moment.