[aprssig] RE: D700 asa digi

[Wes Johnston]

Lots 'o rambling here....

It isn't the SC National Guard.... that is an entirely different
organization.  I'm in SC State Guard.  CAP is in the same boat with the
NTIA standard for narrow band radios.  I'm not sure the d700 meets the
frequency stability requirements.  There is a CAP website somewhere that
lists which radios are NTIA approved and which aren't .... but I can't
find it right now.  I do not remember the d700 having been tested in
that list.  I'm pretty sure it won't make the cut though.

We (my brigade) operate ham and FRS only....  Here's a funny...  We (the
SCSG) have a very very nice comms bus with an entire 911 operations
center inside and room for 5 operators.  Even has a directPC dish on the
roof, and 50 or so trunked HTs for the palmetto 800mhz trunk system.
Problem is, all _that_ equipment stays locked up for real emergencies
and it costs too much to operate the bus.  So, our brigade went around
the road block instead of though it.  We have written a few grants and
are in process of buying a trailer which can be towed behind any pickup.
 Our brigade did manage to get ONE trunked HT issued to us.  The thing
that is frustrating about all of this is that if we can't drill with
equipment, then we can't become familiar with it.  These trunked HTs are
a particular point of contention for me.  They have lots of buttons on
the front, and it's entirely possible for some yahoo to do something to
the radio that he won't know how to undo.  Unless we are permitted to
become accustomed to the equipment, we'll run the risk of someone being
unreachable.  Another point of contention is the lack of talk around
frequencies in those radios.  They put way too much faith in the 800mhz
trunk system.

Our brigade is putting the emphasis on interoperability.  One of the
reasons we selected the rino FRS radios over kenwood d7a's is that they
are much easier to operate for the field personnel.  The other reasons
are that they are self contained units and they interoperate with all of
the volunteer firemen and hunters in the woods that we may have to
enlist one day during an emergency.  We are able to take rino positions
from a rino radio attached to a laptop and convert the positions of
everyone in the local area to aprs objects which can then be seen at
other places.

An example of this is that we are going to have a drill next thursday
that will involve (really!) blowing up a train tanker car, and a hostage
situation 30 miles away.  We'll have three locations each with a laptop
and rino radio and we'll be able to track all users (well acutally teams
of users - only one person in a team will have a rino unit, the others
will have conventional FRS radios).  Now each laptop will be manned by a
ham, but we can use the call K4SCG.  We'll end up with everyone being
able to see each rino team even though they are 30 miles apart.  (now
I'll just sit back and wait for the arm chair lawyers from the N1547C
tracker thread to come over here!).

Those wishing to download the Rino program can get it from
www.kd4rdb.com/scsg .  There is also a bootable knoppix CD over there
that we're distributing for training that has xastir and shapelibs for
all streets and couties in SC.

Other items we are awaiting money for are kenwood d700 radios.  To stay
on thread here.... that's why I use SCSGn-n in my d700 instead of the
suggested TEMPn-n.  There will come a day when we will see too much QRM
on 144.39 and will want to QSY to a quieter frequency.  When we do that
we will want to limit traffic to only things that are relavant to SCSG.
 Also, our d700s may be run on deep cycle batteries and I won't want to
waste battery power digipeating some yahoo's tracker parked in his car
all day long if we do stay on 144.39.

Wes



WB4GQK at aol.com wrote:
> Hi Wes,
> 
> I find it very interesting that you can utilize the D700 in the South 
> Carolina National Guard. We here in the FL Army Mars have been informed we must 
> comply with the VHF equipment used by the military and Government services which 
> must meet NTIA standard for frequency stability (6 PPM) and narrow bandwidth 
> (11KHz MAX).
> 
> At the present time we have received a large number of Commercial MICORS  
> free as surplus which must have their freq changed from 150 MHz to the State MARS 
> and Military VHF frequencies. The MICORS come with stock stability of 5 PPM 
> and 10 KHz bandwidth. There is also a 2 PPM option. The MICORS are true FM 
> modulated and are capable of 9600 Baud operation. Of course we have to pay for the 
> frequency change but if the D700 meets all the other criteria requirements of 
> the Military and Government I personally would rather pay just a few more 
> dollars and purchase a D700. 
> 
> I would Appreciate your comments so I can show the others in our group.
> 
> 73 Jim WB4GQK/AAV4XR
> 
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