This week I attended the International Wireless Communications Expo, a wireless radio conference centered on land mobile radio (LMR). While not an amateur radio event, it was three fun days totally immersed in radio technology. Being a professional show, not a hobby event, the emphasis was on modern and emerging technology in the industry. No boat anchor radios here.
Amateur radio often adopts and adapts technology from the LMR industry, especially for mobile operating on frequencies above 50 MHz. I guess we could call VHF FM amateur land mobile.
A few highlights from the show:
- A large portion of LMR is Public Safety Radio: fire, police, ambulance, so emergency communications was inherent in many of the conference sessions.
- There was quite a bit of analog FM equipment on display but LMR is clearly shifting to digital, with formats like APCO Project 25 leading the way. The FCC requirement to go narrowband by January 1, 2013.
- Several vendors are familiar names in the amateur radio industry: Kenwood, Vertex (Yaesu), ICOM and Alinco. Of course, Motorola had a major presence at the show. I noticed that ICOM had a stack of amateur D-STAR equipment on display.
- Historically, LMR radios covered only one band (VHF low, VHF high, UHF, 800 MHz), which matched the tendency for each organization to deploy channels in only one band. With an emphasis on interoperability, more organizations are finding the need to operate on multiple bands and the manufacturers are responding with multiband radios (see Motorola APX™ 7000, for example).
- A number of radio manufacturers from China were present, generally with lower cost radios (Hytera, Kirisun).
- The FCC recently announced that the frequency range known as Block D (two sections: 758–763 MHz and 788–793 MHz), dedicated to public safety broadband use, will use the LTE air interface standard. LTE is the dominate 4G mobile phone standard, just starting to be deployed. The conference had many sessions on the challenges of getting funding and actually making this work.
- Since Block D will use LTE, it opens up the potential for public safety networks that also use commercial networks (e.g., Verizon) for extended coverage. These hybrid systems provide for tight control over the primary network while leveraging the infrastructure investments from commercial providers.
- Quite a few sessions on the integration of IP-based networks into radio systems. The general trend is that the local “air interface” may be a specific radio technology (P25, LTE, …) but the network is always IP-based.
I was struck by the forward march of technology in the LMR industry. In the ham radio world, we often see strong opposition to adopting anything new. And we’re supposed to be the experimenters!
– 73, Bob K0NR