[App_rpt-users] Simocos - opinions, thoughts, otherwise?

[Kirk Just Kirk]

Never seen one yet, but sounds like I need to get my hands on one (or more)
 thanks for the heads-up!

Kirk



On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 8:27 AM, Shane Morris <edgecomberts at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I was following the Chinese radio discussion with interest, and I
> thought I'd share that I almost exclusively use Simoco UHF and VHF
> radios these days, in particular, SRM9005s with a 9025 head. I wanted
> to garner some thoughts on their use.
>
> I'll lead the discussion, these radios were selected by myself and my
> friend over Motorola and over Vertex-Standard. We were actually going
> to go with a VX-2200 on UHF, and I was going to try to get access to
> the programming software. I had access to the VX-2500 software at some
> point.
>
> One night in discussion with my friend, I'd idly mentioned Simocos,
> and he brought them up on a webpage. At this point, I'd never seen one
> in real life, and knew little about them except they were 25Watt
> commercial radios that should be able to do the 70cm band as well as
> Australias "UHF CB" band (477MHz). I'm talking about the 9000 series
> here, I've only just borrowed a SRP9100 recently.
>
> My friends said I might be onto something here. Looking into them
> myself, I found the programming software is available for free, runs
> under WiNE (important for me as a Linux and Mac geek - see my posts on
> IAXRpt under Mac OS X 10.7/ 10.8), the radios could be expanded by
> means of a "card" that goes under the radio board inside the chassis,
> choice of heads, and lastly, I found them cheap - in the UK, far away
> from my native Australia.
>
> After a while, myself and my friend, and yup, his father, had a
> collection of SRM9000s, and Andrew and his Dad, David, got portables.
> Andrew and David fitted an SRM9000 series to their cars. I am bereft
> of a car at this point, I buy too many model trains... but anyway, my
> units were cheap, as they are both not P25 compatible - as new
> condition, open box format. I have found them solid and reliable
> radios.
>
> Something I learned later, after I had gotten the radios was that you
> could feasibly control them via computer over the control head
> interface - a TTL level RS232 serial port! And just recently, after
> Jim had introduced me the the RTCM, Andrew and I have decided to make
> a "unofficial" expansion card for the SRM series we call "VoterCard."
> Its like the RTCM, but adds a GPSDO for full synchronised transmit
> capabilities, and a PoE interface for connecting to Ubiquiti
> equipment, such as a Bullet or a Loco M2.
>
> Sometimes the most innocent discussions get you into the most trouble...
>
> VoterCard is still on the drawing board. I have most of the parts to
> prototype a system, such as the GPS, and an RTCM, but I need a filter
> for the GPSDO, and I need to "glue" it together. We're going to use a
> uBlox LEA-6T module, a custom designed board to fit in the radio, and
> mod the radio itself to change over the LO from local to GPSDO.
> Externally, the board will have a network port, a Cisco serial port
> (at proper RS232 levels - +/-12VDC) and a GPS antenna connector. The
> back of the radio will need to be modified a little bit, but thats ok
> - its plastic!
>
> VoterCard was designed for us, for our application of a public safety
> radio network, most likely operating on UHF CB, over a large and
> mountainous geographical area. The system has to be completely
> bulletproof, and able to operate unattended for a number of days. As
> an extension, I want this system for my proposed business, so we can
> save on mobile phone calls. System health would be monitored from a
> central location, ie, the monitoring software whose name I've
> forgotten just now.
>
> Now, I've heard of the GPSDO and RTCM thing being done with Motorola
> radios, but I ask, wouldn't it be better if the whole she-bang was
> *inside* the chassis of the radio? Make it nice and neat, thats for
> sure.
>
> So, thoughts everyone? I know Motorola is popular with the Americans,
> but have any of you ever used Simocos, and your thoughts on them - and
> this plan for VoterCard?
>
> Thanks everyone!
>
> Shane.
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