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

[Shane Morris]

The best place I've found to get them, well, in terms of cheapness, is:

www.rescuesupply.co.uk

However, since he orders them from Australia as needed, it could take
a while - we have a three month turn around (from .AU to .UK, back to
.AU from .UK).

Tell him I sent you, but don't buy him out, hehe...! ^.^

On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 5:57 AM, Kirk Just Kirk <wb6egr at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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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>
>