HOPE: Global Digital Repeater Round Up 2022

 

Life has been busy for Steve K2GOG and that is reflected in the lack of recent blog entries on HVDN Notebook.  This post "should" have happened in late May or early June, but that was not possible due to 1,000 other distractions such as our Hudson River Radio Relay on June 11th, ARRL Field Day on June 25/26, a new job, countless family adventures and other stuff..

However, lets get things back on track here since it has now been five years since HVDN began and this is an appropriate way to re-energize with HVDN readers via our twice a year global digital repeater roundup series. Look for more stuff coming soon plus BIG news regarding HVDN if you live in the Hudson Valley of New York.

First off, let me apologize for having to use July 10th 2022 data to provide the 1H22 reporting data.

This extra month plus a few extra days should not really throw anything too far off, since its still clear that the total global digital repeater mode leader in volume is DMR. However, P25 is the true leader if we look at overall CAGR.

As noted in the table above, data is shown from May of 2018 and through July of 2022.  Measurements are taken every end of May and end of October.  Raw data per mode is shown for each period and CAGR was calculated for the May and October periods independently. An average of both periods can be found at the far right of the table.

The below table shows the included 2016 data if you were wondering how long we have been tracking things if you are a new reader and missed the past nine other articles. 

Report:  What has happened in digital voice since October 2021?

Well this is rather interesting to say the least. In our October 2021 edition, I predicted some growth projections as found in "SPECIAL EDITION: 10,000+ Digital Repeaters - October 2021 Global Digital Repeater Roundup" and I was not "too" wrong.  

Estimates I predicted last October for May of 2022 included:

• Yaesu Fusion Global Repeaters = 3135 forecast (Actual 3218)

• Icom D-Star Global Repeaters = 2429 forecast (Actual 2471)

• DMR Global Repeaters = 4009 forecast (Actual 2003)

• P25 Global Repeaters = 569 forecast (Actual 630)

• NXDN Global Repeaters = 160 forecast (Actual 167)

Lets first talk about Yaesu Fusion's latest developments.  My guess is that the latest crop of radios which have come to market over the last 8-9 months may have pushed some clubs or repeater trustees to put up some additional repeaters to support the people who paid money for digital technology. 

A few radios like the mobile FTM-300DR and FTM-200DR plus FT-5DR handheld added to an existing pool of equipment available with C4FM capability.  The strategy of "Make more Fusion radios" is probably working well for Yaesu as a single vendor ecosystem.  Go Yaesu! You blew past my forecast!

Yaesu FTM-200DR pictured which retails for around $380 USD
and is competitive against other digital mode offerings for competition modes

Oh, sad sad Icom.  Will you figure things out when it comes to D-Star? To your credit, I was surprised just a little as I had expected that you would lose repeaters according to repeaterbook.com but you did actually gain a few. 

Now I am not sure if all 2471 around the world are actually active and if repeaterbook.com removes incorrect data as frequently as they should.  I do know that when traveling not every D-Star repeater is on the air though....so your secret is safe with me for now.

Maybe people who now have the super fun Icom IC-705 and IC-9700 have put pressure on magical repeater gnomes to conjure up a few more repeaters to use those expensive radios on or the new handheld ID-52 which finally is shipping. Maybe this is true, but CAGR still does not lie.  

Hovering around 1% CAGR is not fun to see, but perhaps if some cost effective equipment that supports D-Star ever comes to market, that should change things like we see with Fusion and DMR.

Be honest, did you buy a $1700+ Icom IC-9700 radio to talk on your local repeater?
If yes, I would love to hear about that

Ok, now for the record, I currently own more D-Star capable radios than I do for DMR. However, DMR is the mode I use the most still when I have time to play radio.  

The Alinco DJ-MD5XTG continues to be my favorite "ham" grade DMR radio and I sort of wish something more expensive and with features like the D-Star Kenwood TH-D74 or Yaesu FT-5DR would come to market. The RFinder B1 is a really cool radio which supports DMR but I am not interested in a smartphone based device for $1000 USD.  

With continued impressive repeater growth numbers for DMR, most people probably are using Anytone or Alinco equipment plus who ever is still supporting TYT and Radioddity based equipment.  The key thing here is that lower cost gear gave DMR a boost and repeater ninjas knew what to invest in.

For DMR, there is even a rather good  Under $30 basic radio called the COTRE CO01D which only can program 16 channels, but otherwise is great to use with a hotspot on limited talk groups. It is doubtful we will ever see a competing D-Star option at this price since the JARL license for D-Star is 2-3x the cost of just one of these radios. 

Alinco offers the MD520 which offers dual band 2m/70cm plus 220 MHz and VHF air receive. Anytone has a comparable D578UVIII for sale at around the same price. Both compete with the Fusion radios for close to the same price.

I was really close to my P25 prediction and was only off by 1. That is actually pretty nice.. Growth of P25 is fueled by surplus commercial equipment. NXDN is pretty much the same story and actual versus predicted growth from October 2021 to today  Not much really to talk about for equipment since options for new gear are from commercial companies only and surplus options are too varied to discuss.

The growth of P25 is interesting to continue to see though. As more municipalities change radio systems around, it should be interesting to see how P25 and NXDN evolve within amateur radio.

M17:  Will it happen ever?

Being nice here, but I own 3 total M17 T-shirts, a bunch of stickers and a semi-functional TYT MD-380 converted to be used via hotspot for this open source FDMA based mode.   I have yet to find people local to me to try simplex M17 to M17 but have done that at a hamfest.  

Every day that goes by  possibly gets us closer to off the shelf turn key equipment for M17 and I am hopeful that this mode explodes once it has some reliable equipment to support it. The back end infrastructure to connect repeaters to is already in place and a few "test" repeaters are sort of available to a few people. 

To help keep M17 top of mind,  presentations can be found all over the place and the upcoming HOPE conference will feature at least two of them talking about this open source mode. 

Feel free to check out open source RF experimentation at 10:00 AM Saturday July 23rd co-presented by Steve K2GOG and Joe NE2Z plus a much more legit one about M17 scheduled along with so many great ones found at https://scheduler.hope.net/new-hope/schedule/# 

HOPE 2022 is going to be epic and hope you can make it in person or virtually