Fall 2023: Global Digital Repeater Roundup (+ HVDN PSA)

 

If you build it, they will come is how the saying goes, right?  When it comes to digital voice modes today in amateur radio, the best way to chart the growth of the most popular modes is by looking at repeater deployments.

No individual, club or group of people will invest the time, money and annoyances to deploy a repeater on common amateur VHF and UHF spectrum unless they know there are people who will use it.   And, for people to use a repeater they need the appropriate radio which uses the appropriate mode or modes of communication. This means that people need to coordinate and that is not always easy.

Going into our 13th edition of the global amateur radio repeater round up over the last seven years, no one can argue where the direction of digital voice is headed, but where are the actual users today?

Please review any of the past linked articles for expanded commentary on mode specific drivers such as new radios or features related to different modes because this update will take a different direction.

As we can see in above chart, DMR continues to grow but there are so many splintered networks such as Brandmeister, TGIF and FreeDMR which make it frustratingly interesting for new joiners to figure out how to find people given that each network is separate and each uses its own talk groups/destinations unless they are content with using a hotspot.

A hotspot is under 100% control of the user compared to a repeater, so allowing your hotspot to go to different networks (on DMR) or other modes as well as any of the destinations (talk groups, bridges, reflectors, etc) is possible. Repeaters do not permit that, but that is not the intent anyway.

DMR Networks:  Lessons in diplomacy

While Brandmeister is still the most popular, not every DMR repeater will support talk groups the same way which forces some users to use a hotspot.   This make programming radios a challenge for some people as well as those that are experienced in keeping radio programming up to date as it relates to repeaters.

For new users who look for local repeaters that have DMR, the same talk group (Example:  31368) will not reach the same people if they are on a different network, unless someone created a bridge but that sort of defeats the purpose for different networks anyway. This frustrates people since DMR is not just DMR, its DMR that is implemented at the network level differently.

This network flexibility has proven to be a benefit and a curse at the same time for DMR, but that is ok because its still the most popular and lowest cost entry to digital voice. DMR has also proven to be the driver behind many innovations on network capability which the others did not focus on.

Any Pi-Star or the WPSD/W0CHP variant running on an inexpensive hotspot is just like having your own repeater though and you can set it up however you wish. 

It is estimated by HVDN that there is 70:1 ratio of hotspots sold compared to digital voice repeaters currently online.  At any given moment according to Brandmeister, there are well over 15,000 hotspots connected at any time. Currently, there are only a little over 11,000 digital voice repeaters, so that means that its possible there have been over 700,000 hot spots sold. 

There are many amateurs, including myself that have had multiple hotspots over the years and those I no longer used, were sold/given to others in the hobby.   Its easy to think that many interested in digital voice likely have or have had in excess of three or more hotspots so that 700,000 number is actually pretty modest and is probably too low.

Digital voice repeaters do not all need the internet

DMR also as a reminder does not need the internet and there are repeaters that provide only local coverage and users do not need to be registered via a central user database, even though it helps to have an ID linked to your callsign from https://www.radioid.net/ 

Yaesu Fusion and Icom's D-Star have a more tightly controlled network to connect repeaters to for those wishing to communicate via the aid of the internet, but also can be configured for local only coverage, but there are likely far less repeaters using these modes which operate that way. Registering on the Icom D-Star network can be annoying and Fusion while easier, still requires registration for internet access.

The commercial modes like P25 and NXDN can be deployed any way the repeater owner wants, but these will never reach the same scale as DMR or dedicated vendor modes because handheld or mobile equipment is not designed with the radio amateur in mind as its main buyer.

Here is the actual data for repeaters globally by mode and surveyed twice a year along with matching compound annual growth for period by period and total growth.

Eight Repeaters:  And growing.....

Now lets look at the M17 mode again which was designed by amateurs for amateurs, but there are no commercially made handheld or mobile radios available to support this just yet.  

Instead, for the time being its easy to purchase a few auxiliary devices which connect to 9600bd capable mobile radios to allow them to transmit and receive M17 protocol. 

There are also a few other devices such as transceiver capable SDR devices like a HackRF, Caribou or LimeSDR which can be used with software like SDRangel on a computer to communicate M17 mode.

Ready to purchase equipment will be available so anyone can use M17 for radio to radio communications, or radio to repeater to radio communications with or without the internet. Pictured above is the small batch run M17 board that only maybe a dozen people in the world currently have which converts any 9600md radio into a M17 radio.

Currently there are eight listed M17 repeaters on www.repeaterbook.com and this is three more since May 2023. 

North America as of the time of this article has a four M17 repeaters

And the remaining four elsewhere in the world can be seen below.

The current state of M17 is the "sweet spot" for HVDN given our focusing on emerging technologies that have evolved from ideation to "beta release"  easily accessible for those motivated to hands-on experiment and collaboratively discover versus appliance focused push button operators.

Over the last seven years as digital has become mainstream, those who consider themselves early adopters have moved on to other things.  It appears that M17 is the going to be the new playground for those looking for something new.

M17 is also not just voice communications since it also handles text. All the digital voice modes allow for this, but not many people use them.  It is this non-voice capability which HVDN will be spending more time focusing on in our build out.

Let's Just Wait:  Club Excuses

When HVDN was created in 2016, it was to partially provide intelligence to the local area here in New York who needed education about the most popular digital modes and assist those with becoming familiar with what turned out to be DMR as predicted. Now seven years later, not much has changed in the region. This has been a success, but only if you add up all the people who bought DMR radios and hotspots and not who use them every day, like an HF radio or 2m analog radio.

Eventually, just talking radio to hotspot to internet to hotspot to radio sort of gets boring. Am I wrong?  No.

The challenge is that still seven years later, the New York area and Hudson Valley specifically has not done anything innovative when it comes to embracing digital voice or infrastructure.  

The local ARRL  leadership excluding a few recent changes and leading clubs in our area continue and constantly fall back on "low effort" activities like HF contests, actual hamfests that do not get cancelled, recurring entry-level presentations, etc and ignore the fact that in order to attract and retain members, various leading edge activities and the infrastructure to connect them are needed

Amateur radio is different things to different people and many clubs complain about dwindling membership, lack of treasury or lack of engaged members.  None of them actually try to fix this known issue or make it hard for those willing to fix them. Events and new technology are needed to maintain and grow.

HVDN started off strong but only to be overwhelmed by some who just wanted the same thing, so now we will further distance ourselves from the general interest community's instead of being forced to embrace the failures by other clubs.

Tell me where the freaks at!

As 2023 now comes to a close, the seven year experiment ends and moves to the next phase.  HVDN will be focusing on building out its network in order to put the Hudson Valley on the map even more so and to attract like minded individuals to its membership ranks. 

Our first experiments with membership driven models did not allow us to target the right people, so those who were paid members have not been asked for dues in about three years to bring us back to zero and move to our new membership model. 

Between technologies such as M17 and LoRa, there will be some interesting things ahead for HVDN. Our suggestion is other area clubs better get ready or get left in the analog dust.

The member rates for HVDN will also be changing to raise the bar even higher and to act as a nice filter to retain and reward our contributing members in current standing. Let the rumble begin! 

Global Digital Repeater Round Up: Our 1st Post COVID Analysis?

Each May and October going back to 2016, HVDN has analyzed repeaterbook.com data for digital amateur radio repeater deployments. 

Today being the 1st of June and now officially in the "End of COVID" era according to United States Center for Disease Control, lets have a look at the latest data to kick off summer time in many parts of the world. Lets celebrate with some pie of all digital flavors!

Yaesu Fusion - Still the 2nd most popular (by volume) digital repeater with an impressive 9.97% growth over the reporting period.  New radios like the FTM-300 and FTM-500 by the single manufacturer of Fusion equipment help drive reasons for more fusion repeaters around the world, with a total of 6 current production radios on the market. The least expensive Fusion capable radio is the FT-70 handheld for around $180 USD. 

Icom D-Star - The good news is that Kenwood has the TH-D75 handheld radio ready to go to market later this year and will support D-Stat much like its earlier relative, the TH-D74. However, Icom is still the only main supplier of D-Star handheld, mobile or base radios.  While the new Icom ID-50 handheld will also support D-Star, there are eight current or near production radios that support this digital mode and none of them cost under $200 USD.  Icom D-Star has remained flat for repeater deployments at 1.79% growth but its worth noting like all digital modes, the internet or a repeater is not needed for digital mode communications. 

DMR - How do we explain 12.46% period growth for DMR?  More radios offered by more vendors and full tier 2 compliant handheld radios sold for as low as $30 USD such as the COTRE series of radios found on Amazon.  While you do not need a repeater to use DMR or even the internet, the multi vendor ecosystem certainly is working for the adoption of DMR as the leading (by volume) driver of digital amateur repeaters.

P25 - Still a commercial standard and no inexpensive new radio equipment available, but digital repeater deployments are growing at 15.67% over the reporting period which shows promise.  As commercial users retire phase one P25 equipment, expect to see more digital repeaters be put on the air globally. If the license for the P25 was as loosely enforced like DMR, we could expect to see P25 really grow fast over the next few years unless the new open standard M17 finally gets into production grade equipment.

NXDN - Another commercial standard generally deployed for non-critical users, there continues to be some decent growth by CAGR and not by volume of this digital mode offered by companies like Icom, Kenwood and others.  There are still no very low cost radios available using NXDN, so expect this mode to just be a novelty in use across some pockets of amateur radio enthusiasts. 

Get a slice of : What did you say about M17?

The good news is that repeaterbook.com now shows a total of five total digital repeaters using this open source mode. Currently there are the following:

• N1KGN - Located at Bridgeport Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut (United States)
• WX5RC - Located at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma (United States)
• KC1AWV - Located in NHL Bruin's territory in Rockingham, New Hampshire (United States)

Its worth noting that two of these three repeaters are listed as multi-mode  and are not M17 full time. The only one likely as a dedicated M17 repeater is Steve KC1AWV's since he is part of the official M17 development team.

There are two international repeaters with the secret one in Poland in Nowy Dwor Mazoweicki operated by the inventor of M17, the infamous Woj SP5WWP and the multimode capable VK3RCQ repeater located in Junortoun Australia.

By October,  HVDN hopes to see a few more M17 repeaters on the air, but there are still no off the shelf M17 capable radios available for purchase which will continue to hold things back for M17.  

However, there are some exciting things happening in the M17 community which will be more clear in the next few months to come.  So, for now keep an eye on M17 but it will take a long time for this one to reach mainstream which is ok given there are no "current" commercial companies making available equipment to use M17. 

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

Can you monitor multiple channels at the same time with one SDR?

 

May 2021 Global Digital Repeater Roundup

Our May 2021 summary of the HVDN Global Digital Repeater Roundup marks our 9th edition in this series which tracks the evolution of digital voice mode popularity within the amateur radio community.

Starting back in October 2016, a fellow local club in the Hudson Valley was firm in not wanting to invest in a digital mode repeater until they knew based on fact, which was going to be the most popular mode to promote to its membership and find ways to fund. This is what spawned HVDN.

Hudson Valley Digital Network compiles data on repeaters based on freely available information found on the repeaterbook.com website.  While repeater deployments only tell a fraction of the story relating to the overall use of digital voice, they also are a great way to measure the health of amateur radio communities in certain locations around the world.

Repeaters are expensive to build, manage and operate  

The Overlook Mountain Amateur Radio Club in New York operates two analog FM VHF repeaters, with one of those being considered a wide area repeater. 

This sole wide area repeater has proven to be a major resource in creating a social and positive atmosphere which attracts new membership to this club and offers an alternative for those not happy with overall "repeater culture" found in other area organizations. 

This repeater is also credited with providing a valuable mental health benefit during the early and dark days of the COVID situation. 

Without examples like the OMARC 146.805 MHz repeater, many other clubs around the world would find it hard to show value to its membership unless they are involved in other public awareness aspects beyond repeaters of any type.

Adding digital repeaters to the right club, enhances its  membership reach and community value but adding a digital repeater to the wrong club does nothing other than to deplete the club treasury.  

Careful decisions need to be made when considering how a repeater will be funded, managed and operated.

Not a New York or a Hudson Valley thing, but a global thing!

If clubs fail to innovate or provide services to its membership, they fail to grow.  When a club fails to grow,  its area competitors stand to take advantage in attracting new members or create reasons for  alternative organizations that can help educate or attract new amateur radio enthusiasts. 

Repeaters are often the lifeblood of many amateur radio clubs and need to be carefully considered. 

The above chart and table shows that DMR is by far the most popular digital mode with a staggering 148.42% growth over the last 5+ years globally.

The next closest contender is Yaesu's single vendor ecosystem Fusion System at a still impressive 106.91%.  

The oldest digital voice mode offered by the limited dual vendor ecosystem behind Icom D-Star comes it at a slow and steady 20.72%, even though it had a huge head start over its competitors for more than 10 years prior to 2016.

Since our last update in October 2020, DMR repeaters globally grew 7.97% compared to Fusion's 7.32% increase.  In contrast, Icom's D-Star only added 1.43% growth in the same time period.

With these three amateur designed and amateur only digital voice systems representing at least 9,146 global digital voice repeaters, its clear that the total number of next generation repeater systems is catching up fast to the approximate 17,000 total of analog repeaters world wide which has had about a total of 40 years to get to that point.

Should you still invest in DMR?

Every digital radio today supports legacy analog FM mode along with its newer digital friend be it DMR, as found in the popular Anytone D878 series of radio or any of the Yaesu, Icom or Kenwood counterparts capable of Fusion or D-Star.

Commercial standards like P25 are technically fastest growing mode at 157.27% over the last 5 years whereas NXDN is growing at 91.46%, but both lack consumer grade equipment and prices to really capture the hearts, minds and wallets of many amateur enthusiasts.

Since October 2020,  P25 global repeaters increased another 6.82%. NXDN grew at 13.76% but this is still mostly only happening in parts of the south eastern United States and is not considered true global growth.

All five of these modes do require licensing of the underlying technology to bring a new radio to market which impacts pricing and vendor ecosystem support.

There is a totally new open standard based on FDMA technology called M17 being developed by the amateur radio community which has a goal to circumvent some of these issues.

While most repeaters capable of supporting 9600bd data rate communications with 2.5PPM or better stability can be converted to work on any digital mode,  hand held or mobile radio equipment is not as ready to modify. 

Not having  ready made M17 capable radios are needed and not yet available. M17 wont be impacting new buying decisions of the amateur community in the near future.

Exit M17: Is the future here?

The M17 project which is supported by HVDN  as well as by a massive investment by Open Research Institute and a grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications is unique since its developer community has found ways to modify DMR radio equipment such as the popular TYT MD-380 to transmit and receive M17 signals. 

The OpenTRX alternate firmware along with some hardware modifications are needed but is not a fully mature approach yet.

This is interesting since TDMA based DMR is very different than M17's FDMA architecture. More details on this can be found on the M17 Integrations summary page.

It is not likely that any of the Yaesu Fusion, Icom or Kenwood D-Star equipment will permit this type of modification, so purchasing any one of the many DMR products available today not only gives you the most popular digital voice mode along with legacy analog access, but could in the future be useful for M17 as it gains prominence.

To date, there are believed to be two M17 capable repeaters in development, but there is already a digital backbone being developed to support the future of digital repeaters and the many more hot spots that will likely result. 

Summary

So summarize all the above is easy:

• DMR is still the most popular digital mode

• DMR is not likely to be passed by anything in the near future

• There are more DMR capable radios to choose from and not as impacted by supply chain issues like Yaesu or Icom.

• If you travel, DMR is likely where to find more activity excluding the use of a hotspot.

• The latest Anytone D878 which has AX.25 packet (APRS) is by far the best $299 USD utility radio to invest in for now and the near future.

• Upgrading from an older TYT MD-380 or Radioddity GD77 to an Anytone or Alinco may give a good reason to modify your old radio to be used on M17 in the near future.

• Supporting the future of the hobby via the M17 project will ensure relevance for the future to show alternatives to HF or analog VHF for terrestrial communications.

Planting Digital Voice Seeds with TFSN & HVDN

 

The Farmacy Seeds Network invited Steve Bossert K2GOG back to its YouTube channel for a discussion about digital voice radio.  CJ KD2IIN asked great questions during the interview to keep it moving along. 

Highlights include:

• What is the most popular amateur digital voice mode today?

• What should you invest in when thinking about digital voice?

• How to find activity on DMR?

• What are common DMR specific terms you need to know?

• How to program your DMR radio with just the basics?

October 2020 Global Digital Repeater Roundup

Since 2016, there has been a tremendous increase of repeaters that support DMR, P25, NXDN, Fusion and D-Star digital voice amateur communication. Twice a year, HVDN tracks the total growth of digital voice repeaters in articles like this one.

Much has happened in the world since May 2020 and it does not seem like repeater growth trends have been drastically affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic after looking at the last four years of data. This shows that no matter what, digital growth will continue because radio amateurs love the hobby they are part of anywhere in the world.

All digital voice repeater information pulled for this update was done October 20th 2020 at 3:00 PM Eastern US time.

October 2020 Global Digital Voice Repeater Roundup

The data source used to compile this information is repeaterbook.com which is often very reliable and accurate.  

Looking at the one year period from October 20th 2019 to October 20th 2020, we see that both DMR and P25 have the two highest growth percentages at 13.93% and 15.54% respectively.

Over the last four years from October 20th 2016 to October 20th 2020, DMR based amateur radio repeaters globally grew at a rate of 130.07% while P25 is at 140.85%.

This is not a fair comparison since volumes are drastically different, but it does show that there is huge interest in digital voice experimentation with either easy to get and affordable DMR equipment designed for the amateur enthusiast or via surplus only commercial P25 equipment that has come out of service from phase one deployments while commercial users either migrate towards phase two or systems that are LTE based cellular private networks or national programs such as the US based FirstNet.

Three Points: Why is DMR so popular globally?

There are three major reasons why DMR is the most popular global digital voice mode compared to Yaesu Fusion and Icom D-Star. NXDN and P25 are not compared further as they still are considered commercial only digital voice modes with no directly marketed amateur equipment.

Over the last year, Icom D-Star repeaters grew by 1.16% globally while Yaesu Fusion grew at 6.85%. Looking at the four years of data that HVDN has, Icom D-Star has a 19.01% growth but Fusion digital voice repeaters grew at 92.80%.

Even the commercial mode known as NXDN grew at 76.2% over the last four years and 10.4% in the last year alone. This is surprising given only surplus commercial equipment is available, such as what has been retired from certain railroads like the MTA MNRR in New York. 

Based on global repeater growth data, DMR is the most popular digital voice mode as no one invests in deploying a repeater unless there are a number of local users who will actively spend time using it. 

Point #1:  Ecosystem

Icom has done a lot to modernize amateur radio and started the modern digital voice revolution back in 2002 via its D-Star digital voice products. Yaesu came to market in 2013 with its Fusion system which used FDMA (C4FM) based technology which has superior audio characteristics over the older GFSK based Icom D-Star.  

Both vendors have a loyal following, but lack the ability to really to grow a multi-vendor ecosystem based on how the underlying digital voice technology they use could be licensed externally. 

Kenwood came to market with the first over $500 digital voice based handheld radio that supports D-Star and could only do that by adding every other possible feature into a handheld radio to help offset the high D-Star licensing costs.

Many amateur radio operators like to have choices and DMR offers that since it is based on a commercial standard that is now open source with much lower per device licensing costs.  

In 2016, there were 6 D-Star capable radios and 4 years later, there are only 7 with most of them falling in a premium price or greater category due to other non-DV features such as those found in the Icom IC-9700, IC-7100 and IC-705.  

Yaesu has 6 Fusion capable radios, which is one less than in had in 2016 and also offers higher end equipment but has a broader portfolio that appeals to entry level and advanced fans of either Fusion, Yaesu or both.

The new Icom IC-52 D-Star radio will compete
with lower cost or feature rich options such as the
 Kenwood TH-D74, Anytone D878 and Yaesu FT-3DR

The 2020 crop of DMR equipment has at least 31 products spread across 11 vendors and a few even share compatible batteries and external microphones.  Programming DMR radios via computer software is generally the same across vendors to make it easy when upgrading to another radio.  

The Radioddity GD-77 and a few other DMR radios even support community driven alternative firmware to help make an even better non vendor specific ecosystem.

For any digital voice mode to succeed, as many vendors as possible need to have cross compatibility just like we have with the 30+ year old analog FM based equipment.

Point #2:  Price

Because of how the D-Star technology is licensed, this contributes to higher costs of D-Star hardware and is why Icom is the only major supplier of D-Star equipment. 

Even after its introduction in 2002, it has only seen Kenwood support D-Star through its very high end TH-D74 handheld radio which boasts a very wide feature set that appeals to radio enthusiasts not only looking for a dependable digital voice capable radio. 

DMR has become popular in introducing digital voice to many radio amateurs because they are less expensive compared to the flag ship products offered by Yaesu with its FT-3DR handheld or the new but not yet released Icom IC-52. 

While both radios are full touch screen and lack a full keypad, the DMR Anytone 878 handheld retails for more than 50% less than its Fusion or D-Star counterparts and is just as dependable in terms of quality, usability and construction. 

Icom will sell many of the new IC-705 radios, but likely
not just because it is D-Star capable

Yaesu only started to see a large increase in repeater deployments after it released lower cost entry level equipment such as the FT-70 handheld or the FTM-7250 mobile radio.  Icom still does not have a handheld or mobile radio close in price to a Fusion or DMR radio.  

For Icom to succeed long term in digital voice, the IC-52 and any other products need to be priced closer to where DMR is succeeding.

Point #3: Resilience

DMR offers the only ability for a repeater owner to deploy a system that is not in any way dependent on the internet.  Icom's D-Star requires users to have a registered ID and to be associated with a specific home repeater. The Yaesu Fusion system does not require a separate ID and relies just an an amateur radio callsign, but repeaters need to be internet connected to function.

When looking at DMR, a repeater owner can support two separate discussions at the same time on the same frequency without the internet. This becomes powerful when properly implemented especially when there is internet accessibility to share the repeater with other non local users.  

An ID is required for DMR but the entire database of global users can be stored in your own radio.

When thinking about multiple networked repeaters, DMR offers much more flexibility to those looking to cover wide areas without true internet compared to Fusion or D-Star.

The next four years

Since 2016,  HVDN has tracked digital voice technology to help educate radio amateurs globally, across the United States, in just New York and even just in the local area known as the Hudson Valley.

Based on our data, its clear that DMR is the current technology that is likely still going to be dominant over the next four years and possibly another twelve.  While a new CODEC2 based open source digital voice mode is in development called M17, this is nothing that will impact the market until they have reliable equipment and supporting infrastructure. 

In early October 2020, Steve K2GOG of HVDN gave a presentation about digital voice to the Orange County Amateur Radio Club (OCARC) in the Hudson Valley looking for guidance on what to invest in plus how to factor in hotspot impacts on how amateurs are using digital voice today.

No matter what, the next few years will be important as the amateur radio hobby continues to evolve and digital voice must be considered as part of that change in order to remain relevant for another 100 years.

Past Related Articles

• May 2020 Global Digital Repeater Roundup
• October 2019 Global Digital Repeater Round Up
• NXDN: What is it and where is it?
• May 2019 Global Digital Repeater Round Up
• May 2018 Global Digital Repeater Round Up
• Basic Digital Voice Infrastructure Round Up (Q1 2018 Edition)

Pro Tip: Finding DMR Activity

As more and more users of digital voice amateur radio shift towards hot spot devices instead of local repeaters, it gets hard to find where people in your area are using DMR.

Since hotspots have such limited range, you would not likely be able to hear them "over the air" and there is not really any way to simply "scan the band" looking for activity like one may do on 2m or 80m.  So, how do you find DMR activity?

DMR: Get Predictive

Is this suggestion cheating? Not really.  There is a way you can use one of the many somewhat hidden analytic tools to find out what talk groups are most active and when.  This will help you learn when and where to spend time "lurking" since there are 1,439 officially set aside talk groups according to this nice Pi-Star DMR BrandMeister Talk Group page.

Using talk group 31630 (STEM) as an example, the chart below is predictive in the sense that every Tuesday evening at 20:00 hours Eastern US time, is a big spike of activity for a little over an hour. This is when the Northstar Digital Net takes place.

Another example on when you may find activity if you are traveling in the state of Louisiana is shown below by looking at talk group 3122.

How about if you want to feel really special and have "Nationwide US" all to your self with fewer people constantly asking for a radio check or signal report?   06:00 AM Eastern US may just be the time for you to sit on talk group 3100.

Where do you get these charts?

Here is where to go and find some possibly interesting talk groups and times to see what sort of activity is taking place.  https://brandmeister.network/?page=callstats

And now you know how to find the best of the best on DMR.