Getting Crowded?

[scanhermit]

Is it just me or are the analog channels starting to fill up? I didn't use to hear businesses above channel 8 but I'm hearing them all the way up to 16 now. I'm not begrudging - after all, they are using the allocation in the way it was intended but I'm just curious as to why there seems to be more activity above ch8.

Maybe the older sets have packed up and been replaced, or business costs are being shaved by dumping contracts and licences.

[Ripshod]

To me it doesn't make sense. Sure the initial cost can be quite high, but business radios hold their value pretty well, meaning resale of second hand radios returns a lot of that Initial investment.
Licencing cost is no excuse when small business licences or site licences cost the equivalent of £15 a year.
All the pmr channels around me get used, and abused, by children with cheap Chinese ebay radios, a lot of them being "splatter boxes" wiping out adjacent channels, especially when they're just screaming or making fart noises. On small business frequencies there's ofcom assistance should there be any interference.
There's no valid reason for a business to be using open public frequencies, but they do and they often pay the price for that. Not to mention discussing security and private customer information to the world.
I use pmr and 11m, but I also have my small business licence for business stuff and the radios to go with it. I never have a problem on the channel I've chosen, whether FM or dmr.

[Antoni]

The PMR446 system was intended for business users from the start!!!

At Lowe Electronics we were in at the beginning, selling what I called the talking bananas, cucumbers and beetroots. They were some of the earliest PMR446 radios and they were Motorola. I can't remember what their actual model names were. The three models had descending levels of sophistication and price. Amazingly (and worryingly) to us engineers they were more or less disposable units.

We had to spend ages giving individual lightning courses on what you can expect when using the band. And most of all what you can't expect on a free-for-all unregulated system. A long way from what the users were used to, and answering the perennial question "How do you get the antenna off - I want to fit a bigger/base station one".

Every single customer in those days was a business. They really liked the freedom from the cost and complexity of true PMR.

There were no mega-cheap children's toys then, the beetroots were cheap but not that cheap.

[scanhermit]

Being a general purpose, licence-free allocation there's going to be all sorts on it from squealing kids to businesses to campers. Hobbyists with CRT Space U's and Diamond X30s are actually the odd ones out. Happily, most business use is done by 6pm and us hobbyists come out to play after our tea.

Daytime hobbyists might have to channel hop a bit more if general use is increasing though. Might this prompt a shift to DMR446?

[Apex]

Carn't say its crowded round here in my leafy suburbs, only heard a few random transmissions.

[scanhermit]

Heard a business on Ch14 today and thought "Hey, someone's on the DX chan....I mean a channel available to the public in general"

[Apex]

Guess i need a mag mount for the car and go for a drive round with this RA79, might actually hear something then :/

Must be in a black hole for PMR446 otherwise.

[paulears]

Its down to cost and ignorance really. Business users often dont even know they’re a business user. They have a need. Amazon solves it. Job done. Well, almost. I have sitting on the shelf, a nice Retevis Amazon pack. 6 radios on PMR446 with a 6 way desk charger. A customer came in and said they were useless. I tested them and they are perfects. I gave her a cup of coffee and she chatted. She ran a small business selling sandwiches and bottled drinks from small vans and those ice cream type bikes. The idea was the staff out and about could call up the place where they make them, and then one van would come back restock, then find the bikes and restock them. The snag is their making centre was 7 miles from the two areas their sales were being made, and this was a coastal strip, about 3 miles north to south. The advertising on Amazon says of course 25 mile range, the usual stuff. Boiling all her needs down, she needs a comms system that allows everyone to hear everything, just that, nothing more. So saying “anyone got 2 ham and egg” gets an answer. I dont keep them but I got her a POC/sim card system, with a desk radio in the kitchen. A few hand helds do the job. I asked about groups and clever features, but no. Press to speak, release to listen. Radios that would have worked would have been silly prices, and PMR446 or business OFCOM licences were irrelevant to her needs. If suddenly people appear and are using it for business, its just because they bought radios, thinking the boxes and adverts were telling the truth. If they work, they will stay, if they dont, they will vanish

[scanhermit]

Nicely sorted, Paul. POC sounds like a good solution for out and about staff. Whenever I see "X kilometres range" on the blurb for radios I mentally add "from hill tops".

[scanhermit]

Guess i need a mag mount for the car and go for a drive round with this RA79, might actually hear something then :/

Must be in a black hole for PMR446 otherwise.

I don't hear very much from my QTH either - it's a semi-rural area. I catch most chatter on my commute if I have a handset on scan. Driving past built up areas I'll hear businesses and kids on PMR.

If I hear a hobbyist on the run home I'll find a high point, park up and see if they can hear me.

[scanhermit]

Does anyone know if there's much of a DMR446 scene? Is it worth spending the money on a DMR set? A Retevis RT40 can be had for about £40 and a PNI DMR R45 for around £80.

[Jaster]

At Lowe Electronics we were in at the beginning, selling what I called the talking bananas, cucumbers and beetroots. They were some of the earliest PMR446 radios and they were Motorola. I can't remember what their actual model names were. The three models had descending levels of sophistication and price. Amazingly (and worryingly) to us engineers they were more or less disposable units.

That brings back memories - Motorola Handie-Com I assume:



Allowing for inflation that's about £300 and up per handset. Pretty serious business, even by today's 'pro' 446 standards. I remember using the red ones, possibly on SRBR (pre-PMR446).

Then moved onto the Handie-Pro:



They were definitely on PMR446 (see the 'Euro446' text under the display), although I believe they were also available on SRBR when that was a thing). I've still got a single Handie-Pro in a drawer somewhere. I took the battery pack apart some years ago and replaced the Ni-Cad cells with Ni-MH, and it still works as well as any modern 446 handheld (and why wouldn't it - fixed antenna and 0.5w output plus Motorola signal processing, not much to be improved on).

[scanhermit]

As we say in Yorkshire, 'ow much?!

[Apex]

by eck

[Sasquatch]

Semi rural here, almost always something on at least one channel. 4 and 8 very busy during the day,