Motorola Tetra Radio MTH850 on Tetra (airwave) network

Here's the new Motorola Tetra MTH850 digital radio.

My short review runs over the basics of the radio, showing its operation on the Tetra (airwave) network here in Australia.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Motorola
• Tetra
• MTH850
• MTH
• 850
• zeon digital
• zeon
• digital
• airwave
• tetra
• mth800
• mtp800
• mobile
• radio
• australia
• police
• police scanner
• police radio
• pmr
• 446
• pmr446
• amateur
• ham
• uhf
• vhf
• mototurbo

[urbex2007]

what does the emergency tone sound like?

[chiverskid]

@urbex2007 On this radio, the tone is 2 loud short beeps.

The Zeon Digital network has a feature that allows all radios to be tracked via an online mapping tool to show their current location.

When the emergency button is pressed, an alert shows up on the map showing the radio's current location and that it is in emergency mode,

[hifromrich]

Good review. As you say, TETRA relies heavily on infrastructure and it's essential that the network set's up enough sites to live up to it's coverage claims. The dealer should be able to change the volume of the permit tones in the software.

I prefer DMR MotoTRBO at the moment. It offers higher powered radios over VHF, UHF and 800MHz so coverage is much more solid. The only downside is the wait for Tier 3 for wide area trunking.

[chiverskid]

@hifromrich MotoTRBO definitely has its advantages over TETRA, and the higher powered radios is definitely one of the main reasons people choose it over TETRA.

[chiverskid]

@TETRAforumpl No problem.

The audio is indeed fanTAStic, even at high volume.

[urbex2007]

Here in the UK the police use the TETRA 02-AIRWAVE system, some encrypted (some not). The data side of things still doesn't work as it should and loads of extra base stations were installed. The radios also work as a mobile phone on o2. The GPS is used to position officers on a map, track them and send the nearest to a job. At least it stops some criminals from using a radio scanner to avoid the police. Think it's on around 380MHz in the UK, with lots of health scares from people!

[chiverskid]

@bben95 To be fair though, the radio is no good for this kind of work as in-building coverage is patchy at best.

[bben95]

@chiverskid ahh ok that explains a lot... lol

[chiverskid]

@w891 This is a TETRA network.

[chiverskid]

@106QSDAVE Motorola own the licenses for the frequencies that the network uses, and I believe that the terminals have custom firmware loaded that removes DMO usage.

I guess you could flash the terminals with another firmware though if you wanted to use them DMO, although with only 1 Watt of power, I wouldn't recommend it.

[chiverskid]

@106QSDAVE Thanks for the comment buddy.

I know motorola are in the process of "fixing up" the network, so we should hopefully see some improvements shortly.