FLEETCONNECT
2-WAY RADIO SALES & SERVICE
2-WAY RADIO SALES & SERVICE
Two Way Radio and Mobile Data for Business and Public Safety
In a recent article by Radio Resource Magazine, Editor Sandra Wendelken highlighted the Kenwood NEXEDGE technology being implemented across the country, focusing primarily on Christian County, Kentucky. The county had been using repeater technologies that dated back to the early 1970s and was broadcasting on UHF and VHF frequencies. Interoperability between agencies was being handled by dispatchers and made communication between fire and police departments as well as EMS, difficult in the event of emergencies. The article outlines how the new three-site, eighteen channel NEXEDGE system, supporting over 700 radios, was deployed in Christian County, increases interoperability, and sets the county on a path for regional interoperability with both P25 and other NEXEDGE systems in the future to include the County's ability to communicate with the FBI and ATF over the same network. Kenwood Communications' John North, general manager, systems group is quoted in the article: "...because of NEXEDGE's feature set and product specifications, public safety has always been a target market. 'With interfaces to legacy analog conventional and trunked systems, NEXEDGE offers the option for public-safety agencies to budget their transition from analog to digital, allowing them to mix the old mobiles and portables with NEXEDGE radios,' North sad. 'One of the many and more important benefits of NEXEDGE is Project 25 (P25) features and an affordable price.' "
Kenwood's NEXEDGE product line uses DSP-driven digital voice technology and supports FM analog as well as new digital fleets. Upgrading a NEXEDGE system conversion or expansions only requires software options and/or an increase in base station units meaning no "major" upgrades. Kenwood offers NEXEDGE conventional, conventional IP network, trunked and wide area trunked IP networks with secure digital voice and advanced digital feature sets for both the government and business sectors.
NEXEDGE products are powered by NXDN digital air interface, which is an FDMA digital access methodology with optimized DPS coding, AMBE+2 voice coding technology, unique filtering and a 4-level FSK modulation technique that produces a low bit error rate (BER) digital performance at even the weakest RF signal strengths.
AMBE+2 VOCODER technology is a state-of-the-art voice digitization technology that creates the highest level of voice quality by replicating the user's natural speech nuances more accurately than any previous technologies that instead left the user sounding unnatural and synthesized.
With the NXDN low BER, your reception even at the farthest fringe of coverage area is improved immensely. Usually, FM analog reception starts to become noisy and intermittent at fringe coverage areas but the low BER allows for better reception to effectively increase your coverage area by almost twenty percent.
The NXDN subscriber air interface protocols support up to 65,519 GIDs and UIDs (depending on operational mode) making system sharing and large organizations incredibly easy. IDs can be organized on multiple levels including agency, division, departments, all the way down to the individual level.
The NXDN system allows for usage at all channel bandwidths including FM Analog at 25 and 12.5 kHz channels and NXDN Digital at 12.5 and 6.25 kHz channels.
Some common digital features included within the NEXEDGE system are 'Over-the-Air Alias' that sends a calling unit's unique alphanumeric UID alias and displays it on the receiving unit's LCD display taking away the need to program each fleet alias into every unit. Paging calls allow for up to five UID user to user pages that have date and time-stamps for recall and review which is incredibly beneficial for selective paging operations as well as unattended radio messaging. Emergency call features built into each device allow a unit to announce an emergency to a console, other individual users, a group or every group and is triggered by the use of a manual key, a footswitch on mobile units or "man-down" tilt-switches on portable units. The Remote Stun/Kill feature allows a dispatcher to disable a radio temporarily or permanently in the event of a lost, stolen, or compromised radio unit to increase over the air security as well as personnel safety. Dispatchers are able to use the NEXEDGE system to "Remote Check" to identify if a user is on or in range. There is also an "All Group Call" ability allowing for system wide announcements for use during possible emergency or evacuation scenarios.
Digital Trunking Mode
NEXEDGE Trunking provides numerous advantages to your radio networks by providing fast system access that allows channels to be selected automatically without the need for user monitoring. Enhanced efficiency allows users to share multiple channels per site lowering the amount of busy signals during peak hours. NEXEDGE equipment can be used as a single-channel or as many as 30 channel platforms for full trunked efficiency. Trunking options include Message Trunked, granting users a traffic channel for the full length of a two-way call reducing interruptions or Transmission Trunked where users are granted a traffic channel only during each time the PTT is keyed, optimizing channel resources during your peak hours. Advanced call queuing automatically stacks call requests when your system becomes busy and then processes each call when an available channel becomes available. Furthermore, by using eight priority levels of pre-emption the call call queue processes these calls in order of priority by allocating the different talk paths for personnel, dispatch and emergency calls.
Multi-site Trunked IP Network
NEXEDGE systems allow for the power of IP based systems to be linked together into 16 or 48 Digitally Trunked Site Networks. It includes all the features of the Digital Trunking Mode as well as others such as automatic roaming that allows subscriber units to automatically search for the best available access site through the entire network. Subscribers use advanced control channel hunting algorithms and RF signal strength (RSSI) monitoring to determine which site to use.
Over the Air Programming (OTAP)
One of the most versatile and unique features of the NEXEDGE systems is the ability to reprogram a unit from a central console to anywhere within the coverage area. During times of emergencies new channels or features may be needed to efficiently deal with the current situations. OTAP allows for you to make the necessary changes to a remote radio without the need to bring the personnel and the equipment off the work site and back to the communications center. By simply modifying the programming templates, loading them into the OTAP software and clicking send a user is able to have their radio reprogrammed within minutes to the new modifications. OTAP is capable of reprogramming single users or an entire group consecutively making the job of distributing new information seamless and efficient.
Tallysman Wireless has created an "autonomous GPS" solution for Kenwood's NEXEDGE and Fleetsync land mobile radios. This solution features tools that optimize channel traffic usage and increases system performance by giving your business the ability to maintain and record arrival time reporting (waypoints), proof-of-service (high rate position report-logging) and vehicle monitoring (odometer, idle-time and speed). For more information and data sheets click the above link to access the Tallysman Wireless website.
