Lack of interoperability in radio communications is an urgent problem affecting all levels of government and it not only concerns Australia as this article reveals. Although US based, a lot of the problems discussed here also apply to this country.

In the new millennium, when it seems everyone has a mobile phone and is networked and connected 24 hours a day, seven days a week, what is happening to the more traditional forms of communications such as HF radio?

Today, there are few prouder staff at Tait Radio Communications than Ian Gardiner. One of the original 12 employees of Tait Electronics, Ian fulfilled the wish of late company founder Sir Angus Tait by developing the company’s historical display.

In these increasingly challenging times where speed and reliability are virtually everything, radio communication field technicians need portable test tools they can trust.

NX Digital 1 has launched its digital UHF trunked mobile network in Melbourne, using Kenwood’s NXDN Common Air Interface.

All of us have our favourite restaurant and many of us find it so easy to order ‘the usual’ rather than have a fresh look at the menu.

Keeping track of mining vehicles and monitoring assets using radio telemetry can play a major role in keeping a mining company competitive and efficient.

In the second part of our article we take a look at an IP-based interoperability solution enables public safety agencies to continue using their existing radio and communications systems while gaining the inherent benefits of IP networks.

The identification of a harmonised government band to facilitate interoperability between government agencies, particularly the police, security and emergency services, was one of the major proposals contained in a consultation paper presented at the RadComms conference in Sydney in April.

Physicians in the US state of Wisconsin are testing the SmartPill GI monitoring system to evaluate slow gastric emptying, a gastrointestinal motility disorder known as gastroparesis.

Although radio communications systems have traditionally been standalone, voice-centric platforms, the convergence of voice and data and the need for improved spectrum efficiency are driving a worldwide shift towards feature-rich, integrated voice and data digital radio technologies.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority is releasing spectrum in the 3575-3700 MHz band (the 3.6 GHz band) to support the deployment of wireless access services in regional and remote areas of Australia.

The New Zealand Police (NZP), with more than 10,000 staff countrywide, needed to move from a dated, nationwide conventional analog network to a trunked digital solution.

Femtocells - small low-power base stations designed for indoor use in residential or small-business environments - are expected to grow tremendously in the coming years as they march closer to commercial deployment.

In 2009 we’re all familiar with the term ‘digital’. We now have digital TV, digital set-top boxes, digital radio, our music library is stored in digital format and so on. We look at the 50-in LCD in the lounge room, pause for a second, take a look at the picture and think, well that was five grand well spent.