Digital (DMR) PMR446 programming on Commercial Radios?

[[LCS]]

Well I've had zero responses to my questions about dPMR radio programming for dPMR446, so I'll ask about the other digital mode.

Has anyone programmed a commercial grade, or Ham, radio for Digital PMR446, that would be for the DMR mode? Again I'm in the US so the frequencies fall into our 70cm Ham band here, which I'm licensed to use.

We do get European visitors bringing their license free radios here and end up on our Ham band. If they're using digital it's sort of hard to inform them on the air they can't be legally used unless they hold a Ham radio license from their home country and have a cross licensing agreement with the US.

[Agent 48]

I don't think anybody uses DMR446 or at least very little... It would be nice to try a digital mode on PMR446 but in another way its best kept simple with the 16 analog channels.

Even the 70cms digital mode simplex frequencies are not used which I think is a shame because I would really like to test and experiment with some digital modes. Even the repeaters are barely used.

People who bring there walkie talkies to the US don't understand... to them there just radios and they don't understand "frequencies" or radio in general. FRS/GMRS can sometimes but used here in the UK illegally by people who bring there radios overseas.

[DX-Digger]

I left my md380 scanning 446 DMR for days never heard anything local. maybe I need to go to high ground.

[dc260]

I don't think anybody uses DMR446 or at least very little... It would be nice to try a digital mode on PMR446 but in another way its best kept simple with the 16 analog channels.

Even the 70cms digital mode simplex frequencies are not used which I think is a shame because I would really like to test and experiment with some digital modes. Even the repeaters are barely used.

People who bring there walkie talkies to the US don't understand... to them there just radios and they don't understand "frequencies" or radio in general. FRS/GMRS can sometimes but used here in the UK illegally by people who bring there radios overseas.

I have heard what appeared to be a school using DMR446, remember there is a distinction between dPMR446 and DM446.
DMR446 follows the exact same band plan as the analouge channels because each DMR emission is 12.5 khz wide. Whilst dPMR446 is split up into 32 6.25khz channels because dPMR446 uses FDMA which splits up a whole 12.5 khz channel in half with two 6.25 khz channels.

[Agent 48]

Another common thing that happens is people using cheap Baofengs out of the box on the frequencies they come with.

[Agent 48]

I don't think anybody uses DMR446 or at least very little... It would be nice to try a digital mode on PMR446 but in another way its best kept simple with the 16 analog channels.

Even the 70cms digital mode simplex frequencies are not used which I think is a shame because I would really like to test and experiment with some digital modes. Even the repeaters are barely used.

People who bring there walkie talkies to the US don't understand... to them there just radios and they don't understand "frequencies" or radio in general. FRS/GMRS can sometimes but used here in the UK illegally by people who bring there radios overseas.

I have heard what appeared to be a school using DMR446, remember there is a distinction between dPMR446 and DM446.
DMR446 follows the exact same band plan as the analouge channels because each DMR emission is 12.5 khz wide. Whilst dPMR446 is split up into 32 6.25khz channels because dPMR446 uses FDMA which splits up a whole 12.5 khz channel in half with two 6.25 khz channels.

Thanks for the info. I'm just sticking with the first 16 analog channels of PMR446

[[LCS]]

Thanks for the replies! Being in the US I don't have any experience just how popular the two digital modes are on the EU PMR446 band are. There are some here proposing doing digital on some, or all of our GMRS frequencies, licensed service, which shares the same exact frequencies as the unlicensed FRS service. Our old version of FRS, changed in 2017, had almost the same technical limitation as your PMR446 service currently has for analog FM.

Are there people using higher power commercial grade digital radios on PMR446 frequencies? Illegally I assume. If so are they using DMR, dPMR, NXDN or P25? Out of the above, DMR or dPMR, have they successfully communicated with the legal DMR446 or dPMR446 radios at all on digital?