State of the Everything and the Kitchen Sink Radio

"Where is that radio that will do D-Star, DMR and Fusion?  It seems like everything has gone no where?"

Connect Systems CS580 Review

Don at VA3XPR.net reviews the CS580:

"Overall, we are very happy with the Connect Systems CS580 and believe that it is a great value priced DMR radio that is likely to please most users, making it a winner within the ham radio community."

Click the link for all the details.

Connect Systems: Product Line Overview

Jerry of Connect Systems posted the following to the CS7000 Yahoo Group:

"CS580: This radio was designed to be in direct competition to the MD380 radio but have the advantage of being much easier to use because of a few new features we added. We sold over 100 radios before it was officially released and we have about 200 radios left before we have to order more. It takes at least 30 days from placing an order to receiving more radios. We have already received follow on orders from some of the people who have ordered the first batch of radios. It cost $130 each.

CS750: We reduced the price from $239 to $180. At this price, it is a competitor to the Tytera products but you get a better radio with more features. After the CS760 is stabilized, we will be adding more features to this radio as well as fixing any remaining problems.

CS760: This is the follow on to the CS750 series of radios. Besides having the features of the CS750, it has optional Bluetooth, GPS, Man Down, and vibrator. Its IP67 rated (waterproof) and has a color display. It will have the ability to be compliant with ETSI Standard Tier III. Being a new radio with new features now and more new features in the future, you can expect this radio to have frequent firmware updates both to fix bugs and to add new features. It was originally scheduled to ship December 1, then December 10, and now December 19. The basic radio cost $299 and with all the options it cost $399.

CS800: This is our single band UHF mobile (Available in VHF). After the CS760 is stabilized, we will be adding more features to this radio as well as fixing any remaining problems.

CS800D: This is a dual band CS800. I expect the VHF band to be the same as the CS801 and the UHF band to be extended to 512 MHz. It is initially going to be released as an amateur product but later we will get it part 90 certified. We do not have our cost yet but I am hoping the selling price will be $100 more than the single band CS800. We have preliminary schematics and we have a target of getting a working sample shipped by January 23, 2017 to show at the various amateur shows and production starting about two months later.

CS108G+: This is a Xiegu X108G with custom firmware to include a spectrum analyzer and an ID Timer. It covers all the HAM bands from 160 meters to 10 meters. We expect to get our first shipment next week.

CS7000/CS8000: This is a single band multi-protocol (DMR, DSTAR, Analog, and others) radio. We are still working on it but I will not give a definite date for initial shipments.

E-Commerce Web Site: Connect systems now has an online store where you can order most of our Amateur Products 24 hours a day. Please look carefully at the product description to see if in stock. The site is at csi-radios.com. It can also be reached from our main site of connectsystems.com"

Connect Systems CS750

Connect Systems is starting early with a "Black Friday" deal on the CS750 for $180.

VolNet DMR

Guess I need the UHF version of whatever radio I pickup... VolNet DMR Repeaters.

CS760 Yahoo Group

A new Yahoo Group for the CS760 DMR radio coming from Connect Systems.

CS7000 and CS760

So that's what Jerry looks like...

CSI team @ 2016 Dayton #Hamvention - Chris with a prototype of the CS7000 (left) and Jerry with the CS760. #hamradio pic.twitter.com/4TOWgzMyU4

— VA3XPR.Net (@VA3XPR) May 20, 2016

Spurious Emissions

Over at /r/amateurradio...

"Apparently the ARRL set up a Spectrum analyzer at Dayton the last few years and offered to test attendee HT's for spurious emissions." 

"At Dayton this year, only 25% of the Baofengs that were tested, complied with Part 97. 21% of Baofengs were borderline, and 54% of Baofengs were non compliant. 86% of Wauxon's were compliant and 14% of Wauxon's were not compliant. Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood, and Connect Systems: 100% were compliant with the Part 97 standards. 

The ARRL concluded that many of the radios that did not comply, would cause harmful interference with other radio services. 

The article is on page 74 & 75 of the November QST."

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Grapevine DMR Radios

Ripped from a Grapevine e-mail that was forwarded to me:

"Wow, brand new from BFDX, this is a very nice radio. Right out of the package, you can tell this is a well-made piece of equipment. Heavy-duty, durable and stylish. The large TFT color screen looks great and is easy to read. A voice prompt, which you can turn off or on, talks to you and tells you which channel you are on. All channels and zones are customizable with names and many characters that you can set to read whatever you like. This unit comes with built-in GPS, so your transmit location is viewable by others with a GPS receiver in their radios. This feature can be turned off or on. The "On" mode of the GPS has 2 settings, one for higher performance, and one for battery saver." "We're carrying the Connect Systems radios for the purposes of promoting DMR. At $199, you'll pay exactly the same price from us that you'd pay from Connect Systems. Drop by the store and take yours home today! We'll even program it for you with the DFW-area codeplug at no additional charge. Of course you can order from the website also." "TYT's MD-280 DMR HT holds just 16 channels with no display, but offers a lower cost solution for DMR. Perfect for businesses or for a young ham who just needs a few talkgroups. Comes with programming cable and free software."

Connect Systems CS7000: Schmatics

Jerry has published the latest schematics for the CS7000. You may have to be a member of the Yahoo Group to download the file:

"I just loaded the current CS7000 Schematic from the manufacturer. I just got this last night and I do not know the following:

1. Does the changes from the original CS700 match what I asked them to do
2. Did I make any mistakes in my instructions to them

If anyone sees any obvious mistakes please post them and I will analyze what you posted. The changes from the CS700 to the CS7000 was as follows:
1. Add AMBE 3000R Chip
2. Remove any unnecessary parts based on the analog protocol being done in firmware
3. Add better filters for the A/D and D/A converter
4. Make any changes necessary to achieve above goals 

Jerry Wanger KK6LFS"

Connect Systems CS7000: Update

I've been following the development of the CS7000 (and the mobile CS8000), but not published much about it. Jerry sent this update a while back to the CS7000 Yahoo Group:

"I got some good new and bad news about the project. Being good or bad depends upon your perspective.

The good news is I will be able to put in full DMR capability fairly rapidly. The bad news is I had to take out the WiFi Capability in this version of the radio.

After speaking to some experts in the field of Software Defined Radios, it was determined that my existing hardware design had a small chance of ever doing DMR. The reason had to do with the Error correcting code of DMR verses the other formats. DMR uses a technology called "Turbo" while all the other formats use a technology called "Convolution". If I wanted to do DMR as a software defined radio I would either need a fast DSP processor or have a DMR baseband chip like what is used in the CS700.

The best solution to have a combination DMR and D-STAR radio was to add the DMR baseband chip like was used in the CS700 and change the hardware design so it looks very very close the existing CS700. While this approach is the more expensive approach, it will allow me to incorporate DMR into the CS700 very rapidly. Possibly even before the D-STAR. 

Because I had to add a fairly substantial size chip along with the AMBE 3000R, there was no more room for the WiFi module. Possibly in a future version of the CS7000 I will put back the WiFi module.

The hardware has now been redesigned and I submitted it to the manufacturer for review to make sure he can build it. The software is progressing smoothly although there is substantial work to take into account the new hardware design.

I will be able to put in the WiFi in future versions by a careful mechanical design of the electronics. Probably use Hybrid circuitry to reduce the size. I might at that time also incorporate Blue Tooth and GPS along with the WiFi if I can get the parts I need.

May also be able to do a multi band design. For now I am concentrating on getting the first version of the CS7000 finished with both D-STAR and DMR capability.

Jerry Wanger KK6LFS"

CS8000 Mobile

CS8000 Mobile:

"The CS8000 (Mobile version of CS7000) when it is released next year will probably come in three flavors: 

1. UHF
2. VHF
3. Dual Band 

There is plenty of room in the mobile to have two independent R.F. sections. It will have a removable head like the CS800. 

Jerry Wanger KK6LFS"