Icom IC-F4029SDR Transceiver for Digital PMR 446

Radio Amateurs have recently been switching from FM to D-Star digital voice and now a similar changeover is about to happen with PMR 446.

According to the Icom-UK website the new
IC-4029SDR licence-exempt handheld PMR 446 transceiver utilizes 4FSK/FDMA modulation and 6.25kHz digital narrow channel spacing.

This is half the channel spacing of the existing analogue PMR 446 system. This means the 100kHz band width allocated for digital PMR 446 is efficiently divided into 16 channels, or twice the current analogue voice channel capacity making it very spectrum efficient.

Digital PMR 446 uses a narrower channel spacing than the Amateur Radio D-Star which requires at least 8.33 kHz spacing although in practice 10 or 12.5 kHz channels are used.

IC-F4029SDR Announcement 27th February
http://www.icomuk.co.uk/categoryRender.asp?
categoryID=3508&cCID=7450

Icom IC-F4029SDR
http://www.icomuk.co.uk/categoryRender.asp?
categoryID=3510&cCID=6157

Icom IC-F4029SDR Leaflet
http://www.icomuk.co.uk/getFile.asp?
categoryID=3510&cCID=6157&fFID=254

Icom IC-F4029SDR Manual
http://www.icomuk.co.uk/getFile.asp?
categoryID=3510&cCID=6157&fFID=255