Johnson picked a radio
off eBay, ‘thinking it
would give me an example
of something really dreadful’.
Instead, it ‘was actually
the best one,surprisingly’
is modulation delity, which if low
“increases the bit error rate and
reduces the range”. He found that
some manufacturers’ rmware upgrades
and poor alignment procedures are
the major cause of low modulation
delity and it can only be detected
using a digital test set. Using one, he
examined six manufacturers’ mobile
stations, which varied signicantly
in this regard. For example, a radio
“that was new and out of the box
and supposedly aligned” was “miles
o”. One quite surprised Johnson –
he picked a radio o eBay from an
unknown (to him) manufacturer, “one
of the ones you can buy for about
50 bucks, thinking that it would give
me an example of something really
dreadful”. Instead, it “was actually the
best one,surprisingly”.
Sensory overload
Let’s shift to the exhibition hall, which
at times smelt mouth-wateringly
good thanks to the combination of
cinnamon-avoured baked goods
and popcorn – Syndico’s decision
to have a popcorn-maker complete
with company-branded boxes was
a marketing masterstroke, given the
way it expanded its presence beyond
itsstand. While 2016’s exhibition
stands were all about hybrid terminals
and 2017’s focused on PTT over
Cellular devices, 2018’s innovations in
the exhibition hall were more subtle
andincremental.
A tour of the Motorola Solutions
stand covered the ST7500, the
company’s latest small TETRA radio,
which weighs less than 200 grams,
has an up to 22-hour battery life, is
IP67-rated and has an OLED display
allowing for easy viewing in sunlight
and a hybrid antenna design to allow
the same RF performance as a larger
device. It features a new kind of
accessory connector due to the need
to keep the form factor compact. I
also got to see the DIMETRA Express
TETRA system, which can be set up
in 15 minutes (though the record is six
minutes and 40 seconds, which was set
during a competition at CCW) and
is available with one to three carriers.
Showing it in combination with the
SmartPTT Express dispatcher console,
Motorola’s Sven Lange highlighted its
ability to export historical data, adding
that this is particularly important in
Germany, where the regulator requires
such information and can remove
spectrum licences if they are being
usedinsuciently.
e most novel piece on the stand
came from Avigilon (Motorola’s
recently acquired subsidiary). It
demoed the use of AI/machine learning
in combination with video analytics
to learn normal behaviour patterns
and then create alerts when unusual
behaviour is detected. One of the
examples shown by Robert Köhler,
regional sales director DACH, was
footage from an on-street camera
which agged up the vertical motion
created by a refuse truck tipping
bins into its hold, and another was a
stairwell where people typically only
walk in one direction (shown below, far
left). A dierent scenario showcased the
power of video analytics in a shopping
centre context – after receiving a short
description of a woman who had stolen
some jewellery, the operator was able
to apply a number of lters. Once the
suspect had been selected from the
resulting hits, the system was then
able to pull together all the footage the
system had on the individual within
the set timeframe.
Köhler also demonstrated the extent
to which it is possible to digitally zoom
in using a 7K-megapixel camera, and
he explained that the use of cameras
with such high resolutions is attractive,
because it allows one camera to
perform the role of several, thereby
reducing capitalcosts.
On the Hytera stand, I got my hands
on the recently launched PNC370
handset, though I was far more taken
with the new VM550 combination
body-worn video (BWV) camera/
remote speaker microphone (RSM),
which was both pleasingly compact
and light-weight. I understand that it
is targeted at a dierent price bracket
from Hytera’s previous BWV/RSM
Left: Avigilon’s
video analytics
software can
alert operators
to unusual
movements; right:
On the Hytera
stand, Mobile2b
showed how QR
codes can be used
to streamline asset
monitoring
26 www.criticalcomms.com January 2019
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