Motorola and Hytera or use AnyTone

I get a lot of people asking me about Motorola or Hytera radio. It seems like some of them think they want the commercial radio and are looking for support in that decision.

For most people I don’t think a commercial radio is a good choice…except in a few cases.

The biggest case is for visiting repeater sites. Both Motorola and Hytera have better receivers and get deal with the high levels of RF on at a busy repeater site. Some other radios can’t

Let me explain. I started using DMR in about 2014 DMR neither Motorola nor Hytera have released anything new. Yes, Motorola came out with the “i” models, but they do nothing for Hams except cost more. They have each released some minor features, but nothing significant for Tier II users.

Motorola still has not added support for the ETSI changes that came in 2017. This includes the Talker Alias feature that would make contact management so much easier on Motorola radios. Hytera updated their radios and repeaters, which is nice. MMDVM and OpenSpot support these new features as well. Why not Motorola?

Motorola and Hytera are both focused on the PTT over Cellular (POC) solutions and P25 or TETRA for public service. Not on DMR.

A limit of 1,000 contacts is frustrating. Without the ability to import/export contacts the frustration runs even deeper.

Here are some of the reasons AnyTone works for me:
dual band
dual receive
analog APRS
VFO mode
monitor/promiscuous mode
active development of CPS and firmware, including new features
large contact list with import
all programming can be exported, manipulated outside CPS and imported
supports current ETSI spec

Yes, the Motorola radios are a little more rugged. They are also more expensive and offer fewer features. This is particularly true for amateurs.