Kenwood St John ambulance

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snapey75
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Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by snapey75 »

Looks like St John ambulance are moving their communications to Kenwood nxdn with trunking and roaming. They seem to have bought Icom kit over the last few years so it will take a while to swap over. At least they are not going over to ptt over cellular but I believe their radios will be encrypted.

Video on YouTube and Kenwood site



https://kenwoodcommunications.co.uk/com ... gital/sja/
26mb04
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by 26mb04 »

It would make sense, NXDN is a joint venture between Kenwood and Icom (who call it IDAS). A lot of Icom FM PMR gear from the mid-2000's has the capability to be upgraded to dPMR/IDAS/NXDN with the addition of a digital add-on board. It's a good system, because it means they don't have to throw away ££££'s worth of suddenly obsolete gear as they can just upgrade it. The early Icom IDAS handheld gear is pretty well made. The Kenwood equipment should be no exception. I think they've made a good choice.

EDIT: A lot of IDAS handhelds allow BIIS1200 free-form text messaging in FM. As far as I'm aware, back in 2005 not even Motorola made anything with the ability to do that.
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paulears
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by paulears »

St. John have always been keen on the latest technology in everything they do. Repeaters, cross band linking, all kinds of useful stuff. A good example of a big organisation with decent radio people making policy.
Mototrbo2020
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by Mototrbo2020 »

Doing well to say they are such a "poor charity". Did they not have Nxdn for a while now?
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Minus1
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by Minus1 »

I stopped bothering to make a monthly donation to them when they decided to encrypt all their radios. No genuine reason for a charity to make themselves secret; just another victim of the rampant paranoia in society.
KEY : = channel/stud | ~ = CTCSS/DCS | ^ = transmitter site | ¯ = overhead | * = trunked
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by paulears »

Oddly - there is a genuine reason. They make a fair bit of income from hospital contracts - taking patients from hospital to hospital, or hospital to care homes and people's home addresses. All the ambulances who do this kind of thing now in my area use encrypted services. Medical details, addresses and other personal data are covered by GDPR rules nowadays. Mrs Smith going to 123 Long Road, Anytown. Son has left key under flowerpot. I'm totally against the paranoia you mention - but for them, being a charity is irrelevant. They need privacy perhaps more than others as their crews may not be quite as aware of com sec.
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by Metradio »

Nothing that cannot be done over a mobile phone..
If they are hired to do emergency work they are issued a Tetra Airwave radio.

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Mototrbo2020
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by Mototrbo2020 »

paulears wrote: 23 Oct 2021, 19:18 Oddly - there is a genuine reason. They make a fair bit of income from hospital contracts - taking patients from hospital to hospital, or hospital to care homes and people's home addresses. All the ambulances who do this kind of thing now in my area use encrypted services. Medical details, addresses and other personal data are covered by GDPR rules nowadays. Mrs Smith going to 123 Long Road, Anytown. Son has left key under flowerpot. I'm totally against the paranoia you mention - but for them, being a charity is irrelevant. They need privacy perhaps more than others as their crews may not be quite as aware of com sec.
Yet NWAS still send such details via open pagers
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by paulears »

Time will catch up when the first compliance case arrives. Buying new products means decisions, stopping using old ones is different! Our local hospital still uses voice paging in analogue.
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by Metradio »

Northern Ireland NHS Ambulance service use Tetra but in the clear !
Raynet jumped upon the Data Protection bit and they all purchased DMR radios, then found out that the variety of different radios that they purchased would not talk to each other in encrypted mode, so they are relegated to car parking duties..

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gmanbelfast
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by gmanbelfast »

Metradio wrote: 24 Oct 2021, 09:07 Northern Ireland NHS Ambulance service use Tetra but in the clear
This is no longer the case, NIAS moved to encryption a few months ago.
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Re: Kenwood St John ambulance

Post by Metradio »

gmanbelfast wrote: 26 Oct 2021, 08:15
Metradio wrote: 24 Oct 2021, 09:07 Northern Ireland NHS Ambulance service use Tetra but in the clear
This is no longer the case, NIAS moved to encryption a few months ago.
Thanks for the info on that, so it now looks like all UK emergency services using Tetra are fully encrypted..

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Raspberry Pi 2 and DV4Mini HotSpot.
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