Land Mobile communications for Public Safety and Business

Before you invest in a radio system, look at the company behind the product.

Icom? Never heard of them.
 Icom now commands the top third position in world-wide land mobile radio sales.
They stand world-wide with Motorola, Kenwood, M/A-Comm, Thales, and, E.F. Johnson.

They just make ham radios, don't they?
Arguably, the best in the world. But most of the company's product sales are in the Marine, Avionics and Land Mobile industries.
Land Mobile (our specialty) now accounts for over half of Icom's sales. Icom doesn't build cell phones, pagers, stereos, wrist watches or toasters, onlt the finest communications equipment possible.

Who builds their radios for them?
Nobody!  All Icom products are manufactured from the ground up (not just assembled) by Icom employees in wholly owned Icom facilities located in Osaka, Japan. Icom equipment is manufactured to strict standards in the latest state of the art ISO-certified "white room" environments. If its not an Icom, there's a good chance it was build in Mexico, Korea or China where labor is cheap and quality control exists only on paper. Specialty Icom accessories come from manufacturing partners such as Otto Engineering, Telex, Klein, Trident Microsystems and Daniels Electronics- all Industry leaders with the highest quality possible.

But we need a complete system...
Icom is one of the very few radio manufacturers with an extensive specialized in-house Systems Division.
In-house engineers, and engineering partners such as Westek Electronics and Daniels Electronics (www.danelec.com - prime supplier of APCO P25 equipment to the U. S. Government) design and build state of the art, complex multi-site radio systems world-wide.
The other guys:  "System" salesmen? Probably. Complete, experienced factory system engineering with local 24/7 support? Yea, right.

They're just a little company...
Icom Incorporated is a publicly held corporation; its stock is traded on the Tokyo and Osaka Stock Exchanges with over $375 million in assets.

Are they solvent?
In 2004, Icom Incorporated sales were just short of $250 million  with a 12% operating profit ($31 million) .Corporate debt? Everything, including short-term trade payables, totaled under 12% of their assets. We should all be doing so well...
 http://www.icom.co.jp/company/ir/h16/anyu.pdf

5-tone signaling:

B-K Electric is a Icom trained specialist in 5-tone signaling. All Icom radios come equipped with international EIA open-standard signaling built in.  Vertex and the other guys only include it in high end (high dollar) radios, or as an expensive add-on board.

Never heard of 5-tone? That's probably because the Major U.S. manufacturer supports it, but would rather sell their own proprietary system so you have to use their equipment.  EIA 5-tone is the international standard signaling protocol for European and Asian users.

Why do I care?

What's 5-tone? Simply, it is a fast data burst added to selected radio transmissions, or used as signaling from radios (base, portable or mobile). If you watch "C.O.P.S.", you'll frequently hear a bleep at the end of many radio transmissions. That data burst uniquely identifies the transmitter and sends other information. The dispatcher and other users know who just said something, even if the voice is un-intelligible.

Many vendors have proprietary signaling protocols. They work just fine, but do you really need to be married to a specific radio manufacturer because nothing else is compatible?  Icom uses ONLY open protocols as specified by international EIA standards.  No funny quirks. If your existing radios adhere to the international EIA standard, they will work on any 5-tone system. 

Think that you need an expensive trunked repeater system to have fancy features?  Wrong. The smallest 5-tone system consists of two portables.  That's it.  And 5-tone can flow flawlessly through any existing repeater system, with no changes to the "big radio".

5-tone is perfect for paging.  The familiar 2-tone "beep" is 4 seconds long, and MUST be heard in its entirely and with accurate timing to set off a pager. North America is the last place still routinely using the lengthy 2-tone format.  The rest of the world has graduated to 5-tone because of its durability and efficiency. A complete EIA 5-tone burst lasts about a second, and can be repeated many times in the same period as a single 2-tone page. Because of the precise timing required for a 2-tone page, no 2-tone pager manufacturer will guarantee page reception while scanning.   Missing pages?  Need to scan more than one channel to get them? Think about it

5-tone can also be used for other functions, such as emergency or man-down signals, selective pages (BILL CALL HOME), Mutual Aid and wide-area pages, and radio function checks (Your radio is on but you're ignoring us again!)  Loose a radio, or have someone playing games? Nuke it by remote control.  EIA 5-tone and its companion BIIS data format allows for vehicle position information to be send through any existing conventional or repeater system- no special data channel required.

For the dispatch center, 5-tone "bleeps" at the end of a transmission positively identify the source.  This means that positive ID can be recalled from recordings, as well as cause a screen pop to provide any desired information about the source for reference or logging, such as user name, department, function, or apparatus capabilities. Vehicle position from onboard GPS units can be queried on demand. 5-tone can also be used in situations where vehicles (such as school busses, township dump trucks, etc.)  may need to call the Public Safety Dispatch Center to inform them of an incident, but should be excluded from hearing routine traffic, or denied the ability to transmit on the dispatch channel without case-by-case permission.

Want to see what 5-tone can do for your company or agency? Contact us for more information, or to set up a demonstration.

I don't need a submersible radio! You probably don't, as long as you're a fire fighter who never gets wet, a public works employee who never works in muddy ditches, an ER technician who never gets a blast of "stuff",  or someone who never falls down or has an accident around water.

The JIS waterproof rating scale is an internationally recognized standard for measuring a radio’s water resistance capability. On a scale of 1 to 8, with 8 meaning designed for use while submerged in water, the F50’s JIS-7 rating means the radio is fully operational after having been submersed in one meter of water for 30 minutes.

 If it gets covered in muck, the F50 may be cleaned by simply spraying it down, running it under a faucet, or submersing it in water – all with no ill effect.

From the Japan Industrial Standards Committee standards and procedures manual:

The U.S. Marine Corps has selected a special, modified version of Icom America's IC-4008A FRS radio for use as their intrasquad radio (ISR). This new model will be known as the IC-4008M.

The IC-4008M is used at the infantry squad level to supplement hand and arm signals. This small, lightweight transceiver is easy to operate and is held in a custom case that is worn on the uniform. All 13,000 units are scheduled to be delivered by October 2000.

"These are not off-the-shelf IC-4008A's, but they're close", says Bob Carey, Vice President of Icom America. "This special version of our FRS radio has undergone frequency changes to operate on select U.S. Marine Corps' UHF frequencies." The ISR will not be made available for public purchase.

The Icom radio was heavily tested against and selected over a field of other competing models. "This is one tough little radio," says Bob Carey. "We're very pleased and honored that the U.S. Marine Corps has chosen Icom for this project."

2004: Icom marine radios have taken top honors in all three radio categories at the 2003 National Marine Electronics Association (NMEA) awards event. The prestigious event is held each fall at the NMEA convention in Sanibel, Florida.

Icom’s rugged M88  took top awards for best portable VHF radiotelephone, the advanced M602 was named best fixed VHF radiotelephone, and the digital M802 won for a second straight year as the best single side band (SSB) radiotelephone.

“The smile has not left my face since last week”, said an excited Rick Waedekin, National Marine Sales Manager for Icom America. “These wins reaffirm Icom’s superior radio design, construction, support and technological savvy in a competitive market.”

“Icom continues to provide the highest level of service to our dealers and customers. It gives us an even greater advantage. It’s an edge everyone at Icom is proud to have and will continue to own.”

This is not the first time Icom has won the coveted NMEA awards. Over the years, Icom has won many of the awards – a dozen within the past decade alone.

“We won’t become complacent with these latest awards,” claims Bob Carey, Vice President of Icom America. “The competition is stiff, and the technology is always on the rise. It is an ever-present challenge to remain on top, where today’s boater expects to find Icom. It’s where we’ll stay.”

About the radios:

The M88 (based on the Land Mobile Division's F50/60 Submersible portable series) won the best VHF handheld award. The M88 is super compact, military rugged, offers a 20+ hour Li-Ion rechargeable battery (the longest lasting in the industry), offers 5 full watts of output power, and is submersible performance to JIS-7 specifications. The radio is ideally suited for the discriminating recreational boater and for the professional marine trades.

The submersible M602 is Icom’s ultimate marine VHF, winning the best fixed mount award. A front-facing speaker offers an impressively loud and clear 5 watts of audio output. A 22 watt built-in hailer is the most powerful in the industry. A built-in foghorn with 4 selectable patterns is also selectable. NMEA in/out jacks provide for easy plug and play connection of most third party GPS units, and the readout is viewable on the M602’s large dot-matrix screen. Seven levels of backlighting keep the display and keypad easy to see, day or night. Class D DSC is built-in, and a second fully independent receiver continually monitors channel 70, even if the first receiver is in use on another channel. The 10 key pad offers quick access to all the M602’s functions, plus the user may direct-enter channel numbers. The M602 accepts up to 2 optional plug and play COMMANDMIC™s – Icom’s remote control microphones. Each COMMANDMIC operates up to 70 feet away from the M602, is submersible, offers control of most every radio feature (DSC excluded), and doubles as an intercom. It’s like having 3 radio stations or intercom points on board. The M602 truly sets a new standard in marine VHF radios.

For the second year in a row, the NMEA named Icom’s M802 the best SSB radio. The M802 offers pindrop-clear DSP (digital) reception and 150 watts of worldwide talk power in a compact, feature-rich package. The remote control head offers installation ease, allowing the radio body to be installed out of the way. The M802 is the first consumer SSB to offer DSC (ITU Class E). One-touch e-mail access is available, the full 10 key pad allows direct frequency entry, and there’s even a headset plug on the front panel, so listeners don’t have to wake up everyone on board to enjoy their favorite shortwave broadcasts. The M802 offers NMEA input for plug and play third party GPS operation. A super-wide band receive capability includes all HF amateur bands. Ham transmit capability is built-in, the M802’s digital RX eliminates the need for an optional filter to take advantage of SITOR, FSK and other operating modes, and the radio is 100% duty cycle. The M802 is the next generation of SSB technology here today.

Not bad for a company who builds "cheap 'ole farm junk"