Speaker

June 28, 2016: Chris Wilson N0CSW: Yaesu's Fusion digital radio system

Chris began work for Yaesu in late 2013, and has been the National Sales Manager at Yaesu for a little over a year now. He is from Joplin, Missouri and ran a small engineering firm that developed Industrial Automation Controllers primarily for factory maintenance systems. He has been involved with Commercial and Amateur radio since 2005 and primarily specializes in Digital Communication modes such as JT65, PSK31, RTTY and Various VHF/UHF Digital modes.

When Chris was asked “Why digital?” on the internet, he responded this way:

The beauty of [Yaesu’s] System Fusion is one does not have to embrace digital at all, as it can co-exist with our current analog environments very well. This way people do not have to replace any existing equipment, and even in some installations can enjoy digital radio without even having to buy one.

The Yaesu DR-1X repeater has the capability to allow full break-in of analog communications, or digital communication, regardless of which mode is currently in use on the repeater.

This way we can embrace the features of digital and still not tick everyone else off by trying to replace it all together.

With digital radio, we can do other stuff as well that enhances VHF/UHF communication such as:
- picture messaging
- telemetry
- remote Control
- text messaging
- high quality voice
- higher speed data (9600bps data over VHF and UHF)

All within the same data stream, meaning we can simultaneously transmit voice while sending data as well.

The repeater and client radios have the capability of automatically switching in and out of these modes to allow cross-compatibility with conventional FM using what we call “AMS” or Automatic-Mode-Select. It is Yaesu’s Amateur friendly version of “mixed mode” analog/digital communication.

We are all amateurs and experimenters at heart … and in the spirit of being an amateur, I myself took the digital leap just to experiment with a new technology. We are attempting to build a platform and develop it further, and the only way we can do that is by reaching into the amateur community (since we developed amateur technology). There is no other digital system on the market that has been developed with not only the digital customers but the analog ones in mind as well … this makes Fusion unique at the moment.