During the weekend, I went hiking with my wife to the Passadiços do Paiva located in the north of Portugal. Of course I wanted to take my new Radio-Tone RT4 with me. I thought the signal would be weak and impossible to connect, but I was surprised that I got 4G for most of the time. Some spots had 3G coverage only. Halfway, I got a GPRS signal only but I was still able to stay connected to the IRN.
As I explained in previous posts, to use the IRN, or Zello, a GPRS connection will do just fine. Many hams, that are still reluctant to try the IRN, always have the same old-school speech: “In case of a crisis, where cell networks are down, the IRN radios will be useless”. Well my friends, it is true. The network radios will be useless. No one is saying that IRN is here to replace conventional hamradio. It is an add-on. And now tell me. During the course of your entire life, how many times did you experience a network shortage due to a natural disaster? I know, as hams, we always have the spirit to be the last resource in providing emergency communications. Well, keep the spirit, but let yourself enjoy the IRN for the 99,9999% of the time that cell towers are at service. Take a backup VHF handheld with if you think it’s going to save your ass. Live more the present because technology is giving us hams a whole new playground that we never had access to before.
by CT1EIZ
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Does this radio do DMR and analog repeaters?
This radio connects to IRN that links to some analog and DMR repeaters.