IWCE: Motorola introduces new two-way radios

LAS VEGAS–Motorola this week is debuting a low-band mobile radio and an analog portable radio that operates in the UHF and VHF bands at the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Motorola’s PM1200 is a mobile two-way radio that is replacing the discontinued MaraTrac line in the low-band space, said Claudia Rodriguez, Motorola senior business manager for professional-commercial radios. The PM1200 provides much greater channel capacity—250 channels compared to the 99 channels available with MaraTrac—and its 120-watt output power exceeds the 100-110 watts typically found in other low-band offerings found in the industry, she said.

The PM1200 also is designed to address a notable maintenance issue, Rodriguez said.

“You can now program the mobile from the front part of the control head, which is going to make it easier from a maintenance perspective, if reprogramming needs to be done,” she said.

Motorola’s CP110 is a portable analog radio operating in the VHF and UHF bands that is the successor to the company’s CP100 radios. By using lithium-ion technology and improved battery design, the life of the CP110 is significantly greater than its predecessor, Rodriguez said.

“Now, we have in excess of 20 hours of battery life with a standard battery, and we get up to 26 hours of battery life with an ultra high-capacity battery,” she said. “Traditionally, what we have offered—and what we understand the industry has offered—is closer to 13 hours [of battery life] for this type of solution.”

While the CP110 is designed to make software programmability easier, perhaps its most notable feature is its audio output, which receive-side users have perceived to be 30% louder than the CP100, Rodriguez said.

“Typically, what we see in the industry is 500 milliwatts of audio output. In this case, we have four times that—2000 milliwatts of audio output,” Rodriguez said. “That’s a big increase that translates into louder audio. In general, that—along with some noise-suppression techniques—allowed us to get to that level of performance.”

Motorola’s focus on audio output with the CP110 was a result of customer input regarding the needs of particular sectors of the industry, Rodriguez said.

“We understand that, for environments such as construction, manufacturing and even retail, the level of audio quality and the loudness of the audio is very important,” she said. “[The CP110 is] certainly going to allow those highly noisy environments to not become a distraction to the user, now that we have the ability to provide audio that cuts through the noisy environment.”