Today
Custom design for a particular customer is a thing of the past. Modern mobile radio equipment is "feature rich". A mobile radio may have 100 or more channels, be microprocessor controlled and have built-in options such as unit ID. A computer and software is typically required to program the features and channels of the mobile radio. Menus of options may be several levels deep and offer a complicated array of possibilities. Some mobile radios have alphanumeric displays that translate channel numbers (F1, F2) to a phrase more meaningful to the user, such as "Providence Base", "Boston Base", etc. Radios are now designed with a myriad of features to preclude the need for custom design.
Examples of US microprocessor-controlled mobile radios:
- Motorola Astro Digital Spectra W9
- Kenwood TK-690
As use of mobile radio equipment has virtually exploded, channel spacing has had to be narrowed again to 12.5-15 kHz with modulation deviation dropping to plus-or-minus 2.5 kilohertz. In order to fit into smaller, more economical vehicles, today's radios are trending toward radically smaller sizes than their tube-type ancestors.
Read more about this topic: Mobile Radio
Famous quotes containing the word today:
“Nobody can resist a ripe idea. The idea today is change.”
—Tansu Ciller (b. 1946)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“My advice to people today is as follows: If you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.”
—Timothy Leary (b. 1920)