New P25 Multiprotocol Portable from Tait Communications Promotes Safer Communities with DMR Interoperability

Christchurch, New Zealand, 27 March 2024

A new portable radio from Tait Communications provides improved communications between public safety and other community organizations, enabling rapid, efficient coordination and making our communities safer.

The new TP9900 rugged portable radio from Tait is designed to easily connect communities where the local law enforcement and other first-responder agencies are using a radio standard called P25 while other organizations such as schools and universities, airports, highway control, utilities and public transport providers are using a radio standard called DMR. This mix of land mobile radio technologies is common in North America and Asia Pacific. 

A further complication to widespread interoperability is that different user groups often will be operating on different radio frequencies. 

For example, now a police force can set up a fleet of TP9900 portable radios so its officers can talk to school security teams, teachers and administrative staff at all schools in their district, as well as talk to neighboring police and other first-responder agencies such as ambulance and fire.

That’s because the new TP9900 is built to speak in three radio “languages” (P25 and DMR digital as well as in analog) and can access a wide spectrum of radio frequencies. In industry-speak it’s called multiprotocol, multiband.

Tait Communications Product Manager Bob Shepheard says, "Our focus has been to keep the operation simple for users, changing between P25 or DMR or VHF or UHF is as easy as changing channels. Customers don’t need to worry about which frequency or protocol the radio uses, and can just focus on which channels are the right ones for different groups of users or situations."

The portable radio also includes features such as Over-The-Air-Programming (OTAP) and Over-The-Air-Rekeying (OTAR) for encryption management and is configurable to operate on any combination of VHF, UHF and 700/800MHz and 900MHz spectrum bands.

The TP9900 is being demonstrated at IWCE 2024 in Orlando, Florida, March 27-28, and will be available from mid-2024.