Popular P25 Public Safety Waveform Ported to Spectrum's Software Reconfigurable Radio

Spectrum Signal Processing by Vecima ("Spectrum"), an advanced communications equipment supplier, announced a partnership with Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC) to port the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials (APCO) Project 25 (P25) public safety waveform to Spectrum's flexComm SDR-4000 software reconfigurable radio. P25 is the latest addition to Spectrum's expanding waveform portfolio. This waveform is the most popular and widely used public safety waveform in North America. Supporting this waveform on a software reconfigurable radio allows military and other users to more easily communicate with public safety personnel to better co-ordinate joint emergency efforts. A demonstration of this implementation is provided at CANSEC 2009, in Ottawa, and features an industry standard P25 radio talking over-the-air to an SDR-4000.

"Spectrum continues to expand its waveform portfolio, offering its customers more options and applications available with its software reconfigurable technologies," said Mark Briggs, VP Marketing at Spectrum. "We are pleased to continue working closely with CRC to provide our markets with software defined implementations of waveforms critical to both military and civil user communities."

"CRC selected the SDR-4000 because it provided the comprehensive hardware, software, and environment required for the P25 port," said Claude Belisle, VP Satellite Communications and Radio Propagation branch of CRC. "The SDR-4000 also supported the entire Software Communications Architecture (SCA) software operating stack that was critical in making this project successful."

The SDR-4000 has been proven to support implementations of military waveforms, such as the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) Wideband Networking Waveform Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (WNW OFDM), Soldier Radio Waveform Electronic Warfare (SRW EW), and Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS). Adding a public safety waveform such as P25 lays the foundation for interoperability between military and civil agencies.