Why don't voice radio communications use FM?

Vaughn Simon writes:

Such as VOIP actually, or other digital technologies that are now quite
common, cheap, and "off the shelf". In police and fire communications, FM is
quickly giving away to digital modes.

I doubt that they are using VoIP, though, which is notoriously
unreliable.

I'm not sure that cheap, common or "off-the-shelf" should be the top
criteria for choosing a replacement for AM radio. I think "safe"
should be the highest priority. If it improves safety, it's good; if
it doesn't, it's bad (unless it can improve something else _without_
compromising safety).

A digital-capable radio does not care if it is transmitting voice or data, so it
could someday allow truly automated flight control. For example, you might be
able to get clearance into controlled airspace automatically and have it show up
as a green dotted line on your MFD, to be acknowledged with the mere push of a
button.

But then you won't need pilots. Actually, it is nearly possible to do
without them today--but radio communication is still one of the
sticking points.

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"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Vaughn Simon writes:

Such as VOIP actually, or other digital technologies that are now quite
common, cheap, and "off the shelf". In police and fire communications, FM is
quickly giving away to digital modes.

I doubt that they are using VoIP, though, which is notoriously
unreliable.

You should a bit of reading before you make such comments. I happen to be in
the public safety communications field, and we are right now phasing out our old
trunked FM system for a VOIP system. We have already scrapped our old phone
systems in favor of VOIP and that is working just fine. If VOIP were
"notoriously unreliable" we would hardly use it for public safety
communications.

Vaughn

Vaughn Simon writes:

You should a bit of reading before you make such comments. I happen to be in
the public safety communications field, and we are right now phasing out our old
trunked FM system for a VOIP system. We have already scrapped our old phone
systems in favor of VOIP and that is working just fine. If VOIP were
"notoriously unreliable" we would hardly use it for public safety
communications.

Wait and see.

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"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...

Wait and see.

I try to remain civil here on the Usenet, but you have proven all through
this thread to not be someone worth wasting time on. You get the last word, but
thanks to technology I won't be seeing it.

Bye
Vaughn


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Why would I want to do that?

On 2006-09-03, Mxsmanic wrote:
I doubt that they are using VoIP, though, which is notoriously
unreliable.

You're confusing VOIP (voice carried on top of IP packets), which is as
reliable as any other internet protocol with the reliability of a data
stream over the general Internet (note: capital I). VOIP itself is no
less reliable than any other data transmission.

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