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Best place to educate myself on radios/band/terminology


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I am really trying to grasp everything in all of these threads but do keep coming up to questions about all of the terminology. What would be the best place to decipher everything? I did some searching but could not really find anything summed up in one place. I have found various things scattered but it seems everything I think I understand something else comes up and gets me all mixed up again.

 

It is hard to tell which terms are upgrades of same technology vs. a totally new technology. For instance I am trying to figure out PCS1900 vs CDMA in 800 band or 800SMR bands? I know the lower frequency typically gets through buildings better but where does the difference in PCS versus CDMA come in? Is CDMA800 the same thing as the SMR 850 but just a different frequency or is it totally different technology on different frequencies?

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PCS is just the name given to 1900mhz. I believe PCS stands for Personal Communication Services.

 

CDMA is a technology.

 

850 and 800 are two different bands. Originally 850 was just called 800, because only iDEN devices used 800SMR. So when you see 800cellular or 850 cellular, it is the same thing. 800SMR is different. It is the band right below 850.

 

CDMA800 could mean 850Cellular or 800SMR, but usually it is 850cellular, because it is only recently that CDMA was allowed to even use 800. Apple still uses CDMA800 to mean 850. Usually( At least what I have seen), is that a phone will state it supports 800/850/1900, which means that the first 800 is referring to 800SMR.

 

edit: I believe the best place to look for some understanding is the glossary section at phonescoop.

 

Here is their break down of CDMA800

http://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=481

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Thank you very much, that does help a lot. That site will be perfect for me as I see it has many of the other definitions I was looking for.

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Try wikipedia.org and search for different terms. I personally was amazed at different things i found at wiki. Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to filter everything trough. Also use a search on this site you, it's more broken down sometimes but still awesome.

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