Lscott 2574 Posted August 2, 2022 Report I collect mainly Kenwood HT's. I have a few Motorola, ICOM and various Chinese ones too. Some of the models I own several units of them, multiple units per box and several boxes for the larger numbers. The storage boxes are sorted by model type. The model type is written on the end of the plastic storage box using a black Sharpie pen. Many of the radios are UHF since that seems to be where the majority of the Ham digital voice activity is found. Not so much on VHF. In any case I do like to get both the UHF and VHF versions on the various models. I'm currently looking for a good deal on a few Kenwood NX-1200DUK2 radios in like new, or new, condition to add to my collection. I recently picked up an Air Band radio, an ICOM IC-A16. While some VHF radios have air band receive a special purpose radio would also include the transmit function too. Air band radios are AM only, so this one is rather unique in my collection. I also just recently purchased some ICOM radios that do FM and dPMR digital, not to be confused with DMR, for the VHF and UHF bands. One of the dMPR radios was converted to NXDN by a repair center by accident when I sent it in for some repair work. They can't get the dPMR firmware from ICOM so they had to refund the cost of the repair. I used that money to purchase another dPMR radio of the same exact model from the same seller. I wanted at least two dPMR radios, UHF, that could talk to each other in digital mode to experiment with them. I now have radios for the following digital modes: D-Star, DMR, P25, NXDN and dPMR. Nothing for System Fusion yet. Not really sure if I want to get one since that mode is specific to Yaesu radios. All the other digital modes are available from multiple manufactures. I was hoping to program the dPMR radios for dPMR446, BUT there are some differences between dPMR446 and dPMR that seems to render the two modes incompatible. This is based on my reading for the two ETSI standards. Looks like I might have to pay up and get an official dPMR446 radio even if they're limited to only 0.5 watts. I would like to get a Kenwood TK-3701D in that case. The radio appears to be based on the NX-1300 series radio. That means I likely can modify the radio and replace the crummy fixed antenna with a removable one by replacing the fixed antenna with the original design SMA socket the regular NX-1300's use. Then using the external antenna port I can use an external power amplifier to boost the power up to around 4 to 5 watts, more like a regular HT. I have a spreadsheet I put together so I can remember which programming software is used for which radio. I also have separate folders for each radio model, and sub folders if more than one band split is available, for the code plugs for each one. When I receive a used radio I try to save the original code plug. Part of the fun collecting these is trying to figure out who, or where, they were originally owned by or came from. One I figured out was used by the maintenance staff at a nuclear power station on the east coast. Fairly current list of models I have: Tri Band: TH-D74A analog/D-Star Digital (With MARS/CAP Mod) UV-5X3 TH-350 Dual Band: TH-G71A (With MARS/CAP mod) TH-79A UV-5R D878UV analog/DMR Digital (ARC4 40 bit enhanced encryption, AES 256 bit encryption, both enabled) KG-UVD1P Multi Band: FT817 HF/VHF/UHF AM/FM/SSB (With MARS/CAP mod) VHF: TK-270G TK-2000 TK-2170 TK-2140 TK-2160 TK-2360 TK-2180 TK-D200E analog/DMR Digital TK-D200GE analog/DMR Digital (GPS enabled) NX-200 analog/NXDN Digital NX-200G analog/NXDN Digital (GPS enabled) XPR6550 analog/DMR Digital TK-5220 analog/P25 Digital IC-F3162DT analog/dPMR Digital (Not to be confused with DMR) IC-A16 analog AM Air Band TX-RX / FM Weather RX only UHF: TK-370 TK-370G BF-888S TK-3170 TK-3212L TK-3212 TK-3173 TK-3160 TK-3200 TK-3360 TK-3140 TK-3180 NX-340U analog/NXDN Digital NX-300 analog/NXDN Digital NX-300G analog/NXDN Digital (GPS enabled) NX-320 analog/NXDN Digital NX-411 analog/NXDN Digital (Setup for Ham 33cm band) NX-1300DUK5 analog/DMR Digital (ARC4 {RC4} 40 bit enhanced encryption enabled) TK-D340U analog/DMR Digital TK-D300E analog/DMR Digital TK-5320 analog/P25 Digital XPR6550 analog/DMR Digital (RC4 40 bit enhanced encryption enabled) XPR6580 analog/DMR Digital (Setup for Ham 33cm band) IC-F4162DT analog/dPMR Digital (Not to be confused with DMR) IC-F4162DT analog/NXDN Digital (Converted from dPMR) T5720 (Motorola FRS Radio) Quote
Recommended Comments
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.