Leaderboard

The in-house radio shop that maintains the TRBO equipment concluded that channel selector lock was not possible; there was a long and frustrating email chain on the subject. I believe the radio in question is running 2.10.2 but I don't have it on me right now so don't take that as gospel! The shutdown issue is caused by the volume knob getting snagged when the radio is carried on a belt clip. On my personal radios (EFJ 5100ES and VP600), I use soft power down and volume lock to solve this issue and it has worked perfectly. One of those had its volume knob bumped into the off position this past weekend but these settings kept it functioning normally. I'm inclined to think that this issue is only common in industrial and public safety applications.

Understood, but those issues could happen in any radio as well, inadvertently change the volume/channels that is... (2.10 and newer firmware has channel knob lock BTW) as for the shutdowns, I've never had any radio in my entire fleet shutdown on its own unless it was due to running out of battery. Also, there is an option to disable power-off, so the only way to shutdown the radio is by removing the battery. Again, I think both radios are good choices, but for me the weight/size was a deal breaker. G.

Without defining what you mean by “best” it’s impossible to even try to answer that question. What features do you want? Do you want a handheld radio or a mobile radio? What do you hope to accomplish? Simply put, there is no one best radio or antenna for everyone.

Well, it just so happens..... I have BOTH the 5000's in 3 bands and the 2500's in 3 bands. The one 5K is an 800 system radio and the equivalent 2500 is 900 and used for ham Durability is about the same. Price is similar. I like my 5K's because I have an XTVA in my van which allows me to drop any of the three radios in and have a handheld control head and external speaker. I have a multiband commercial antenna on it so it works with all three bands. Programming is no harder than setting up a CCR Baofeng, due to their almost hostile software. The 5K's are a bit larger and heavier than the 2500's but I run a fire rig (shoulder strap and leather case) with a commander mike (has volume and channel control on the mike. Not sure that the commander mike will work with the 2500's but I have never tried. If you are a system owner / operator on the network, the one nice thing with either of the radios is you can program 'phone numbers' into the radio. Now actual phone numbers on GMRS with a phone patch is a no no... But setting up the node DTMF commands so you can connect and disconnect to the different main nodes is nice. You just select the command you what and push the PTT. The radio will send the command string and your node will do it's thing. Accessories is another thing that commercial radios have that the CCR's and ham stuff lack. I have bank chargers that my radios set in. I can charge 6 radios or batteries at a time. Never seen that with a Baofeng. And the overall quality if so much better with the commercial stuff, and the apex of that is the 5K's for their manufactured window of time. Of course they have been phased out and replaced with the APX radios and those are a whole different animal. But they are seriously expensive. I have less invested in all my 2500's and 5000's than a single APX 7000 costs. The other thing with the programming is the files are portable. You can read your radio, email me or someone with my skill set your 'codeplug' (programming file) and I can edit it and setup the radio how you ask for it to be done and then I email it back. This is helpful when learning to program and not knowing exactly what you are doing. Just some thoughts to consider.

Can't run 141.3 tone would love too but might interfere with the 462.575 Cades Cove repeater with 141.3 hz travel tone. So i just did a multi tone repeater access tone today. Still got the split tone but added 203.5 hz on input tone and output tone for access for gmrs people that there equipment doesn't do split can have access . The only reason i did that so people that done had the repeater programmed wouldn't have to reprogram their radios and still have access and be able to talk to the other. Don't know if anybody has ever ran multi pl / dcs tones on a gmrs repeater before?

If the size and weight don't bother you, the 5000 is an excellent radio. Personally, I deeply dislike the XPR7550 having used one extensively for work. I had a lot of issues with inadvertent channel/volume changes and uncommanded shutdowns from bumping the radio against process machinery in cramped areas. The zone/menu structure is also illogical to me.

It's become one of my favorite scanners. The receiver picks up stations quite well.

If you must have P25 then the XTS5000 is probably the best price/performance radio you can get, but be are aware that they are EOL as stated by others, and they are heavy and really BIG. I am sure being EOL the CPS might be possible to get for super cheap. However, if you don't really need to have P25, and DMR would suffice, I would've recommend the XPR7550e over the XTS5000 if prices weren't so outrageously inflated... but given how things are, I think the XTS5000 is probably gonna be fine. G.

Yeah, we have that here in central and southern Ohio. He has a number of sites registered on here that I can promise he's not on. When I put him call in google to do a bit of research I found his commercial for profit business license. If you do a search in Ohio for repeaters and turn on the dead and old repeaters you will see the state littered with his 'dream system'. The one tower he has listed near me is a State of Ohio site. I have been in the site numerous times and even moved the gear out of the old structure and into the new building when they brought it in. No GMRS repeaters and have never been in the last 14 years. I truly believe that he sat down on AntennaSearch.com and found tower and then got on here and listed a bunch of repeaters that were never installed. Not sure what the guys deal is, and really don't care. I would LOVE for him to file against me with the FCC for interference though. Figure I will send them PDF's of his business license and his dream tower map and see what they think of someone trying to run a business selling GMRS access and having every pair supposedly tied up in half the state. But yes, I fully believe that if you are gonna tie up a pair with a 30 mile radius of coverage footprint, you need to allow ANYONE that has a license to use your gear. Now I will FULLY admit that I do have a 30 mile radius (60miles across) coverage footprint, and that's with a bad antenna and only running 6 watts up the transmit line. And I do have 3 pairs tied up, not just one. I am on 725 675 and 600. I was on 625, but I found that there were two repeaters in my footprint and I immediately moved off to 600. And if that one don't work out I will move again. But my stuff is open. And I encourage folks to use my gear. I don't want it to just sit there and ID once in a while and do nothing else. If I wanted that I would have put up ham repeaters. No one seems to use them any more. And in truth, I have one VHF ham repeater on the air and a UHF repeater waiting in the wings to be turned up once I have the rack swap complete at the site. And it's gonna be on the same antenna system as the GMRS repeaters so it's coverage will be decent.

List it now; I list repeaters months before they even go online just so there's a chance for someone to let me know if I'm sitting it on an occupied frequency.

That's an interesting point. If I remember right some time ago a guy wanted to setup several GMRS repeaters around his area and CHARGE access fees to use them. Being there are only 8 repeater pair frequencies that consumed a lot of "public resources" for his personnel monetary benefit at every one else's expense.

And who do you think would do this ? Cell companies dont care about critical infastructure at all. Its all the bottom line. I have seen some rough cell sites over the years. Many with no generators, small battery plants and horrible installs. Some good but the point is who is going to spend the money ? I get there is no "real" service to get help in an emergency but GMRS isn't it either.

I have a buddy who picked up one for 800MHz. Cost him $75 at a swap. The use was to monitor the local PD which was on a trunked system. He managed to find the software for it and the one to generate a system key file he said was necessary to get it to monitor a trunked system. The software is out there. Might be sort of hard to find.

I have a XTS5000 III, and its an ok radio. The XTS are EOL now, and not supported by Motorola. The software was difficult to track down, and Motorola won't sell it to you. If you are looking for analog only, it is way too large and heavy to be a good choice. I bought mine for P25 use only, but analog it works well. As far as "upgrades", those that have extra upgrade flashes sitting around aren't willing to get rid of them, and like the software, MOL says EOL no sale.

I got two and will add another two as soon as two radio kit is back in stock.

Yeah, you threw me off with "simplex repeater". This term has a meaning. But asterisk software does not have run on Pi. Any Linux will do. Old laptop should do just fine. Beaglebone boards are still available on amazon and elsewhere.