25w mobile linear

[gman1971]

LMAO... and I can attest to the VHF hack for the BF-888s, as I had mine all programmed for MURS and GMRS... totally legal... b/c it was cheap and could do multiband, what else could anyone ask for!?... I still have a dozen or so on buried in the basement scrap pile... they still work, well, if you can call it that way...

 

I had a Ham buddy at work that picked up a few of those ultra cheap BF-888S 16 channel UHF "only" radios. Well it he found a code plug hack that would let it work on VHF too.

 

To test it he did a test TX on a Ham 2M frequency in our south building while I monitored it in the north building. Yes it did work. But, this was the big one, I tuned to the third harmonic of the 2M frequency, which put it in the Ham 70cm band. I picked up the signal loud and clear!

 

Needless to say I told him NEVER try to use the radio like that again. The crap coming out of that radio was a interference disaster.  But what the heck, it was a cheap "multi-band" radio where you could talk on several bands all at the same time. A real bargain if you get what I mean.

[STTScott]

Most people seem to have enough money to keep doing things wrong many times over, but never enough to just do things right, once. 

 

It is well known that I am all in for Motorola, as I've found them to be the best price/performance for used gear, but there are other very decent brands out there that will offer excellent performance too, like ICOM, Kenwood, Harris, to name a few... etc. 

 

If you buy a used XPR6550 in good condition you can always sell it for the same you got it for, provided you didn't trash the radio, that is, in the even that radios don't cut it for you. I yet have to find a CCR that you can sell for the same you bought it for... and I've sold a bunch already... people want cheap... that is the sad state of reality...

 

G.

Metal detecting is my other geeky-dad hobby, and the longstanding advice especially for beginners is to buy the best equipment you can afford at the time. I'm a Motorola/Kenwood fan, but right now, I was interested in a U/V unit (both handheld and mobile), and the XPR6550 is certainly affordable, but it's UHF-only. This is great if you're in an area with a lot of GMRS users, but if you're not, you're going to be listening to a lot of radio silence. Hence, I think, the popularity of U/V CCRs both handheld and mobile. Yes, CCRs probably deserve the derision they get, but if even tossing a CCR in the dumpster because you find out amateur radio isn't your thing and nobody wantsto buy your CCR, you won't take a massive hit inasfar as what big boy toys can cost. But if your starting point furthers your interest, you can then invest in better stuff and gain some respect among your peers But if a CCR is all you're willing to afford for now that gets the job done, at least get a well-built one with really good customer support.

[gman1971]

Well. I understand the need for UV, I was there, I thought I needed many bands too, so I bought several Kenwood TH-F6a... with the fastest scan on a portable (at the time), all bands, all modes, etc... based on advice just like yours, that I needed all these things... but what I didn't know at the time was that all I really wanted/needed was one (1) lowly darn channel that worked, from anywhere within 20 miles of the base... without requiring using other people's infrastructure, ie everything else that wasn't my own hardware.

 

Since I've already afforded all of them, and in large quantities, from the BF-888s to the 400+ AT-578UV, and none of those worked as well as the "lowly" single band UHF 6550, I can safely claim that if you're interested in reliable comms then CCRs are not the droids, err, the radios you're looking for; and by reliable comms I mean simplex beyond 2 miles (sometimes more than 1/4 mile is historic for those things), that is. My BF-888s could hit repeaters 25 miles out... but anything tested with commercial GMRS repeaters is doomed to succeed... 

 

So, let me ask this question again: What radio would you have in your belt if something goes down? the one radio that can talk from DC to daylight, 1 gazillion contacts, the fanciest AMOLED screen on Earth, sixty hundred ringtones... etc, but you are unable to pick any signal, or a scratched up XPR6350 with just 32 channels, no display, no nothing, that actually picks up the signals when you might need them the most? I think its clear which radio we want to use. Same analogy for a phone, nobody buys a phone with no coverage, no matter how many apps, memory, CPU, etc, it might had. The main purpose of a phone is to communicate, and if it can do other things then that's great, but when you buy a phone you expect it to work everywhere...  and then, if it can run Call Of Duty Warzone at 4k 120fps, awesome... but in that order.

 

G.