Comments on commercial radios for Ham use, analog/digital.

[Lscott]

I’ve been looking at picking up some more commercial radios, analog/digital, for Ham radio.

Some models I’ve been looking at are Kenwood TK-200 and TK-300, then I was looking at the Motorola XPR-6550’s (VHF/UHF) types. I have a buddy that has the XPR-6550.

The older Kenwood stuff I’ve had good luck finding the programming software. I also have the accessories including the programming cables to fit them from the other radios I have already. These will work on the models I’m looking at.

The Motorola radios I have zero for them. I would have to make an investment in cables, battery packs and chargers. The software is my major concern. I need to find it really cheap or less. Further it has to program the radio in both wide and narrow band modes. I also don’t know if you can force the radios to go out of band like the Kenwood radios if the band split is above the Ham band. For example the Kenwood 450-490 band split I can enter, with a warning, frequencies below 450 and get the radios to work down to 440, maybe a bit lower.

I stumbled on a review of the XPR-7550 and XPR-6550 on YouTube by a Ham for Ham applications. The comments about the XPR-6550 being limited to 16 channels per scan list seems very limiting for me. I do a lot of passive scanning with my radios, frequently with more than 16 channels being active. The XPR-7550 apparently doesn’t have that limitation but costs significantly more than the XPR-6550 and used some kind of weird antenna jack. The XPR-6550 I can find on the big auction site for $100 more or less in good condition if I shop carefully and wait for a good deal.

 

[Lscott]

Oops. The Kenwood models should have been the NX-200 NX-300 radios.

https://comms.kenwood.com/common/pdf/download/301_NX200-300.pdf
 

Motorola

https://www.motorolasolutions.com/content/dam/msi/docs/business/products/two-way_radios/portable_radios/wide_area_large_business_portable_radios/xpr_6500/_documents/static_files/mototrbo_portable_spec_sheet.pdf

[gman1971]

The VXD-720 from Vertex Standard (The same radio as the XPR6550) doesn't have the scan list limited to 16 channels. Worth looking into it.

The XPR 7550e can only have 16 channel scan lists as well. At leas on CPS 16.

G.

[gortex2]

As an FYI not sure why people think they need to scan 100 channels. If your scanning more that 10-16 channels you most likely are missing a ton. The CCR market scan but its so slow you can miss complete conversations. I run all MSI equipment as Ive stated before and never ran into "oh poop i can't scan that too" . When home there is only about 2 VHF 2MTR repeaters in my area and with PS channels I still dont fill 16 channels. I guess if your live in a major metropolitan area and have 50 repeaters to choose from it may be critical but I just don't get it. Even when i lived in NY I never listened to more than a couple of repeaters. Now the only common channel in my scan list is 146.520 and if on UHF the UHF call channel. When using a ham repeater I just tune to that repeater. 

[Lscott]

9 hours ago, kb2ztx said:

As an FYI not sure why people think they need to scan 100 channels. If your scanning more that 10-16 channels you most likely are missing a ton. The CCR market scan but its so slow you can miss complete conversations. I run all MSI equipment as Ive stated before and never ran into "oh poop i can't scan that too" . When home there is only about 2 VHF 2MTR repeaters in my area and with PS channels I still dont fill 16 channels. I guess if your live in a major metropolitan area and have 50 repeaters to choose from it may be critical but I just don't get it. Even when i lived in NY I never listened to more than a couple of repeaters. Now the only common channel in my scan list is 146.520 and if on UHF the UHF call channel. When using a ham repeater I just tune to that repeater. 

I typically scan the FRS and MURS channels along with several business frequencies with my radios. The Chinese radios scan rather slowly so yeah, you can miss stuff. The Kenwood TH-D74A however scans much faster. From a few tests, if I remember right, it looks like it does about 26 to 27 channels in a bit over 1 second. You don’t miss much. It’s the fastest scanning HT I own at the moment.

[gman1971]

I ended up buying a scanner to scan... who knew it worked so well...

G.

[tweiss3]

4 hours ago, gman1971 said:

I ended up buying a scanner to scan... who knew it worked so well...

G.

Yea, the SDS in the car does a wonderful job of picking up all the needed traffic, including CB19

[DeoVindice]

I recently picked up an NX-200K for 2m. It's a nice radio; I prefer police/military radios like the EFJ5100 and Motorola's XTS series but am happy with that little Kenwood.

Being limited to a 16-channel scan list (the NX-200/300 can scan the whole radio if you'd like...) isn't the end of the world. Around me I have two (soon to be three) GMRS repeaters, two 70cm repeaters, and a couple simplex frequencies that I scan. On VHF, there's three 2m repeaters, 146.52, the county's common LE dispatch, fire dispatch, and ambulance dispatch. 16 is more than enough.

[Lscott]

9 minutes ago, DeoVindice said:

I recently picked up an NX-200K for 2m.

Did you just get it the other day on an eBay auction?

[DeoVindice]

2 hours ago, Lscott said:

Did you just get it the other day on an eBay auction?

A couple weeks ago, but yes. I purchased it from Cahaba Valley FD.

[Lscott]

OK, I was bidding on an NX-300 and somebody beat me by a few bucks.

[MichaelLAX]

36 minutes ago, Lscott said:

OK, I was bidding on an NX-300 and somebody beat me by a few bucks.

The way eBay work, they always beat you by only a few bucks because it exceeds your maximum bid. 
 

You have no way of knowing how high the purchaser would have gone, if you had a higher maximum bidding against him. 

[Lscott]

5 minutes ago, MichaelLAX said:

The way eBay work, they always beat you by only a few bucks because it exceeds your maximum bid. 
 

You have no way of knowing how high the purchaser would have gone, if you had a higher maximum bidding against him. 

Yup, that's how I snagged an almost new TK-5320 analog/P25 radio, used battery pack and charger base, no antenna. The current bid was around $70. I waited until 15 seconds before the auction closed to enter mine. I let eBay do the auto bidding with the max bid limit of $120. The other guy apparently had a max bid set for $108, I saw it after the action closed, and no time to increase it. I got lucky and walk away with it for $110.

[gman1971]

sniping sometimes works on eBay, but it might not work if the other person is determined to have it. 

 

G.

[axorlov]

Yep, this is why I just set my absolute maximum in my first bid, and never up it. If people want to play games, sure, it's a free country. Or they may need the stuff more than I do. Or they are wealthier than I'm. It's all good.

[Lscott]

Sure, you can set a max bid then walk away. However the bidding never really seems to start until just minutes before the auction closes. A few times I was the only bidder. Still can't figure out why that happened. There was nothing wrong with the radio. I guess at the time nobody wanted it.

[Lscott]

12 hours ago, gman1971 said:

sniping sometimes works on eBay, but it might not work if the other person is determined to have it. 

 

G.

Yup. in the case of the TK-5320 the other guy had a much higher bid limit set. I'm sure he thought he was going to get a really good deal. I could see where it appeared he made more that one bid, but the amount displayed didn't change. I figured he had adjusted his max bid up a bit.

I also look at the number of items a bidder has purchased. When you see 100's to 1000 plus purchases you know the bidder is likely looking for that cheap deal where all they want is to flip it later for more money. You very rarely see them bidding up an item. It's the low purchase number bidders you have to watch out for, those are the people that run the bid amounts way up.

Buying stuff on eBay has a lot to do with the psychology of the other bidders, and sometimes the sellers. A few times I've sent a message to a seller asking if they will take about 2/3 of their "buy it now" price even it they don't offer a "best offer" option. You would be surprised how many sellers consider it and a number took my offer! Squeezing every last cent out of a buyer isn't their goal.They just wanted to sell the item and be done with it. If you don't ask you won't know.

[gman1971]

1 hour ago, Lscott said:

Yup. in the case of the TK-5320 the other guy had a much higher bid limit set. I'm sure he thought he was going to get a really good deal. I could see where it appeared he made more that one bid, but the amount displayed didn't change. I figured he had adjusted his max bid up a bit.

I also look at the number of items a bidder has purchased. When you see 100's to 1000 plus purchases you know the bidder is likely looking for that cheap deal where all they want is to flip it later for more money. You very rarely see them bidding up an item. It's the low purchase number bidders you have to watch out for, those are the people that run the bid amounts way up.

Buying stuff on eBay has a lot to do with the psychology of the other bidders, and sometimes the sellers. A few times I've sent a message to a seller asking if they will take about 2/3 of their "buy it now" price even it they don't offer a "best offer" option. You would be surprised how many sellers consider it and a number took my offer! Squeezing every last cent out of a buyer isn't their goal.They just wanted to sell the item and be done with it. If you don't ask you won't know.

You are luckier than I am then... I rarely get 10% off buy it nows, etc... the only way to get a deal is by snipping stuff and being lucky...

G.

[AdmiralCochrane]

On 9/13/2021 at 1:25 PM, gman1971 said:

You are luckier than I am then... I rarely get 10% off buy it nows, etc... the only way to get a deal is by snipping stuff and being lucky...

G.

I laugh at the 5% off offers, they are a joke

[Lscott]

2 hours ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

I laugh at the 5% off offers, they are a joke

I just got a 7% off offer on a NX-200. Not biting on this. The seller has a huge number of radios being sold in other ads, different models. Sooner or later he’ll get tired of the inventory not moving. Out of 25 units of the above radio he’s only sold 2 in the past week. I’ll wait for a better deal. He won’t lower the price on single units per a response to a “best offer” option in his ad. Oh well he can keep them. I just buy radios as a hobby to add to my growing collection, I really don’t have a burning urgent need for them. I can afford to pass up ads if I don’t like the price or the seller doesn’t want to deal.

[gman1971]

True, but remember that 5% over the course of a bunch of radios does add up... 

I guess the waiting game is a valid game to play, if you have time to spare...

 

G.

[Lscott]

2 hours ago, gman1971 said:

True, but remember that 5% over the course of a bunch of radios does add up... 

I guess the waiting game is a valid game to play, if you have time to spare...

 

G.

Since I don't really need the radios for critical communications I can afford to wait for a good deal. That's part of the fun collecting them, finding a good deal.

The second part is trying to discover where the radio came from originally. I managed to find this out on just a few. The best one came from "Nine Mile Point Nuclear Station" out east. I think another poster knew about it and commented they replaced all their analog radios with digital. Nice confirmation of what I figured out from the names in the memory tag fields and frequencies programmed in to the radio.