Possible New Radio

[whitesox4life]

My fire department was recently informed that 2 of our mobile radios are not narrowband capable/compliant and thus are being replaced. I was wanting to get some advice as to whether or not I should try to snag one of these radios to use on the HAM band. The radios being replaced are: Kenwood TK-760 (dual head VHF) and a Motorola GM300 (VHF). I am leaning more towards the Kenwood due to having channel name capability. What is everyone's thoughts/advice?

 

[mmckenna]

I use a few GM300's on our ATV's. Great solid radios. Without any modifications they'll do down to 146.000. I think the <shift> key trick works on these, but I never tried it.

Getting the RIB, cable and software (legally) can be tricky for the GM300. Motorola doesn't support it any longer and doesn't sell it. E-bay has rib-less cables pretty cheap.

Kenwood TK-760 would be a nice radio, but I've never seen a dual head version. Are you sure it isn't a TK-790? Either way, a nice radio with a display.

 

[whitesox4life]

It is a dual head 760. It looks like a 790 but is old enough to not be narrowband.

 

[zz0468]

Grab them all if you can.

The Motorolas aren't really all that difficult to deal with. Clone RIBS from China are availabe on eBay for cheap. They work just fine. Cable are easy to make, and the software is "out there"on the internet.

Collecting all the programming stuff needed is an interesting exercise.

 

[Skypilot007]

There is no narrowbanding on the 2 meter band so either will work. Programming either will be the only minor problem you may have but as explained above it isn't that hard to aquire the software and cables for either of those radios. Have fun.

 

[MTS2000des]

These are great radios for 2m use. The programming cables can be had off Ebay for $15-20. You will need a computer with a real serial port. Other than that, have fun with them.

Commercial radios generally have better selectivity than ham stuff, so they work great in areas of high RF. They also tend to have louder and clearer RX audio, after all these are tools not toys. and they are built more rugged for daily use.