Future of my radios

[KG5HHS]

Hello all,
I live in a city that is currently using an 800mhz EDACS system. I monitor and host a feed with the Uniden BCD536HP. I also use a MA-COM P5100 (MAHM-S8RXX) & Orion (D28LPX) for monitoring them on the go. I use ProGrammer R18B02 to program them (set to not affiliate of course). I love being able to set up these radio's the way I want.
The city is in the process of switching over to a Harris P25 Phase II system soon. Many city departments including Police, Fire, & Utilities have already switched over to the Harris XG-25 series portable and mobile radios. I have priced these new radio's, programming software, and programming cables, and it is not worth it to me to go out and buy these.
I have read that some of the P7200 & M7200 radios will monitor P25 Phase II. I haven't read to much into it, as I don't really understand Phase II. If that is the case, What price range would I be looking at to get new radios? I'm thinking the easiest and most cost effective solution would to be to buy a Uniden BCD436HP for on the go monitoring.
Also, Once the Phase II system goes online and the EDACS goes offline, What other use could I have for my current radios other than monitoring some business and the 800mhz interoperability channels?

 

[ElroyJetson]

Plain old EDACS radios will be almost completely useless once the last EDACS system is shut down.

Yes, you are right, it will not be cost effective for most people to attempt to buy P25 Phase II radios and programming capabilities. A suitable scanner, or maybe an SDR radio with appropriate software, will be a more flexible and cost effective solution.

There's no way you can program P25 Phase II with ProGrammer 18 anyway. That takes RPM 9 at the very minimum.

Newer versions of RPM will be having more and more systems locked out so you can't even program them even with RPM unless you have license keys in your installation that permit access to those system IDs.

 

[KG5HHS]

I was afraid of that. Oh well. I don't know anything about SDR. The only thing I've seen about this was involving a scanner with a discriminator tap. I'm not willing to open up a scanner and messing around in there. does all SDR require this?

I ultimately want to be able to monitor the cities 800mhz P25 Phase II trunked system, The counties P25 Conventional system and future P25 Phase I trunked system , some county DMR Systems, Airport, hospital, and amateur radio. The P25 conv. system, airport, hospital, and amateur radio isn't a problem for me to monitor currently.

 

[KG5HHS]

I have started a thread in the SDR forum here:
http://forums.radioreference.com/software-defined-radio/342061-new-sdr.html#post2658746

 

[n0xvz]

Nothing to add, but I'm following...

 

[Prospect62]

Plain old EDACS radios will be almost completely useless once the last EDACS system is shut down.

Nothing to do with the OP, but I think that, at least in some areas, you will see EDACS vendors keeping the systems online for commercial use. Taxis, construction, pizza delivery, etc.

Where I am, many private companies pay to use the EDACS system (the same one large public safety agencies use) and since they aren't subject to the mandates of the public safety realm, I think they'll do whatever they can to stay put on that same system. My local EDACS vendor also allows anyone who wants access to get their own talkgroup and use the system for whatever they want for a small monthly fee. That said, my local vendor's EDACS system has been bought, paid for and all bugs worked out since about 1998 so I assume they'll keep it up and running for the forseeable future.

My point is, I don't think EDACS equipment will be rendered completely useless once public safety leaves. It's still amazing technology that, at least here, works wonderfully. Although our EDACS system is better than most (it's had a white paper written about it).