Hecto,
Welcome, let me see if I can help you out.
Bear with me, when a new member with 1 post asks detailed questions like this, it takes some work to answer without going into too much detail or not enough.
Hi guys I’m new here I am also new to radios. I am a school bus driver and we have the Vertex Standard Vx2200 they are programmed in conventional. Any ways I bought a kenwood 820HG-k Type D it’s a used unit the privoius owner said he was using it in conventional it was not trruncked. I paid around $300.00 for the unit I ordered the software 141D only to find out that it does not read the unit. So much researching I did I ended up confused I read that once these radios are programmed they can’t be programmed by anyone else but the original owner
Not exactly….
These radios have the ability to be programmed with a read password, a write password or a read/write password. If the person who programmed the radio previously set it up to require a password to program the radio, they you'll need to get that password from them. Always a risk when buying a used radio.
There are some ways around this, but I won't go into them as it goes pretty deep and exposes you and/or the radio to some risks.
Trunking or conventional doesn't matter. If you are programming for conventional and the radio doesn't have a password, you're on the right track.
like I said the original owner got them programmed for conventional use. He said he did not use any of the trucnking features. So I serched and found out that the software for the D Type is 176DNK I Found it for $75.00 but I am not sure if I should spend more money and at the end for it not to work Please some one advise.
KPG-176DNK is the correct programming software for that radio.
As for if you should invest another $75.00 on this, that's up to you, but….
-The radio may or may not have the read/write password set up on it.
-The VX-2200 can be VHF
OR UHF. The NX-820 is UHF. You need to make sure that the system you want to listen in on is UHF before investing any more money.
-Programming these radios isn't horribly difficult, but unless you have some experience programming professional 2 way radios before, you need to stop and think about what you are doing. There are some very important technical details you need to understand before even thinking about transmitting, so I'd strongly encourage you to NOT go down that road.
-If you plan on -just- listening to their system and NOT transmitting, then that's fine.
-If you plan on transmitting with this radio, then you need to STOP and get permission from the licensee before doing so. As an employee of a company, you do not automatically have permission to access their radio systems. As an individual, you do not have an FCC license to do this. You absolutely need to get permission -in-writing- from the agency that is licensed by the FCC for this radio system. No exceptions.
If you are just going to listen, then save the $75 and just get a scanner. As it is, you've already spent a bunch on this radio, add in the software, antenna, etc. and it's going to get expensive.
My question is if the radio was only originally programmed to be used in a conversational mode will I be able to use the software to program the radio myself. ? Thanks in advance
See above. Answer is "maybe". Depends if it's been set up with a password, if it's the correct band, etc.
