My agency uses a conventional system at present but has plans to upgrade. The radios are also UHF1/VHF as they are programmed with the frequencies off all the other local agencies both in our county and surrounding counties for inter agency assistance. I don't know of any other dual band portable that is programmable for the same frequency ranges.
Hi again,
Sounds like you are leaning hard towards an APX, which is of course your decision. Again, based on my interpretation of your situation (retired, unpaid, having to use personal funds, etc.) I wouldn't do it man.
As others have said, due to the high prices involved and the complexity of the radios, buying a used APX is very risky. And something we haven't touched upon yet is that I assume you don't yet know what this future "upgrade" of your radio system will be. It could be to 700/800mhz, or, even if you could buy a used APX with the appropriate bands in it right now, you would not know what features to seek in the radio to match your future system. Buying something now and blindly stumbling into the right features on a used radio is not likely to happen. Even if the APX was fundamentally suitable to work on your future system, there's a strong chance you would someday have to flash the radio (more $$$).
Not trying to lean on you or impose, but I just wouldn't do it. If this was money coming out of my pocket, and you guys currently use analog conventional UHF and VHF, I would probably buy a couple of mobiles for my ride to cover both bands and one portable for UHF (the primary police radio). Or maybe a second VHF portable of the same type so batteries/accessores can be shared. I can't imagine as a retired part time investigator that you would ever have a need for both bands at the same time anyway. Use the UHF for your daily work and swap batteries and fire up the VHF if you go out of county and need it.
You can get a decent enough analog conventional portable or mobile (what I assume would fit your needs) for probably a couple hundred-ish bucks each and up. If you want to roll the dice and get digital capable radios, you can count on a thousand-ish each, but I wouldn't do that either. I'd buy the cheaper radios and replace/upgrade as needed, not blow a bunch of money up front hoping I made the right decision.
I'd much rather safely spend 400-500 bucks on a sure thing for now than gamble a couple thousand on something that may or may not work, and may need more money dumped into it in the future. Of course, that's just an opinion.
Again, good luck no matter what you choose to do.