Dual band

ff-medic · Nov 19, 2014

Well, a little history here.

At one time, we had ALL Motorola handheld radios - some Motorola mobiles in the worker bee vehicles and a Kenwood Dual band radio in the Supervisors vehicle.

Then we went to all Motorola radios - portables and mobiles.

I liked the simplicity of the old Kenwood mobile radio we had in the old supervisors vehicle.

We got new vehicles about a month ago, and instead of just transferring the Motorola mobiles ( XPR series ) from the old vehicles to the new vehicles, they are going to get new mobile radios. Our current vehicles do nto have mobile radios in them.....which at times we really need.

I have been saying for years that we need Dual band radios in the trucks. Our agency is UHF, and the County we are in is VHF.

I asked one of the foreman last week, or two weeks ago when we were going to get mobiles installed in our vehicles, and asked if we could get dual band mobiles. He said we could not get dual band radios, because we were "Moto-Trbo" ( Digital ). Which I did not believe so, and just checked this morning by adding our radio frequency into a scanner ( Uniden BC 248 CLT ) and hearing our analog radio traffic clear.

If I can talk them into the deal, what is a good Kenwood VHF & UHF dual band mobile. I have been away from Kenwood radios for awhile, please excuse me.

FF - Medic !!!

cabletech · Nov 19, 2014

Kenwood does not have a dual band commercial radio on the market.

They do have a cross over kit available to take two radios and do a single head or a single radio and add a second head.

This can be done with the high tier mobile radios.

If you any of this, you still will not be able to monitor both bands at the same time.

Even if you go to Motorola's dual band you can not monitor both bands.

ff-medic · Nov 19, 2014

cabletech said:
Kenwood does not have a dual band commercial radio on the market.

They do have a cross over kit available to take two radios and do a single head or a single radio and add a second head.

This can be done with the high tier mobile radios.

If you any of this, you still will not be able to monitor both bands at the same time.

Even if you go to Motorola's dual band you can not monitor both bands.

OK. I do not think I can talk them into a Vertex. I might, and prefer a Vertex Dual band, BUT since they are all familiar adn have previously used Kenwood, I thought I could do that.

I was hoping for a 16 channel dual band that you could program any radio frequency ( UHF / VHF ) into, and have the convenience of channel 1 being the priority channel. Like I said, I have not dealt with Kenwoods lately.....so you will have to look over me. There was a time I seen a Kenwood once a day, not I am lucky to see one - Mobile or handheld - once a year.

Sooooooo, it looks like Vertex is the way to go then.

And it might be cheaper.

Thanks for the information...............FF - Medic !!!

Duster · Nov 23, 2014

cabletech said:
Kenwood does not have a dual band commercial radio on the market.

They do have a cross over kit available to take two radios and do a single head or a single radio and add a second head.

This can be done with the high tier mobile radios.

If you any of this, you still will not be able to monitor both bands at the same time.

Even if you go to Motorola's dual band you can not monitor both bands.

With all due respect, you CAN monitor both bands at once with the Kenwood dual band. I only used one personally for a short time, but I have been a Kenwood 90-series user and programmer for a long time.

The Kenwood system uses the TK-x90 series radios as the base. You can dual-band any two of the three bandwidths (690 VHF-Lo, 790 VHF-Hi, 890 UHF). It takes two radio decks (the box) and runs a cable from each into a single radio control head (can also be set up as a dual head system, but I've never used one of those). That single head will control both boxes as a single radio. From the user end, it appears to be one radio. In the most common instance (at least out here) a VHF-H 790 is doubled with a UHF 890. On your radio display, you can have VHF and UHF channels interspersed in the channel and scan list, and they operate pretty seamlessly. The caveat here is that you will still only have the maximum number of channels of a single deck. That means that if you have two stock decks, the standard channel set is 160 channels. After dual-banding, you will still only have a maximum of 160 channels. Doubling the decks does not double your channel memory.

I THINK you can also dual-band the 5x10-series (the digital-capable upgraded version of the x90-series), but I've not personally seen one or heard of it being done. I may be wrong about that.

Duster · Nov 23, 2014

ff-medic said:
OK. I do not think I can talk them into a Vertex. I might, and prefer a Vertex Dual band, BUT since they are all familiar adn have previously used Kenwood, I thought I could do that.

I was hoping for a 16 channel dual band that you could program any radio frequency ( UHF / VHF ) into, and have the convenience of channel 1 being the priority channel. Like I said, I have not dealt with Kenwoods lately.....so you will have to look over me. There was a time I seen a Kenwood once a day, not I am lucky to see one - Mobile or handheld - once a year.

Sooooooo, it looks like Vertex is the way to go then.

And it might be cheaper.

Thanks for the information...............FF - Medic !!!

You can do exactly what you want to do with the x90-series Kenwood. Unfortunately, they don't make a lower-tier radio that is dual-band capable, so you're going to have 160 channels to play with. If your chiefs don't mind used, these radios are ALWAYS on *Bay, and often already in dual-band configuration. The radios are bullet-proof and I seldom have problems with them.

The state agency I work for uses them statewide and has for years...they are both firefighter- and chief-proof. We started buying the 5710 (the P25 capable version) a few years ago, but we don't have that many of them, because we don't often have to replace the 790's that we already have They are just that well built. The analog-only 90's are in use everywhere, and I personally own one of each band, all bought off the Bay, and all without problems.

You can often pick up a single band 90 in the $200 range (sometimes less), and the ready to go dual-band setups are in the 400-500 range. That is not a bad price for what you are getting. If those prices are within your range, its worth looking at. They are also very easy to program if you have someone with a little radio knowledge and some common sense. I love these radios, and will use one until they force me to stop by going to a system the Kenwoods won't cover.

mrweather · Nov 24, 2014

Duster said:
With all due respect, you CAN monitor both bands at once with the Kenwood dual band. I only used one personally for a short time, but I have been a Kenwood 90-series user and programmer for a long time.

I have a TK-790/890 dual-band single-head and I can certainly scan channels from each band 'til the cows come home but I can't simultaneously monitor one channel from the 790 and one channel from the 890 like some dual-band ham radio transceivers can (such as the Kenwood TM-V71A). The control head simply doesn't have the functionality.

Note: this is not the same as "Priority Channel" where if you're on a channel the radio watches the pre-programmed priority channel and automatically reverts to it if a signal is received.

Duster · Nov 24, 2014

Ahhh. I see what you mean. I've never seen that functionality on a public safety grade radio.

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Duster · Nov 24, 2014

I also have the Silverado upgrade in my taos, so if i need to only monitor certain channels, i build them in a command group.

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Dual band

ff-medic

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cabletech

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ff-medic

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Duster

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Duster

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mrweather

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Duster

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Duster

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