How to program dual band ham as Uniden BCD996P2 scanner

I want the ability to use a ham radio primarily as a P25 scanner. Has anyone found a way with a dual band ham radio? I'm not limited to a certain brand. I'm just curious if it's possible.

I recently came across this Kenwood TM-D710G and a similar ICOM P25 radio. Would I be able to program these to receive police and fire P25 trunked frequencies for RX only? If not receiving trunked, would I at least be able to receive aircraft on AM? It appears aircraft bands are including on frequency specs.

I would love to have one device mounted in my car instead of 1 ham and 1 scanner.

Kenwood link:
TM-D710GA | Amateur Radio | Communications | KENWOOD USA

I'd be willing to bet the farm that that radio will not work on P25. Why do you think it will work on P25?

Frank

You're thinking about this backwards.

Buy a P25 radio and program P25 frequencies and ham radio frequencies into it.

This is a non-starter in any case. At least so far, no ham transceiver can do trunking - so if you're trying to listen to your local trunked system, you can't do it - you could only listen to each frequency in the site, and never really follow a conversation. To me, at least, that kills this project. You could, however, program the ham transceiver to listen in on any conventional rebroadcasts from the trunk system.

Mike

Scott

just buy a Digital Scanner then your problems is all done you can even program ham frequency's in the scanner.

I don't think this is an amateur radio issue.

Thread moved to General Scanning.

The TM-D710G is a pretty expensive radio. (About $600). One thing you're paying for is a built in terminal node controller TNC. This makes the radio AX25 packet capable). The radio also has GPS and the firmware is set up to use the TNC as an APRS tracker.

You don't mention whether or not you're licensed to use the radio and whether or not you want to get on APRS. If not, it would be a colossal waste of money. You can get a nice receive only scanner that will do aircraft AM, digital modes like P25 and DMR and trunk tracking for what you'd spend on the Kenwood.

Unless you need to transmit, forget the ham radio and just get a scanner. You can get a top-of-the-line digital trunking scanner Uniden BCD536HP for about $500.Trying to get any ham radio to be a scanner is a waste of money. They won't scan as fast as an actual scanner, can't do multiple trunked systems, and can't automatically adjust what they scan based on location.

FKimble said:

I'd be willing to bet the farm that that radio will not work on P25. Why do you think it will work on P25?

Frank

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Great information guys.* Sorry for the delayed response since I have been out of town for a couple of days.

FKimble, you are correct cause I didn't fully develop my thought on that comment.* My mindset was adding a physical decoder to receive and translate P25 data.* Really I just like the look of the Kenwood remote head so I'm trying to find a way to make it work, but it sounds impractical the more I read.* Plus, the last decoder and filters I used was nearly 20 years ago when trunking was new so Kenwood may have a way through software to negate any add-on equipment.

I'm thinking pinballwiz86 is right which is where I was going with the Icom.* It's just easier to start P25 and use it as a scanner. Right now I have 3 radios so my dream is narrowing to 1 radio that does it all. Plus I have been thinking of echo link for a few years but have yet to pull the trigger. I'll just keep the radios separate for now, but thanks for the feedback.

scott said:

Right now I have 3 radios so my dream is narrowing to 1 radio that does it all.

Click to expand...

Again, no ham radio really does what a scanner does. The Uniden x36 scanners can receive and decode all of the major trunked systems except NXDN, (P25, DMR/MotoTRBO, ProVoice, EDACS, and LTR). AFAIK no HAM radio does more than 2 system types at any price. HAM radios also do not do trunking, and do not scan as quickly as an actual scanner. And very few HAM radios will adjust what they monitor in real time based on GPS location.

Get a good scanner to meet all your RX/monitoring needs, and then select a HAM radio based on who you intend to talk to. No one radio really does it all.

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