I just bought a new kenwood tk2180 hand held from my kenwood dealer and i guess kenwood has created a new firmware option of a tactical feature set which creates a command zone and field programming in that zone was this done with the idea of cal fire going to all kenwoods instead of the kings? the option is avalable on all of the x180 series portables and mobiles.
Is Cal Fire gonna change radios?
- Thread starter SCPD
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interesting the kings are definatly a work horse but the kenwoods seem so much more practical in size and features
Eng74
Member
The thing with the Kings is yes they are bricks and the act like bricks. They can take a lot of use on the fireground that a Kenwood or even a Motorola would go belly up with. I dare say that they are almost firefighter proof. At the stations here each engine or truck has 3 Motorola's and the station has two King's. When they are sent out of county the Motorals stay home and the Kings go. I think everyone uses them.
The Kings are also the easiest and most straight forward radios to program in the field that I've ever seen. The most likely reason that Kings are sent out of county is that the comm unit on large fires keep a few master Kings with the program used for the incident. The radios for a crew are then cloned quite quickly when they arrive at the ICP. At fires that have just escaped initial attack someone with a King and a bit of time is usually tasked with cloning the radios for arrving units. Kings are pretty much the universal handheld of wildland fire management.
As for durability, I have an old surplus EPH model and have dropped it from 7 feet onto concrete twice. The second time took a small chip from one of the corners. TX and RX were not affected at all. The wildland fire environment is very tough on radios and the Kings hold up well in that environment.
They work great for wilderness rangers also. The battery alone for one of them weighs more and is larger in dimension that my triple band Kenwood TH-F6A handheld, but the bombproof nature of the King is far superior to the Kenwood. What a pain to carry though. I fixed up a mount on my backpack waist belt that received the belt carrier (the turn them upside down to remove them type) of the King. After 15+ miles with a full pack this arrangement got old, but I never found anything that worked better.
As for durability, I have an old surplus EPH model and have dropped it from 7 feet onto concrete twice. The second time took a small chip from one of the corners. TX and RX were not affected at all. The wildland fire environment is very tough on radios and the Kings hold up well in that environment.
They work great for wilderness rangers also. The battery alone for one of them weighs more and is larger in dimension that my triple band Kenwood TH-F6A handheld, but the bombproof nature of the King is far superior to the Kenwood. What a pain to carry though. I fixed up a mount on my backpack waist belt that received the belt carrier (the turn them upside down to remove them type) of the King. After 15+ miles with a full pack this arrangement got old, but I never found anything that worked better.
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A testament to the kings durability....Watch the video at the top of the page
49er Communications » 2 Way Radios by Manufacturer » Bendix King » Handheld Radios
49er Communications » 2 Way Radios by Manufacturer » Bendix King » Handheld Radios
smokeybehr
Member
CalFire and OES are migrating over to the TK-5710 mobiles, because the radios have the P-25 capability and are a simple head and T/R deck swap, with no need to change cabling around. When I was picking up a cache of DPH-CMD radios at OES HQ, one of the guys had a 5210 that he was playing around with, and he told me about the plan to do the radio swap in all of the apparatus.
OES isn't buying any more VHF 5100 series Johnson radios, simply because of the incompatibility with all of the BK radios that are out there. I don't think that they are going to get rid of the ones that they have any time soon, though.
CalFire is sticking with the GPH-CMD and DPH-CMD HT radios because of all of the accessories that are still floating around out there, and it's a common radio on every wildland fire.
OES isn't buying any more VHF 5100 series Johnson radios, simply because of the incompatibility with all of the BK radios that are out there. I don't think that they are going to get rid of the ones that they have any time soon, though.
CalFire is sticking with the GPH-CMD and DPH-CMD HT radios because of all of the accessories that are still floating around out there, and it's a common radio on every wildland fire.
We received our 5210's and 5710's last week via a
regional federal grant.
User-defined Tactical group, 512 channels
, narrowband
capable and P25 for federal interop.
I think the CalFire migration will be quite a bit slower due to
current State of California budget issues, unless they get some federal
funds.
These things were NOT cheap, but still about 1/2 the cost of a Motorola.
regional federal grant.
User-defined Tactical group, 512 channels
, narrowbandcapable and P25 for federal interop.
I think the CalFire migration will be quite a bit slower due to
current State of California budget issues, unless they get some federal
funds.
These things were NOT cheap, but still about 1/2 the cost of a Motorola.
MCIAD
Member
A couple of points - and this may be redundant, but . . .
RE: CalFIRE and the TK-5710. These are just new, upgraded, versions of the venerable TK-790 that are P25 capable. The "Command" group, which is in essence a virtual group, already existed in the CDF version of the TK-790 as provided by Silverado Communications. They re-designed/programmed/fixed the firmware to allow 254 channels (instead of the standard 160), the capability to change CTCSS tones "on-the-fly", and a virtual command group that can be created from any channel, in any group, in the -790 program. I have one installed in my truck, and love it. Not quite as easy to program as the BK EMH or GMH mobiles (must have an OLD PC/Notebook to do it), but the feature set is right on.
RE: BK portables. I am a carded INCM, and often times when deployed, will assist the COMT's with cloning and/or programming the EPH/GPH/GPH-CMD HT's. I have also gone out to spike camps when no COMT is available to do some field cloning. My personal record is approx 200 radios cloned by just me, in about 20-25 minutes. It helped that I had the Master Clone Plug made by Silverado (see a theme here?), that allows programming any of these radios without needing to use master radio, it is just a plug. Really makes it easy and fast. I have also seen a large camp, 1000+ on the line, get a new 205 issued, and therefor a whole scale re-cloning of ALL radios. We had 3 or 4 persons doing the cloning, and as long as they showed up with BK's (NB capable EPH's and up) there were NO problems. The only thing that slowed us down were the crews that showed up with Racal or Ericsson radios, which were not clonable (at least by us) and somebody had to get them programmed separately.
And, on a personal note, I have had a personal Bendix-King, then BK Radio, since my first LPH that I bought in 1985. I have only replaced the radios, progressing from LPH, to EPH, to GMH, to GPH-CMD, when the technology got outdated and I needed something more for my career. From being dropped on pavement, cooked in Structure and Wildland fires, rain, snow, Santa Ana winds, etc., a BK radio has never failed me. It is the Timex watch of radios - they just keep on ticking.
RE: CalFIRE and the TK-5710. These are just new, upgraded, versions of the venerable TK-790 that are P25 capable. The "Command" group, which is in essence a virtual group, already existed in the CDF version of the TK-790 as provided by Silverado Communications. They re-designed/programmed/fixed the firmware to allow 254 channels (instead of the standard 160), the capability to change CTCSS tones "on-the-fly", and a virtual command group that can be created from any channel, in any group, in the -790 program. I have one installed in my truck, and love it. Not quite as easy to program as the BK EMH or GMH mobiles (must have an OLD PC/Notebook to do it), but the feature set is right on.
RE: BK portables. I am a carded INCM, and often times when deployed, will assist the COMT's with cloning and/or programming the EPH/GPH/GPH-CMD HT's. I have also gone out to spike camps when no COMT is available to do some field cloning. My personal record is approx 200 radios cloned by just me, in about 20-25 minutes. It helped that I had the Master Clone Plug made by Silverado (see a theme here?), that allows programming any of these radios without needing to use master radio, it is just a plug. Really makes it easy and fast. I have also seen a large camp, 1000+ on the line, get a new 205 issued, and therefor a whole scale re-cloning of ALL radios. We had 3 or 4 persons doing the cloning, and as long as they showed up with BK's (NB capable EPH's and up) there were NO problems. The only thing that slowed us down were the crews that showed up with Racal or Ericsson radios, which were not clonable (at least by us) and somebody had to get them programmed separately.
And, on a personal note, I have had a personal Bendix-King, then BK Radio, since my first LPH that I bought in 1985. I have only replaced the radios, progressing from LPH, to EPH, to GMH, to GPH-CMD, when the technology got outdated and I needed something more for my career. From being dropped on pavement, cooked in Structure and Wildland fires, rain, snow, Santa Ana winds, etc., a BK radio has never failed me. It is the Timex watch of radios - they just keep on ticking.
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