I'm a system admin, and I can tell you there's a lot of issues with this.
First, talk to the system admin for your department before you spend any money on anything. If they agree to let you put a personal radio on their system, get —EVERYTHING— in writing, department letterhead, and signed by someone who has the authority to do so. And do it before you buy anything. Verbal agreements are only as valuable as the paper they are written on….
FCC Part 90 rules are exceedingly clear on this. You, as a member of the agency, do not have the authority to simply add a radio to their system. The FCC rules state that the licensee is fully responsible for every. single. radio. on that system. That means that even though you want to pay for the radio, they are legally responsible for it. Your privately owned radio now the responsibility of a public agency, usually doesn't fly well with the legal types, but your agency may be different.
If your agency uses encryption, this is a whole different ball of wax. Putting encryption keys in a radio that the agency doesn't own should not sit well with the people in charge. It would technically be a violation of the FBI requirements that any devices used to handle CJI be under control of the agency.
Used radios are another red flag. The statements above about e-bay specials with no tags should raise some eyebrows at the radio shop if you show up with one of those. I've had to deal with this stuff before, and I will not program radios that show up like that. Doesn't matter what approval they have, it can be an FCC type certification issue.
The flashcode thing comes into play also. The radio needs to be configured to not only work on the same bands, but support the trunking system, etc. If you buy a radio that doesn't have the right flashcode, it won't be programmable on that system. It can be upgraded, but someone will have to pay for that upgrade.
Programming can also be a challenge. Usually the radio shop will have precanned files that they dump into new radios. Motorola software will usually look at the radio model and flashcode, and if it does not match what the file is written for, it will not program. If the entire programming file needs to be rejiggered for just your radio, that's some labor that someone has to pay for. Depending on the amount of changes, that can be easy or hard. Again, this was something that happened to me at work, and I finally had to put my foot down. Random flash code radios showing up and all needing a file specific for that radio. Just got to be too much labor to save someone else buying the correct radio.
I have no idea if your agency will allow this or not. That's for you and them to work out. But looking at this from a system admin point of view, I don't allow it to happen on our system. Hopefully your agency will approach this in a way that is more favorable to you.
Used radios utilized in public safety application that have been purchased from an unknown source need to have their alignment checked. Goes back to the FCC Licensee being responsible for all radios in use under the license, even one you purchase yourself. If it's a hacked together e-bay special, that goes ten fold. The agency should make sure alignment is done to make sure the radio is working correctly before putting it on the system. If they are a true radio shop, they'll have a service monitor that can do that easily. But it's agency labor spent on a personal radio, and that can be a conflict in some legal sense.
Let us know how it goes.
