Kenwood: Considering running Kenwood TM-D710 head in two different vehicles

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62Scout

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My main mobile radio is currently a Kenwood TM-D710A that I have installed in one of my trucks, but that truck is only a weekend trail truck for me. I recently moved to a new house, that has considerably lengthened my commute (went from roughly 15 minutes one way to 55 minutes one way), and am now considering putting a mobile in my commuting truck as well.

For me, ham was always about the utility aspect from day 1, largely due to the extreme limitations of CB radio while in the back country and the desire to have better communications abilities in the case of emergency, so having a radio in my daily driver that was virtually always in cell phone range was never really a consideration of mine (plus I didn't really want to start popping holes for antennas and cabling in a vehicle I had quite a bit of money wrapped up in, lol).

Fast forward a few years, that daily driver truck has taken a bit of body damage after using it as an off road/camping vehicle for a bit, and eventually I figured a couple 3/4" holes for an NMO in the roof was the least of my value destroying considerations :D and I now have an NMO mount in the roof along with a bed stake hole mount I made up about a year ago, and for a short time I had the Kenwood in it along with a cheapie CB for trail use.

I eventually moved it all over to the trail truck when I bought it, and am now back to considering what to put in the DD for the commuting time as I'll be leaving the Kenwood in the trail truck.

I started looking at new mobile radios to see what's available, and found that I'm looking at around $300 starting for dual band mobiles now, then realized I could buy a TM-V71A for about $350 locally at HRO. I remember reading that the D710A head could be used on V71 body, and it got me thinking....while I don't foresee myself with a need for the additional features of the the D710 while commuting, having the "just in case" ability would be nice, along with not having to learn how to use another radio.

Would it be a feasible idea to install the V71 body in the DD, then just transfer the D710 head back and forth between vehicles as needed? Seems simple and logical enough to me, but having never done such a thing, I don't know if there are gotchas in there that I'm not thinking about.
 

chief21

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This might not be much help, but everything I've read over the years indicates that the V71 and the D710 use the same radio body and are fully interchangeable. But if you buy a V71 you're going to have a V71 head anyway, so why not use that in the DD (or vice versa)? The controls/menus/etc. are similar.

On the other hand... you could purchase a Kenwood RC-710 control head to mount in the other vehicle and switch the D710 radio body back and forth, rather than the control head. Might be a little cheaper, especially if you could find a used one. And - as I understand it - the operation would be virtually identical.

These Kenwoods are good rigs! Good luck.

John - AC4JK
 

cmdrwill

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This might not be much help, but everything I've read over the years indicates that the V71 and the D710 use the same radio body and are fully interchangeable. But if you buy a V71 you're going to have a V71 head anyway, so why not use that in the DD (or vice versa)? The controls/menus/etc. are similar. These Kenwoods are good rigs! Good luck.John - AC4JK

That is what we have found, the radio is the same. But I prefer the V71 controls. We have two V71 radios in each of two different City EOC's, They work GREAT!
 

AK9R

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I am currently running a TM-V71 control head on a TM-D710 RF deck. The V71 RF deck started getting deaf (well-documented Kenwood receive filter issue) and I haven't had time to send it back to Kenwood for repair. So, in the meantime, I put the RF deck from my spare D710 in its place.
 

62Scout

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This might not be much help, but everything I've read over the years indicates that the V71 and the D710 use the same radio body and are fully interchangeable. But if you buy a V71 you're going to have a V71 head anyway, so why not use that in the DD (or vice versa)? The controls/menus/etc. are similar.

On the other hand... you could purchase a Kenwood RC-710 control head to mount in the other vehicle and switch the D710 radio body back and forth, rather than the control head. Might be a little cheaper, especially if you could find a used one. And - as I understand it - the operation would be virtually identical.

These Kenwoods are good rigs! Good luck.

John - AC4JK

One of the draws to the 710 for me was the slightly larger display, and the ability to show both the frequency and alpha tag at the same time...the radio I was using before would show either the freq OR the alpha tag, but not both, and every now and then I'd get someone asking what frequency I was on...followed by invariably screwing up the memories trying to figure out how to get the display to switch, lol. Of course, the built in TNC and APRS abilities certainly wasn't a detraction either.

Moving the bodies back and forth would be a considerable pain, as I typically have them installed under a seat, or behind panels. The head would be simple to swap back and forth - unplug two cables, and slide it off the mount. I've been searching for both used V71s and D710s for a while, hoping to find one where the head was dead or missing, with no luck. Even complete radios often seem to come with asking prices higher than a brand new radio would cost me, with lower offers being met with "good luck trying to find them cheaper new!".

I figured I'd give the V71 head a shot, and it likely would serve my day to day needs just fine, with the option of being able to occasionally plug the D710 head in if I'll be needing the APRS or TNC that day.
 
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