Anyone know if the 9000 supports VHF/UHF amateur radio repeaters? Specifically if you can set tones and offsets? I looked through the manual and didn't see anything mentioned in this topic. I know it covers the amateur bands, but not sure if it's simplex only.
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Amateur repeater support on BKR9000?
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nd5y
Member
It's probably just like any other commercial radio. There is no "offset". You program the transmit and receive frequencies and tones seperately for each memory channel. I have never heard of one with offset. It's not needed because they don't have VFO mode.
Ah gotcha! I've never owned a commercial radio so just wanted to see if you could work analog repeaters before pulling the trigger. 73
mmckenna
I ♥ Ø
I haven't used one of these BKR's yet, but I (like many others) do use commercial radios for amateur radio use, including the L3Harris XL-200 line.
None of them do standardized offsets on the VHF band, as there isn't standardized offsets in the LMR VHF bands. You have to program in the TX and RX frequencies separately.
On the UHF LMR band, 5MHz is the standard offset, so that usually works fine with the 70cm band. "Standard" and not mandatory, but very common.
Although different radios support offsets differently, you'll need to talk to someone who owns one of these. I've found some LMR radios will automatically set offsets on UHF, 700 and 800MHz bands. Some don't.
Do pay attention to deviation. Some LMR radios will force you to narrow band on UHF, and sorting that out can be a challenge on some brands.
But, most of us that work in the industry and have our ham licenses use LMR radios. You'll be joining a pretty big club.
Thank you for the detailed response! Not a big deal to me that you have to program each channel individually - I just didn't want to be stuck with a $4000+ handheld that can only do analog simplex.
The xl200 looks like a beautiful radio, but I heard Harris is pretty locked down when it comes to doing stuff like NAS. I would definitely consider one if that's not the case.
mmckenna
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The radios work well for ham use, and they'll sound much better than the $20 Chinese radios.
As for NAS, that's a tricky thing you need to be careful with. Set up incorrectly, it can take resources away from legit users. The radio accidentally affiliating if not set up correctly will show up to the system admin and they can remotely kill your radio.
A scanner is a much better solution if you are not well versed in setting up LMR radios.
As for NAS, that's a tricky thing you need to be careful with. Set up incorrectly, it can take resources away from legit users. The radio accidentally affiliating if not set up correctly will show up to the system admin and they can remotely kill your radio.
A scanner is a much better solution if you are not well versed in setting up LMR radios.
Yeah I owned an SDS100 and didn't care for it, so that's one reason I'm looking into the LMR stuff. I had the same concerns about accidental affiliation, but it appears that you can do it safely with the BKs (great video tutorial on the topic and Matt has been very helpful with answering questions I had: BK NAS tutorial.)
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