BEST P25 PHASE 2 ALL BAND RADIO

[Z_DEO5]

Hello radio radio experts.
My small Volley fire department in So Cal is looking to replace our old fleet of single band VHF BK radio and the legendary XTS5000 radios with something new. Lets not think about price at the moment but let's talk about the best of the best. We have reached out to our neighboring agencies, and they use the big brands, Bendix king, Harris, Motorola solutions. I'm no major expert, but I'm sure there are more companies that make all band trunking radios. So here are the requirements were looking for.

• ALL BANDS (VHF,UHF,700/800)
• P25 PHASE 1 & 2 TRUNKING
• Rugged for firefighter use.
• FPP PROGRAMMABLE (Required by NIFC and Cal Fire)

I'd like to hear everyone's input on which Radio would be best for our uses. We've reached out to multiple dealers and of course their radio that they're trying to sell is the best. But they all kind of seem the same. Every dealer states that the Radio is the best I can do it better than the competitors. To me, they all seem like they do the same thing and have the same features just a different price ranges. We really care about ease of use and reliability, and that meets all of the four requirements. Price is a factor being that we rely on grants in a small budget to purchase the radios, but not the biggest deciding factor. We also care about ease of programming and maintenance since most of it will be done in the house by me and the local county. I look forward to hearing from everyone's feedback. Thank you.

 

[mmckenna]

• Rugged for firefighter use.

That pretty much limits you to the Harris XL-400 or the top end APX-8000HXE to get the NFPA complaint radios. I think there's a version of the APX-Next that meets the requirements.

Price is a factor being that we rely on grants in a small budget to purchase the radios, but not the biggest deciding factor.

The NFPA compliant radios are very expensive. You'd need to decide if you need that type of radio for what you plan on doing.

If you don't need that, there's a lot more options:

EF Johnson/Kenwood VP-8000
Tait TP-9800
Harris XL-200
Motorola APX-Next
Bendix King BKR-9000

We're using the XL-200's at work for our officers. I like them.
I've got a Tait TP-9800 on loan from our local Tait rep. Very nice radio, on par with the XL-200, but does not have the WiFi/LTE capability. Nice ergonomics.
The APX-Next is a nice radio, but the big display and the back end stuff you need to make all the cool apps work gets expensive. Stripped down to just multiband, it's price is similar to the APX-8000. Not sure I want to trust Android in a mission critical LMR radio yet.
VP-8000 is getting some very good reviews.

Programming software is a different ball of wax. If your tech is accustomed to the Motorola or Bendix King software, that's probably what they are going to be happy with. For me, coming from the Kenwood/Motorola side, learning the Harris software took some time. Expect that any new software is going to have a steep learning curve.


Price wise, the EFJ/Kenwood, Tait and BK are probably your most cost effective solutions.

 

[mrsvensven]

I don't think even the Motorola APX8000XE radio is NFPA 1802 compliant, just the APX-Next-XN.

I would look into the EFJ/Kenwood VP8000. It's a relatively new radio, and I've heard from a lot of people that are quite excited about it (while nobody I talk to has been excited about a new Motorola product in quite a while)

 

[MTS2000des]

VP8000 is my daily carry. I have access to my (and other) P25 trunking systems, conventional analog V/U, and DMR in one radio. You'll never get that on an APX anything.

 

[jeepsandradios]

APX8000XE is what a few friends use out there. Mostly as everyone around them use APX they have access to chargers, batteries and other stuff when needed. That may be something to concider also. If you get in a pinch and you are the only agency in an area with a a certain device you may be SOL. If other agencies use a similar unit it makes stuff easier. For SAR work we have tried to standardize for this exact reason.