BKR 9000 Thorough Review

[aglowgibbon]

I recently acquired a BKR 9000, and I have been testing it along with a multitude of other radios. I have seen a few online posts and videos on the radio, but I thought I'd give my perspective as an end user. For some background, I'm an avid radio hobbyist and a public safety professional. I've worked in the field for about 5 years in a rural and intercity urban department that runs ~200 911 calls/day. For the vast majority of my career, I have used Motorola APX and XTS radios. My personal collection includes a BKR 9000, APX Next, VP8000, Tait TP9500, APX 7500, and an XTS 5000. I have owned a XL-200 as well.

Overall Impression:

• The radio is solidly built. The buttons are firm and clickable. The screen is a nice, bright, full-color display, albeit BK does not use very many colors beyond white and blue. The rubber over-molding is one of my favorite features. It is yet to be determined if this will hold up over time or degrade as some rubber tools do. I have a high confidence that it will continue to stay nice, even after years of abuse.
• The top display is a large monochrome screen similar to an APX XE. My main complaint is that BK does not use the vast majority of the screen display that they have available to them. There is also no way to display the zone and channel name at the same time. It will show the zone number and channel name, but not both names. However, both of these issues can be fixed with a firmware upgrade, so I hope that this is something BK will implement.
• Calling the radio a "brick" would be an understatement. The radio is massive, no way around it. While this isn't the worst thing in the world, there are certainly smaller radios that are just as capable (IE TP 9900). The belt clip system is similar to an APX style with the removable clip, but the BK has the addition of a retention lock. I also really like that you can order the radio in a 16-channel or continuous knob. I prefer the 16-channel stop out of habit, but others might be different.
• FPP is a massive selling point on this radio. You can program almost anything on this radio from the front panel. The one missing feature from FPP I wish it had was the ability to add trunking TGs to an existing system. I understand, for good reason, why you can't add a whole new trunking system, but I don't see any reason why you couldn't have the ability to add additional TGs.

Software:

• RES is amazing software. I'd venture to call it FF-friendly in most aspects. It is extremely fast, rarely crashes, and the menu options are intuitive. Comparing it to the likes of CPS and RPM, it's night and day.
• The only close contender, in my opinion, is Armada, but it is also extremely expensive compared to RES. Armada also has OTIP, but that theoretically could be added with a firmware update.
• RES also allows native Non-affiliate Scanning (NAS). This means you can safely scan a trunking system without the fear of affiliating or risking destroying your expensive radio. This is a major selling point for hobbyists. I do see some commercial use for it, but it is mostly relegated towards hobby users.

Firmware:

• This is the Achilles heel of this radio. I have had numerous firmware failures on it. I have reliably reproduced getting it to lock up and not respond to commands. For a radio marketed towards public safety, this should never be able to occur.
• A few examples of instances where I can get the radio to lockup:
  • When affiliated to a trunking system, the radio does NOT properly handle trunking logic. If the radio does not hear the system de registration command, it will cause the radio to constantly sit on that system until you reboot the radio. Meaning, if you're in a fringe coverage area and try to change systems, there is a chance your radio can lockup.
  • If you change channels too quickly, I have been able to reliably lock the radio. It doesn't happen every time, and it takes a lot of movement, but the radio can lock up.
• The radio does not support Bluetooth programming, but this is a teased feature by BK in a YouTube video.
• When changing to a trunking system you are not in range of, the radio will initially display full bars before going out of range. This gives the user the impression that the radio is affiliated and working before it says "Out of Range".
• The radio displays "Affiliation Successful" and "Registration Successful" when in trunking. This is fine, but I wish there was a way to disable this.
• There are rumors floating that the radio could support DMR, but nothing confirmed by BK.
• Overall, all of these issues can be fixed with firmware updates. Given BKs track record with the BKR 5000 updates, these are likely few and far between.

Accessories:

• From my perspective, the accessories are kind of just meh. There's nothing particularly great about the speaker mic. It's a speaker mic and it works. Compared to the XVN 500 with multiple noise suppressing mics, a light, and VERY loud audio, it's not really anything great.
• BKs batteries have been a cluster recently. BK has had to update the battery firmware via a battery charger upgrade device. Only the regional sales reps have this device, so they have had to travel to every department and person who owns their radios just to upgrade the firmware. Unfortunately, there is no way for end users to perform this upgrade. Unlike Moto, the charger has no USB port or firmware upgrade port that the user can buy the device and perform it themselves.
• The pricing on accessories is absurd. They charge $500 for a speaker mic, $500 for a key-loading cable, and $200 for a battery. Motorola generally has the highest price, but here, BK is out of their mind.

Final thoughts:

Overall, I love the radio. I'm going to keep it for a long time as my primary NAS radio. Many of my complaints can be fixed with a firmware update or software fix. As with any radio, it has its pros and cons, but ultimately, this one is really good for the vast majority of fire departments out there. Rural departments are on a budget, and this serves that portion of the market well. Most FFs do not need nor ever use every feature on an APX 8000XE or Next.


BK, great job making this radio. I look forward to what you guys will do with it in the future. Glad to see you guys are still in the game.

- Aglowgibbon

 

[policefreak]

Thank you. Very comprehensive review.

 

[superfreak]

I have one as well.... No WiFi and no "radio management" software available are deal killers for me. I don't want to go back to the good old days when we have thousands of portables to take care of.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

Some sort of server management program would be great and the way the backend of RES is based out of CSV, it wouldn't be too overly difficult to implement that with MariaDB or MySql and a network service to push the codeplug.

You can turn the Registration and Affiliation messages off. I just turned them on last week…

Haven't had any of the trunking issues you reference. Travis county did a pretty thorough test on their simulcast with the BKR9000 back in September and I've had had the same unit since late October testing on the VHF side of GATRRS. It's been out with me on several incidents, took it to ICC/MTUG in New Braunfels for giggles and grins and never had an issue with it roaming between RFSS, hopping back and forth between conventional and trunked, etc. My only real gripe with it has been related to the battery. Andy updated the firmware on the battery with me back in October when he dropped it off and all was good for a few weeks but now the battery doesn't show status and the charger thinks it's a non-OEM battery. Andy wants to try and hit it with the firmware programmer again or get me a different battery.

Bluetooth programming isn't really an operational concern from the point of view of me deploying hundreds of the things…more of a hinderance in reality. What has made the Bluetooth stand out is the fact it will pair with just about any headphone device such as hearing aids. I have one SO that wants to swap their plans to order a few APX8000's with either VP8000's or BKR9000's simply because they have a handful of deputy's with hearing aids that they feel is a matter of a disability accommodation and should therefore go with a solution that can support pairing to the hearing aids.

It is still very much a developing product. Zone name in the top display isn't really an issue for GATRRS radios due to the channel naming conventions set forth by CoA per the Interoperability Plan (because it is designed around the limitations of Astro 25 portables). One thing I would really like to see is BLE beaconing added to the bluetooth stack mainly because EFJ has it on second and third generation Viking portables (battery status part of the iBeacon advertisement, just an FYI for those who were unaware) and that could be a really handy feature for cache radios, using iBeacon to verify the radios have all been returned to the cache at the end of the incident without having to physically log each unit.

WiFi is nice for programming…can be nice if you have an integration like SmartConnect but where I think the radio is really going to shine is with the rural counties who are either on a larger P25 system or have to deal with multiple systems. I also think they will be great for cache radios. Alas, what I have not yet gotten to play with is Phase 2 on these radios. Not a huge issue as I have no intention of pushing a Phase 2 migration other than saying all new radios as of this year need to have the option enabled (Phase 2 migration will therefore happen naturally over the next 10 years).