Commercial radio for listening to P25 trunking? NOT INTERESTED IN NAS.

[ma8007]

Hi all,
What are my options to be able to program a commercial radio to listen to my local PD and Fire.I AM NOT INTERESTED IN ANY RADIO THAT SOFTWARE NEEDS A SYSTEM KEY TO PROGRAM.
Besides the BK KNG P800(Hard to find and very expensive) and older Harris radios XG100P that will allow a simple check never affiliate are there any other radios out there.I have owned a unication G4/5 and it wasn't loud enough for my taste and moving through the menus was slow and painful.
Thanks

 

[merlin]

I am guessing your PSPC system is VHF conventional. The MaCom M7100/P7100 will do that nicely.
Anything P25 phase1 or 2, there is no getting around the system keys which is moot anyway.
Something like a Motorola XTS3000 or 5000 works good with phase 1 but you would need something like XPR6550 or better for phase 2
The catch is NAS programming would be mandatory. I hear it all the time: Why is the TX light blinking ? The radio is trying to affiliate and if you hammer a site with those pings, it draws attention to officials including the FCC.
Consumer turnkey setup may be the way to go. A good SDR and DSD+fastlane will fill the bill and many have put together portable packages.
cheers

 

[motorcoachdoug]

You do NOT want to draw any attention to yourself at all by using a radio in NAS mode because not only with the TX light blinking and it must might give you the attention you do not want by the local PD and FCC. You could be looking at a serious cash shortage and mabe jail time as well. If you affiliate to a system you just might put a public safety responder life at risk or worse yet a police officer calling for help and no one hears his call because your radio interfered with his if your radio affiliates to that system. Besides the KNG P800 radio their is public safety grade radio that I know of that you can just turn on and listen. Since you are up in Baltimore County , I am down here in Monkey, besides SDR a Uniden SDS200 would work but once again they are some serious money. Sorry but what you are asking for does is not on the market and with Baltimore County being in the 700/800band and yes they are trunking you do need the a radio that does both phase 1 and phase 2.

 

[Cameron314]

Something like a Motorola XTS3000 or 5000 works good with phase 1 but you would need something like XPR6550 or better for phase 2

 

[jeepsandradios]

From reading here on the forums BK and the Unication are the only radios that do not need a key. The Relm has a checkbox for RX only. Lots of threads on this.

 

[jeepsandradios]

Something like a Motorola XTS3000 or 5000 works good with phase 1 but you would need something like XPR6550 or better for phase 2

What are you talking about. The XPR6550 is a MotoTrbo radio. DMR and P25 Phase 2 are totally different things.

 

[clbsquared]

I am guessing your PSPC system is VHF conventional. The MaCom M7100/P7100 will do that nicely.
Anything P25 phase1 or 2, there is no getting around the system keys which is moot anyway.
Something like a Motorola XTS3000 or 5000 works good with phase 1 but you would need something like XPR6550 or better for phase 2
The catch is NAS programming would be mandatory. I hear it all the time: Why is the TX light blinking ? The radio is trying to affiliate and if you hammer a site with those pings, it draws attention to officials including the FCC.
Consumer turnkey setup may be the way to go. A good SDR and DSD+fastlane will fill the bill and many have put together portable packages.
cheers

He stated he wanted to listen to P25 trunking. Which is not conventional. If it’s VHF trunking, the XTS3000 will not work. And, if it’s Phase II, the XPR6550 will not work, either. The 6550 is DMR, not P25.

 

[mikewazowski]

Please ignore everything in this post as it has no basis in reality.

I am guessing your PSPC system is VHF conventional. The MaCom M7100/P7100 will do that nicely.
Anything P25 phase1 or 2, there is no getting around the system keys which is moot anyway.
Something like a Motorola XTS3000 or 5000 works good with phase 1 but you would need something like XPR6550 or better for phase 2
The catch is NAS programming would be mandatory. I hear it all the time: Why is the TX light blinking ? The radio is trying to affiliate and if you hammer a site with those pings, it draws attention to officials including the FCC.
Consumer turnkey setup may be the way to go. A good SDR and DSD+fastlane will fill the bill and many have put together portable packages.
cheers

 

[ma8007]

I am guessing your PSPC system is VHF conventional. The MaCom M7100/P7100 will do that nicely.
Anything P25 phase1 or 2, there is no getting around the system keys which is moot anyway.
Something like a Motorola XTS3000 or 5000 works good with phase 1 but you would need something like XPR6550 or better for phase 2
The catch is NAS programming would be mandatory. I hear it all the time: Why is the TX light blinking ? The radio is trying to affiliate and if you hammer a site with those pings, it draws attention to officials including the FCC.
Consumer turnkey setup may be the way to go. A good SDR and DSD+fastlane will fill the bill and many have put together portable packages.
cheers

Hmmmmm

 

[ma8007]

From reading here on the forums BK and the Unication are the only radios that do not need a key. The Relm has a checkbox for RX only. Lots of threads on this.

Relm model numbers?

 

[jeepsandradios]

The KNG or KNG2 are what folks have talked about. Have a friend with one on a UHF P25 system. (Sorry RELM/BK are now one in the same now.)

 

[ma8007]

The KNG or KNG2 are what folks have talked about. Have a friend with one on a UHF P25 system. (Sorry RELM/BK are now one in the same now.)

The KNG 1 and 2 P800'S are hard to find at least on Ebay.Dealers have them but are asking crazy prices especially if you want TDMA.

 

[merlin]

What are you talking about. The XPR6550 is a MotoTrbo radio. DMR and P25 Phase 2 are totally different things.

Yea, you are correct. That was my bad for confusing types of radios. I had XG-75 or P5400 in mind.

 

[a417]

A good SDR and DSD+fastlane will fill the bill and many have put together portable packages.

C'mon @mikewazowski ...this statement is good!

 

[jeepsandradios]

The KNG 1 and 2 P800'S are hard to find at least on Ebay.Dealers have them but are asking crazy prices especially if you want TDMA.

KNG-P800 - Here

But agree. VHF and UHF have more than 800. My guess is guys who have them dont want to give them up. The XG seems to be online alot around $1000 but never played with one.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

I used to have the KNG2 P800 and they will monitor only 16tg at a time plus you can not do both Trunked and Conventional systems mixed.

 

[WX4JCW]

I absolutely love my XG100P works well no issues

 

[motorcoachdoug]

Ditto here with my XG-100P. No trouble at all and works in all 3 bands here in the DC metro area. I need 700/800 for MD and DC, VHF for Virginia, UHF for West Virginia and even tho it will not do Smartzone in Delaware in the 700/800band Sussex County in Delaware does use VHF and UHF as well so no matter which way i travel to within a 150 radius from my home I have everything covered.

 

[ElroyJetson]

You do NOT want to draw any attention to yourself at all by using a radio in NAS mode because not only with the TX light blinking and it must might give you the attention you do not want by the local PD and FCC.

NAS, done RIGHT, DOES NOT AFFILIATE OR ATTEMPT TO DO SO. Let's just get that cleared up. Properly done, it IS safe.

For the OP, either use a Harris radio or get a scanner. Maybe a BK radio would do, too. (I have no personal experience with them, but apparently they have true RX only capacity in trunking.)

 

[wwhitby]

For the OP, either use a Harris radio or get a scanner. Maybe a BK radio would do, too. (I have no personal experience with them, but apparently they have true RX only capacity in trunking.)

BK Radios will do non affiliate scan. I actually talked to the BK technical rep at a trade show four years ago, and he had helped a user set up a BK radio for NAS.

As far as the XG-100P radios, I was researching using one of them for NAS earlier this year. I learned that Harris made an update in a firmware version to require a system key. I don't remember what the firmware version is, but the fella who posted here on rr.com appeared to know his stuff. Also, the P7300 radios will do NAS as well.

Right now, my city is changing over to a Harris P25 Phase II system. I'm waiting to see if they encrypt the PD and FD dispatch channels before I spend the money on a Unication G4. Even though I use commercial radios as scanners and ham radios, I decided not to use a commercial P25 portable for monitoring trunked systems.