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dual band spectra help

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KK4ELO

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im thinking of setting up a spectra in my truck with the single head to control two radios. one uhf, one vhf. with that setup, will it scan both bands, or will it only scan the band selected?

thanks
73
 

mancow

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The only way to do it is to use an "SIU" setup which is normally an analog A3 two digit style hand mic that goes to an SIU integration box which the two radio decks connect to. It's huge, unwieldy and a real ***** to work with. There is no way to hook up a regular control head and split it up to two radios like Kenwood and Vertex products, at least not with the regular Spectra line.
 

zz0468

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It can be done with a standard A5 or A7 head. It's not a stock option, and you'll have to build the interface yourself. There are several mods required of the radio, but nothing serious. The radios operate just fine with the head removed, once you provision them for that.

What will happen is, each radio will remain in whatever the last state it was in when it was talking to the control head. Disconnect the head to connect to the other radio, and if it was in scan, it will remain in scan.
 

mancow

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I was thinking in terms of off the shelf options but you are correct.

I bet that an arduino could be used to steamline the data if a guy was good at coding. It would make a neat project.
 

jparks29

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Orions/m7100s do it out of the box... as a factory option... and they're pretty cheap...

I have vhf and uhf on one handheld control head... with discrete control of each radio.
 
K

kb0nly

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Better off with two radios...

I have built the dual band single head Spectra setup before, i even did a Syntor X9000 dual radio setup a year or so ago. Both are clunky to operate in my opinion, just not that user friendly, programming is a pain, setting it up is a pain. The amount of money you would have invested would easily buy a good side by side display dual band radio, like the Yaesu FT-8800.
 
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