EF Johnson or Kenwood P25 Phase II Radios

[thinbluebbq]

Hi all. Does anyone have a good list of Kenwood or EF Johnson portables and mobiles that are P25 Phase II? I am struggling when looking at potentially buying radios to find ones that are noted as Phase II compliant. Many listings just say P25 and I have to make sure it works with Phase II. Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[buddrousa]

The below listed radios have been tested and being used on the TACN P25 Phase 2 System
All have to have license bought P25, P25 Trunking and P25 Phase 2 Trunking NOT CHEAP
NX-5200 NX-5700 VHF
NX-5300 NX-5800 UHF
NX-5400 NX-5900 700/800
Also the NX-3x00 series but less bells and whistles

 

[GTR8000]

The EFJ Viking series is also P25 Phase II (TDMA) capable.

 

[thinbluebbq]

The EFJ Viking series is also P25 Phase II (TDMA) capable.

Thank you. If a listing says it is TDMA then would that mean it is Phase II?

 

[buddrousa]

FDMA Phase 1
TDMA Phase 2

 

[Binger511]

The below listed radios have been tested and being used on the TACN P25 Phase 2 System
All have to have license bought P25, P25 Trunking and P25 Phase 2 Trunking NOT CHEAP
NX-5200 NX-5700 VHF
NX-5300 NX-5800 UHF
NX-5400 NX-5900 700/800
Also the NX-3x00 series but less bells and whistles

The NX-3x00 series will do 2 digital modes, DMR or NXDN. Unfortunately the 3000's won't do P25.

 

[kd4efm]

The NX-3x00 series will do 2 digital modes, DMR or NXDN. Unfortunately the 3000's won't do P25.

rephrasing this, NX-3000 IS CAPABLE OF NXDN OR DMR, BUT NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME LIKE THE 5000.

 

[kd4efm]

list price
p25 conventional 575.00
p25 phase 1 520.00
p25 phase 2 400.00

NASPO prices are usually 20% off list but, your dealer could get you best prices, unless under contract.
Thus, speak with you dealer to get best prices possible!

 

[mmckenna]

Depending on what band you need, there are older options.

7-800MHz, the Kenwood TK-5210D portable will do Phase 1 & 2 P25

 

[buddrousa]

Thanks for the update on the NX-3x00 not doing P25 was mislead about it.

 

[mmckenna]

Depending on what band you need, there are older options.

7-800MHz, the Kenwood TK-5210D portable will do Phase 1 & 2 P25

Sorry, that's a typo. It's the TK-5410D.
Kenwood did not make a VHF version.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

The VP5000/VM5000/VM6000/VM7000 are EF Johnson versions of NX radios with slight hardware modifications and EF Johnson firmware. The VP6000 is an EF Johnson exclusive. There is also a new portable in the works which may be of some interest and should be officially announced in the next month or two.

Overall, Viking radios will tend to outperform NX radios on trunking systems as their firmware is specifically built and tested for P25 trunking (especially on Motorola, Harris and EF Johnson and Casidian systems). NX radios are more aimed at the need to support non-P25 systems but need to remain P25 capable for interop market.

One feature I personally like in regards to EF Johnson's licensing is the Vault perpetual licensing. You buy a license for Phase 1 trunking, Phase 2, AES-256, etc it is yours. If you loose the radio, upgrade, etc you can reuse those licenses forever...they aren't tied to the physical radio.

 

[MTS2000des]

I'm a fan of the Vikings. Have several VP5000s and a handful of VP6000s on my Astro 25 2019.2 simulcast system. In many cases, they outperform APX6000s in weak signal areas, have really good transmit and receive audio, and Armada is a tech/admins dream. Catches your mistakes like duplicating IDs, easy to apply templates to codeplugs so you can easily (in a few SECONDS) apply a VP5x template to a VP6x for instance.

There is a new Kenwood Atlas system going in near me, with all VP subscribers. All AES-256 too so I'm excited to see how they did simulcast versus the Motorola way of doing things.

The VP5000 series is comparable to an APX4000 build quality wise. The VP6000 is equivalent to an APX6000 or 6000XE even. They cost about half the price comparably flashed. EF Johnson's perpetual licensing is also a huge benefit for those who get new subscribers every 3-5 years. Transfer the features from one to another. Brilliant.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

And if you need to use an EFJohnson Viking radio, you do not have to worry about the software being cracked or at least there is no cracked version of Amanda that I know of anyway and you will need a dongle from EFJ with the key on it in order to make it work on the system you want to program it for.

 

[MTS2000des]

Software keys are available to system owners. I was provided both from EFJ.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

That is a good thing you have the keys since you are the system admin.

 

[Project25_MASTR]

I'm a fan of the Vikings. Have several VP5000s and a handful of VP6000s on my Astro 25 2019.2 simulcast system. In many cases, they outperform APX6000s in weak signal areas, have really good transmit and receive audio, and Armada is a tech/admins dream. Catches your mistakes like duplicating IDs, easy to apply templates to codeplugs so you can easily (in a few SECONDS) apply a VP5x template to a VP6x for instance.

There is a new Kenwood Atlas system going in near me, with all VP subscribers. All AES-256 too so I'm excited to see how they did simulcast versus the Motorola way of doing things.

The VP5000 series is comparable to an APX4000 build quality wise. The VP6000 is equivalent to an APX6000 or 6000XE even. They cost about half the price comparably flashed. EF Johnson's perpetual licensing is also a huge benefit for those who get new subscribers every 3-5 years. Transfer the features from one to another. Brilliant.

Atlas is a very different setup compared to an Astro 25 core or VIDA core solution. For one, Atlas is a distributed architecture (think of it like a Connect Plus system) and where Astro 25 and VIDA rely on unicast traffic between the sites and core, Atlas relies on multicast traffic between sites (at the peer level). Atlas doesn't have prime sites (which can be a little difficult to wrap one's head around). Since each Atlas 8000 controller is essentially it's own core, a backhaul failure won't put the site into site trunking, throughput requirements are greatly reduced since traffic doesn't have to be processed by the core. You can have more than two Atlas 8000 controllers at a site for redundancy. Atlas uses DFSI+ for command and control of the repeaters by the controllers so you can actually use anyone's repeater that supports DFSI+ to make up the RF hardware at a site (though it's recommended to use a single vendor). To date I know Tait, Simoco, EF Johnson, and RF Technology repeaters have been used with Atlas.

It's certainly a very interesting solution. I think I may have walked by parts of that system in staging the other week. I've currently got my eyes on a project where a municipality has asked for a proposal to expand their coverage and fill some dead spots on their Astro 25 system with an Atlas system and use ISSI to allow users to seamlessly roam between the two.

 

[MTS2000des]

I got to see an Atlas system at IWCE 2017. I was impressed. Not having a central core seems like a way to ensure if a site is lost, the world doesn't come to an end. Trust me when I tell you as I don't have DSR or GeoPrime that when an F2 tornado came within 300 yards of hitting my prime/master last April, I had to clench my cheeks.

I'm doing ISSI with two other Astro 25 systems in my area. I'll bet I'll stir it up asking about this with the new Atlas network- they are a neighbor of mine.

 

[sardeputy]

I am very interested in the Atlas System. We are in the early stages of planning a Public Safety Radio system upgrade. We have been invited to join a larger Metro System that already includes a the county to our south and east. The Motorola 7/800 Phase II system with a single site located in our county that would cost about $3 million infrastructure and about $2.5 million for user radios. Our current system primary includes a VHF voted 2 site system current used in analog. It is capable of P25, but do to the lack of P25 user radios in the past it was never was utilized. In the near future we will have the needed user radios to move completely to conv P25.
We discussed adding addition voted sites improve HT coverage. We have also discussed doing our own P25 trunked system that I believe would require 3 or 4 sites for proper coverage using Atlas or another vender that would be cheaper that big M. Completely replacing all agencies in the county user radios with the highest end Vikings would be 1/2 that provided by Motorola. If we stayed with VHF trunked the current newest replaced user radio could continue to be utilized.

 

[motorcoachdoug]

You know you could look at Harris L3 for your radios plus they cost about 1/3 of what mother moto is charging per radio. I am running 2 XG100P all band radios and 2 XG100M with the CH-721 control heads but looking around for one CH100 control head that is colored used if I can find it, and so far they have been good units... Remember their is also NXDN you could do and the Kenwood Radios can do NXDN and P25 so that would give you the interops you need plus still save you some mega $$ as well. FYI I used to live in Griffin, GA..