I'm thinking of geting a used TK-7180 on that big auction site, to use as a home 2 meter station and to monitor the public safety frequencies relevant to me (I'm a volunteer EMT and Red Cross disaster volunteer). I would of course get the programming cable and software.
Q1. Is the software easy to use, or do you have to apprentice to someone in the trade to figure it out?
Q2. The radio is described as having zones and groupids/ channels. I suppose a zone would be a geographic area where a certain bunch of channels could all be heard at the same time. So if later I used it as a mobile, I might set one for the northeast part of the state, one for the northwest part of the state, etc., right?
I suppose that groupids would only be used in trunked radios (none of those around me) and channels would be used in conventional systems. So each channel would be for a particular agency or purpose in a certain zone (county sheriff, city EMS, city dog catcher, etc.) Have I got that right?
Q1. Is the software easy to use, or do you have to apprentice to someone in the trade to figure it out?
Q2. The radio is described as having zones and groupids/ channels. I suppose a zone would be a geographic area where a certain bunch of channels could all be heard at the same time. So if later I used it as a mobile, I might set one for the northeast part of the state, one for the northwest part of the state, etc., right?
I suppose that groupids would only be used in trunked radios (none of those around me) and channels would be used in conventional systems. So each channel would be for a particular agency or purpose in a certain zone (county sheriff, city EMS, city dog catcher, etc.) Have I got that right?