Had a chance to "play" around with a new CHP portable 700mhz P25 digital. The officer on duty knew VERY little of the radio, so questions didn't go far.
Here's some observations:
The display is now helpful as officers using the older VHF radios knew only channel numbers and most never knew that Ch4 was CLEMARS and Ch5 was CALCORD. Now they can see it on the display.
The radio obviously transmits 700mhz to the extender repeater in the vehicle, then out on VHF (or 800mhz) depending on the selected channel. It has VHF and 800mhz mutual aid & Clemars frequencies mixed in the same group. (pretty slick, IMHO)
Interestingly, when they are set to the normal dispatcher - mobile "link" on 700mhz, if another officer uses the older VHF 154.905, it is patched right into the 700mhz radio link. I wonder if that will last indefinitely or only until they complete the statewide changeover.
The radio keypad was locked out and the officer did not know how to unlock it. Maybe there's nothing else they can do with them even if they were unlocked. (Keep it simple principle, I suppose)
You could select one of three different groups via a collar selector knob around the channel selector knob, however groups 2 and 3 were not programmed.
When the radio was switched to CALCORD, if another unit (i.e. Fire Dept) transmitted, the repeater in the vehicle did NOT repeat the signal into the officer's portable. However, once the officer transmitted on that freq, this enabled the repeater/extender on that freq, however the radio "times out" and stops repeating if the officer does not continue to transmit once per minute or so. Seems that is rather poor planning since they can't sit and monitor the channel for an incoming resource without the extender shutting down.
That's all for now, I wanted to read the input/output 700mhz freqs but did not have time (next time for sure).
Here's some observations:
The display is now helpful as officers using the older VHF radios knew only channel numbers and most never knew that Ch4 was CLEMARS and Ch5 was CALCORD. Now they can see it on the display.
The radio obviously transmits 700mhz to the extender repeater in the vehicle, then out on VHF (or 800mhz) depending on the selected channel. It has VHF and 800mhz mutual aid & Clemars frequencies mixed in the same group. (pretty slick, IMHO)
Interestingly, when they are set to the normal dispatcher - mobile "link" on 700mhz, if another officer uses the older VHF 154.905, it is patched right into the 700mhz radio link. I wonder if that will last indefinitely or only until they complete the statewide changeover.
The radio keypad was locked out and the officer did not know how to unlock it. Maybe there's nothing else they can do with them even if they were unlocked. (Keep it simple principle, I suppose)
You could select one of three different groups via a collar selector knob around the channel selector knob, however groups 2 and 3 were not programmed.
When the radio was switched to CALCORD, if another unit (i.e. Fire Dept) transmitted, the repeater in the vehicle did NOT repeat the signal into the officer's portable. However, once the officer transmitted on that freq, this enabled the repeater/extender on that freq, however the radio "times out" and stops repeating if the officer does not continue to transmit once per minute or so. Seems that is rather poor planning since they can't sit and monitor the channel for an incoming resource without the extender shutting down.
That's all for now, I wanted to read the input/output 700mhz freqs but did not have time (next time for sure).
Last edited:
