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Old Radios?

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SCPD

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ok so, what happens to old radios, repeaters, whatever when the police or whatever goes to a digital radio system? Thanks.
 

krokus

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That depends on the agency and specific contracts, but commonly the old gear will be sold at auction. With narrowbanding coming up, much of the old gear will not be useful for most users.

I just hope people are recycling the old electronics, and not just dumping them into the trash can.
 

jackj

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Two-way radio manufacturers sell used radios. They sometimes call them remanufactured, sometimes reconditioned and maybe by other names. These are radios they take in trade when they sell a new system. Sometimes they are broken up and the parts used to repair the trade-ins, sometimes they're sold as-is (if they meet specs) and the unused parts & pieces are recycled. The above is true only if there is a market for that model, as krokus pointed out, narrowbanding has reduced the models available on the after market.
 

jim202

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Motorola is one company that takes radios in on trade in. They don't give much for them and their goal is to prevent them from going back into the market again. Guess it it the greed of the company always trying to push fresh product on the unsuspecting end users. Anyway, the end of the radio comes when they are thrown into the big shredder. Out comes little pieces that then go to the scrap collector.

So much for used radios. Even the hams don't get a chance to get their hands on these fine used radios.
 

jhooten

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At one site in the local area a COSCO shipping container was dropped off. All the infrastructure and subscriber equipment was loaded and the container taken to the port. Everything but the tower and the building went in the container.
 

jackj

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A lot of the stuff that isn't useable here for one reason or another is sold overseas. China and the Arab countries used to be a big market for used stuff. Not so much any more since the Arabs discovered they had oil that everyone else in the world wanted and the Chinese discovered capitalism. I don't know where the main market is today but you can bet your bippy that there is one.
 

N4KVE

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It all depends on the policy of the agency. A few years ago I picked up some UHF Jedi's for $50-$60 each from an E-bay seller who bought a ton from the Fed's. Nice shape & worked fine. I have seen HT's with holes drilled through them. Last year I saw some nice UHF Astro Sabers that purposely had the display messed up. but otherwise the radios worked fine. That same hamfest I picked up several UHF [440-470] Sabers that were clean as new, & never used, $35 each. That same show John Panik had buckets of UHF Jedi's that belonged to NASA, but every single one had the dreaded messed up display. I guess when they got messed up, NASA threw them in the bucket until it was full. Then sold them. You never know what you will find, but I learned one thing. Always have spare batteries & antennas in your pocket so you can test these radios before laying out the cash. GARY N4KVE
 

zz0468

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ok so, what happens to old radios, repeaters, whatever when the police or whatever goes to a digital radio system? Thanks.

A lot of them end up on eBay, through a convoluted path of municipal surplus auctions, surplus scrap dealers, etc. If you're looking for radios, that's where to find them. If you're curious who the police get rid of them when they're done, research city, county, and state surplus auctions. Check with the purchasing departments of the agencies you're curious about, and watch for public auction notices in the local newspapers.
 

SteveC0625

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What has been a slow, but growing, flood of wideband gear onto the used radio market, it's nothing compared to what is going to hit the market over the next 14 months and beyond.

The narrowband mandate deadline is the end of 2012. Many agencies have just now begun to acquire the necessary narrowband gear to replace their inventories so the pace of replacement is beginning to pick up. And the flood of used gear onto the market will quickly become a deluge and more in the months ahead.

Real world example: I help take care of radio gear for our local volunteer ambulance and our town and village highway/public works departments. Right now, I have 11 brand spanky new CM300 mobiles and two CP200XLS portables sitting on the floor waiting to be programmed and installed. Behind that in a couple of months will be another 15 CP200XLS's. We've already swapped out 20 M II, III, & IV pagers for the V's. And I have got one more GM300 mobile to replace.

Luckily, our fire department received all new mobiles, base station, and portables a couple of years ago. Our school district has NB compliant radios, too.)

I know for a fact that nearly every other community in our area is in the same situation to some degree. If this is the norm across the state and the nation, where there are dozens of each model of radio available on Ebay (and elsewhere) today, there will be hundreds in a few months. I don't even want to think about 2013.

And, there will be a lot more narrowband compliant stuff available too. Many agencies have used the narrowband mandate to move to digital or P25 or whatever, but already had large inventories of NB analog gear in service. As those systems get installed and become operational, all that will also come available.

If you are not sure about what I am saying, go over to Ebay, pick a specific model of radio, and set up a Saved Search for it. Then sit back and watch the counts go up and up and up over the months ahead. I've had a few of those going for nearly a year now.
 

jackj

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A lot of that wide-band stuff will go overseas, SteveC0625. Remember the FCC only sets standards for the USofA and that wide-band equipment will sell like hotcakes.
 
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Most of those old radios will go overseas to be crapped for the parts and salvage, most will be sold in bulk by the ton. When it comes to current technology most of the rest of the developed world already have gone to narrowband and digital technologies, the US is actually one of the last countries to adopt more effeciant specturm technologies. Don't look for a huges number of WB radios to flood the market, manafacturers want to see them gone, either sold for scrap or taken to the local landfills. Back in the 70's Motorola tried selling trade-in equipment to the ham market and would take truck loads to hamfests around the country, the problem was although the equipment was specifically sold to the ham community it would end up back in commercial service.
 
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