Pruchase a radio for railfanning

[airport4444]

looking to upgrade my baofeng to a kenwood or icom or mortaola anyone know a good website to get one really hard to find one.

 

[Nasby]

Check eBay. There’s lots of sellers who offer programming with their radios (Motorola, kenwood, etc). Older Motorola radios like Ht1250s and others are really affordable and are superior to Baofengs.

 

[gary123]

There are a lot of Motorola like the CDM series radios that offer alpha numeric text on the display. I highly recommend that any radio you purchase has such a display. Kenwoods offer one advantage in that they support NXDN in some models just be sure that the option is enabled.

Also for anyone thinking of buying a commercial radio for railfanning. I highly suggest you get the programming software(CPS) and the programming cable as well. Many sellers are not going to spend a few hours making a custom rail codeplug and scan list for you. Therefore be prepared to be making your own. Another thing to be aware of is the possible need to have an activation license for the software - Im looking at you Kenwood.

Before you purchase you may want to [post in the forums for anyone using that particular radio or manufacturer to get their input on it. I have a Motorola APX and a kenwood NDXN mobile set up as a base that I use for rail fanning.