This might be more general question about any surplus radios, but today it's in reference to an XTS3000.
Anyway, I now have three XTS radios, one 5000 and two 3000s, in addition to an EF Johnson 5100. I have bought all of these radios used, the 5000 came completely wiped blank, one of the XTS 3000s came from a friend who had programmed it with some local traffic, but AFIK was sold to him as surplus and totally wiped, and the EFJ 5100 I bought direct from the ambulance company that phased it out and it was still programmed for their old system.
My new XTS3000 feels a little sketchy though. This one came off of eBay, was the only one available from the seller, and came loaded with an extensive P25 Trunked System from Denver, CO region (County Sheriff, several Police and Fire depts, etc.) that's still fully active. The radio is also engraved with the name of local municipality from which it originated within that region, so I'm sure its not somebody's amateur programming.
Whereas the radio being 19 years old suggests it was replaced in service at some point, what I am curious about is why it wasn't wiped of programming if it was surplused out. Is this pretty common with these older radios? I would suspect this is a pretty big security issue, especially when a department only upgrades their portables and mobiles, but doesn't upgrade their infrastructure. On the other hand, could I be handling potentially stolen or lost department property? Seller appears to be an industrial liquidator, though this is the only XTS radio they had listed, and it was radio body only with a dead and cracked open NiCd battery, nothing else. They did have some other radios listed, but they were brand new XPR radios, this was the only random used one. As to why I chose this one over the literally hundreds of other 3000s listed online, was because of the installed Flashcode, which included 9600 baud trunking, and it was cheap.
Thoughts?
Anyway, I now have three XTS radios, one 5000 and two 3000s, in addition to an EF Johnson 5100. I have bought all of these radios used, the 5000 came completely wiped blank, one of the XTS 3000s came from a friend who had programmed it with some local traffic, but AFIK was sold to him as surplus and totally wiped, and the EFJ 5100 I bought direct from the ambulance company that phased it out and it was still programmed for their old system.
My new XTS3000 feels a little sketchy though. This one came off of eBay, was the only one available from the seller, and came loaded with an extensive P25 Trunked System from Denver, CO region (County Sheriff, several Police and Fire depts, etc.) that's still fully active. The radio is also engraved with the name of local municipality from which it originated within that region, so I'm sure its not somebody's amateur programming.
Whereas the radio being 19 years old suggests it was replaced in service at some point, what I am curious about is why it wasn't wiped of programming if it was surplused out. Is this pretty common with these older radios? I would suspect this is a pretty big security issue, especially when a department only upgrades their portables and mobiles, but doesn't upgrade their infrastructure. On the other hand, could I be handling potentially stolen or lost department property? Seller appears to be an industrial liquidator, though this is the only XTS radio they had listed, and it was radio body only with a dead and cracked open NiCd battery, nothing else. They did have some other radios listed, but they were brand new XPR radios, this was the only random used one. As to why I chose this one over the literally hundreds of other 3000s listed online, was because of the installed Flashcode, which included 9600 baud trunking, and it was cheap.
Thoughts?
