and this is why Kenwood is making great headway in marketing to public safety. They build a quality product, sell it at an affordable price, and SUPPORT it, without nickel and diming the end user/customer to death.
If this were a certain company who's name now ends in SOLUTIONS, you would be told:
"sorry, you will have to order an i-button, pay $265 for CPS, pay for a $285 cable...and then you can download the firmware update off our site...after you've been approved. Oh wait, you have a problem like that? You will need to send it to our depot for repair at the flat rate or time and materials, which ever we feel like charging you that particular day"
Amazing how a company will give away firmware updates FOR FREE to their END USERS, yet another one, again who's name ends in SOLUTIONS, holds onto a customer's high tier radio (ends in 7000, as is dollars!) for months without any resolution to a speaker popping sound. First they tell the customer they shipped their radio, and it's fixed, then it's not- we don't know what is wrong. So you pay $3800 for a premium product with a crappy audio, and you go without it for months while "engineers" are "working on it"?
Yet KENWOOD can sell a radio for under $500 and support it for years- even with free firmware updates that add features like MDC1200 signaling at NO COST.
Again, the big competitor used to charge a small fortune and make you jump through hoops on their high tier analog portable/mobile to get MDC1200 signaling if the product wasn't initially ordered with it.
Those 2180/3180 are some of the best analog portable radios money can buy.