Both our grant writer and Motorola are talking $5000 each, complete. We're thinking for each SCBA, a portable more like $500-1000 each. For the rest preferably in the $100 range, but it's sounding like that's unreasonable.
P,
Thanks for your detailed response, that helps us out quite a bit. And thanks for taking the comments in the spirit of which they were meant.
As for your grant writer and radio shop, I'd suggest taking a step back from that process. If all they can come up with is a $5,000 radio solution, then they are probably being influenced heavily by outside forces.
Unless the grant is going to cover 100% of the costs for the radios and all necessary accessories for their life span, grants may not be your best solution.
Federal grants can force you in a direction you don't need to go. Looks like none of your local agencies are running P25, so you could essentially take that off the table. The NIFOG interoperability channels are all analog to keep things on a level playing ground, so you've got that on your side, too.
Motorola has put a lot of effort into pushing standards on small agencies in the effort to sell more high end radios. The grants have supported this. Since grants rarely cover 100% of a agency's needs, it means they get a lot of "off grant" sales. Really sounds like an APX radio isn't even remotely in your budget.
While radios are very important to what you guys do, so are things like PPE, trucks, training, not to mention all the other equipment you need. Blowing all your budget on a few radios doesn't make sense.
Good news is that there are a lot of other manufacturers that will do exactly what you need and cost a lot less.
I'd take dual band off the table for your portables. If you really need to have some interoperability on UHF, first and foremost check with the agencies running UHF to see if they have VHF capability, I'd bet they do. If they don't, consider getting a separate lower tier UHF radio for your chief, and a mobile in each truck. Chances are that will cover your needs without going into the dual band radio thing.
Take a close look at Kenwood. All of our local fire agencies switched to Kenwood many years ago and haven't gone back. CalFire is all Kenwood. Their radios meet the requirements for fire service. They'll also save you quite a bit of money.
NX-5000
NX-3000
TK-5210
TK-5220
NX-210
and a bunch of others will fit your needs.
Our PD is using NX-210, and has been for the last 7 or 8 years. I've got some users on NX-3000's and they are very happy with them. My shop radio is a TK-5210, and most of the local fire agencies are using those.
Most of those can be had in the $500 range, with the exception of the TK-5210 that will cost you a bit more. Programming is relatively easy and the software/cables are inexpensive compared to some other brands.
As for the average guy out there on your team, would some used gear work? Motorola HT-1000's are plentiful and cheap. Kenwood TK-2180 would be a good option, too.
When you start looking at radios, make sure you look at the accessories as part of the overall price. A lot of the Kenwood radios use common audio connectors, so interchanging speaker mics or SCBA audio is easy. Some of the radio/battery combinations can be interchangeable, too.
Beginning to sound like this is essentially impossible.
