Hello guys, looking for some advice.

I run with a rural Fire Company, I was looking into getting my own personal portable to run calls with. My FD has Motorola APX7000 (or 8000?) that are on all of our trucks but don't have belt clips. And while I used these in the past, taking a radio off the truck with me isn't always the fastest or the most convenient (taking it out, putting in my strap, hooking mic into strap) and after a while it gets old real quick.

So I been looking into getting my own portable to use on calls, my FD used to use Motorola HT1250s and never really had any issues with them besides old age. I was thinking about buying a used one and using that. I have no idea about any other radios that are good/bad, I also don't want to spend $1000+ on a radio.

So I'm looking for some help/guidance on this, should I not worry about this? Should I just keep doing what I'm doing now?
Thanks for taking the time to help a brother out.

I have a Motorola CP185.

I like it and it's powerful, light, good battery.

Depends on the system your using. HT1250's can't trunk you would be looking for something newer. Also programming a troubled system is tougher since you need a individual system ID or it can mess up the entire system.  Encryption is another issue but unlikely in the future service though I've seen it. Also id they are running multi band vhf/800 or uhf/800

Id check with your department to make sure they will allow personal radios.

Good luck

Ask here. These guys know their shit about radios

Ask at the ham forum.

A lot of those guys know a shitpot more about radios than the average LEO does.

FWIW there ARE a couple LEOs on arfcom that are hams that are on the ham forum.

That's what I'd do.

FWIW I'm a state COML and handle the radio system for my jurisdiction as part of my duties.  If you want to PM me your location I might be able to give you a better idea what could work.

Use the issued radio.  Do not purchase a personal radio.  Don't borrow trouble.  Current 700-800 public safety radio systems are pretty complex.   Your radio can take a belt clip of its a 7000xe.   8000 just came out.

This is the best answer

Non LEO here again.

As a GENERAL rule of thumb in just about any field of endeavor, use the issued stuff whenever possible and if you use your own make damned good and sure you have the OK to use it in some sort of WRITING.

Years ago I would have said 'Who cares?'.

Nowadays? HAH!

Cover your ass!

If you DO opt to use a non issue radio then get the OK from someone further up the food chain and have it in writing of some sort. A printed copy of an email should be sufficient.

Full disclosure, I'm not a firefighter.

I would use the issued radio.  I wouldn't want myself or someone else to get hurt because my personally-owned radio failed while on a call.

Also, I would much rather have their radio be damaged or destroyed on a scene than mine.

I carry an APX6000 at work and it works really well.

This.

Why not buy the $20-25 belt clip for your issued APX radio?

Attached File

If it's a 7000xe, it has a sealed case to keep it functional in structure fire conditions.  If the radio stays in the engine, leave it in a strap with the Mic clipped in.

Not trying to be a dick but, radio systems are more complicated than just buying a portable.  Apex radios cost around 7k.  Dont risk your safety or your crew's safety over a minor annoyance.

It was a long time ago, but the small town PD I worked for, EVERYTHING they offered for issue was a POS except the uniforms. Every piece of equipment I used except the car was mine. The city and the Chief didn’t care about personally owned radios and equipment as long as we used it within policy.

I used to work for some departments like that as well and had a personal radio.  These days with trunked systems it is a lot more difficult to do them then the old days when it was conventional repeaters.

I'm a radio nut myself and I agree with this completely.  An agency probably wouldn't buy a $7,000 radio if they didn't need its feature set.

... unless nextel decided to steal a great chunk of bandwidth, and needed to bribe agencies in several states to switch to a previously-never used segment by detuning subscriber units and slashing prices...

Nextel slashed prices on Motorola radios?

What?  Also, Nextel has been out of business for years.  Bought out by Sprint.

That was years ago they bought departments xts and xtl series radios.

I work in public safety and am issued an APX-8000.  I am a communications coordinator who deals with ensuring interoperability with other agencies’ radio systems.

Use your issued radio.

I see fire and SAR volunteers all the time where I work using a Baeofeng when they’ve been ISSUED an Harris multiband.  I have even caught my coworker using a Baeofeng when his APX is clipped right there to his belt.  His answer as to why? “This works better.” Or, “That one is too hard to use.”  I think the real reason is he can program the radio himself, vice just getting a codeplug update from the programming technician over WiFi.

Regardless the consequences of using a personally owned radio could be huge from a civil liability standpoint.  A scenario I have actually seen happen in person was a volunteer firefighter using a Baeofeng to communicate with an EMS helicopter on final approach to the LZ for a vehicle collision.  The volunteer’s radio was slightly off frequency (set to the correct TX, but actually transmitting about 1 KHz off we later determined).  The pilot stated he could not land until he could copy a clear transmission that it was safe.  The volunteer ran back to his County truck with a vehicle mounted mobile and cleared in the helicopter.  Where was his Harris portable? At home.

If you get permission from your employer to use a personal radio though, get it in writing.  As in on official departmental letterhead with a wet signature with the make and model of radio somewhere on the paper.

This guy knows

Vaguely, nextel (iDen) was tearing up analog 800 trunking. Public safety was upset. 800 was about full, with public safety and cellular. Nextel, which was founded by a cabal of FCC lawyers, worked out a deal to buy out most of the 800 spectrum and sold a bunch of people a bill of goods: If you give us your legacy (spelled $$$$) frequencies, we will help you transition to something called 700Mhz. We will subsidize your departments' communications gear from tower to belt, and we'll both be happy.

I may be a little fuzzy on the actual truth, but this I can tell you; prior to that mess, there wasn't a single fucking LMR 700Mhz radio on the market (unless it was some fruity business band specialized thing).

All the IACP and IAFF and all the rest of the knuckle heads heard was 'cheap radio'. Many people in the field said, uh, hey, hold up. P25's vocoder chokes on low frequency noise, and we really don't know how well this band works in urban or dense forest areas.

Nope, already signed the contract.

Fortunately, when the nextel (who, after raping all the money they could get, sold the husk off to Sprint) money dried up, and motorola decided to streamline and drop several product lines, and what was left was even more retarded in pricing, other manufacturers started churning out actual radios that were built for 700Mhz (and, not simply tuned down from 800, with all the issues that came with that).

Now MSI is pretty much dead. They are selling Vertex radios rebadged with the batwings, for example. A bunch of people are learning to deal with 700Mhz. Most of the RF people are retiring, and you need to be more IT than a 'radio guy'.

The sad end of the story, is that after all the back room dealing, and straight pirate behavior, technology took off, and cellular moved out of 800Mhz, leaving a lot of nothing there now. It's all so complicated, that as a posted upstream observed, many people want the cheap stupid radio because a) not much to operating them, really, and b) when you drop it, lose it, or Something Bad happens, you're not out a $7,000.00 agency portable.

Does anybody really text on an APX, anyway? lol

There are options between a ~$30 Baofeng and a $7000 batwing radio.

What options are actually useful to you will depend entirely on how YOUR systems are set up, what your actual needs are.

Lots of public safety has changed to.... trunking, digital, 700MHz, etc etc.

But, most fire departments have specifically NOT done that, because digitally encoded audio is usually unintelligible in high noise environments. Some big city departments that changed ended up going back to analog systems.

Lots of rural areas still have the majority if not all of their basic public service communications on plain old analog FM on VHF or sometimes UHF, for cost, performance, and interoperability reasons. The upside of the inconvenience and performance hit of everyone changing to narrowband is that there are twice as many frequencies available along with a lot of traffic now being handled via cell phones, so the congestion issues that drove people to other options have eased a lot.

Some public safety agencies spend ridiculous amounts of money for communications that serves no real purpose other than funding radio dealers. Unscrupulous dealers also like to play games like set up special signaling or oddball specs to try to lock people in to their products.

Considering all of the above, it's impossible to give you a definitive suggestion without knowing the specifics of 1) what frequency band/s you need to operate on (ie, low band, VHF, UHF, 700MHz), 2) what modes you need to operate on (ie, analog FM, P25, DMR/TRBO, NXDN, etc), and 3) whether you need to use any special protocols for signaling, user identification, etc.

However, if an HT1250 will work for you, that is a pretty basic set of specifications that numerous basic radios would be able to meet. Almost any Part 90 approved Land Mobile radio product would be usable for a basic VHF or UHF analog system as long as you get the right frequency band, from any of a half dozen or more manufacturers.

I have a particular model series that I like, because they are small, handy, waterproof, and small, which is the Icom F1000/2000 series. I only point that out as an example as an alternative to an HT1250 that might be more desirable. One consideration with buying personal Land Mobile radios is getting them programmed to work for you... what the batwing folks call a "codeplug". The batwing company is very particular about programming their products. One reason why people buy the cheap grey-market Baofengs is because they can be readily programmed by the end user using free software. One thing I like about Icom is that the programming software to support them is available to end-users if you're mail ordering a radio, or if you buy it from a local independent dealer they'll likely be more accommodating with programming.

Programming the radio is the nuts and bolts of how it works, and if it's not done right, it won't work and potentially cause problems which is one of the knocks on personally owned radios. Details matter. It's not rocket science but whoever programs it needs to know what they are doing, which was likely the problem with the previously mentioned issue with a Baofeng.

Buy a clip or better yet get the department to put shoulder radio straps on the engines. NFPA now suggests wearing your radio under your coat anyway in fires to add protection. This is a written SOP at my department (though lots of guys ignore it). That being said, every truck and engine has four shoulder straps and four belt clips. Our turnouts and versa pro (for wildland, extrication, etc) both have chest radio pockets as well. Personally I like the straps as they are easy and fast to use getting in and out.

This is solid advice.

APX8000 has been out for nearly three years now. APX8500 only about a year now. APX7000/7500 are NLA from Motorola (fully phased out of production by the introduction of the APX8500).
Somewhere there was a really good study performed by (Cleaveland FD? or was it Boston FD or someone else?) that essentially drew these conclusions. They were testing primarily with XTS5000R's and APX6000XE's but the results were similar. Essentially, cover and protect as much of the radio setup as possible (even the speaker/mic cable) leaving as little rubberized material (cable, antenna, etc) exposed. Even showed how they suggested wearing the radios with leather cases w/ shoulder strap and down to routing the speaker/mic cable. Now they were testing with traditional speaker/mics and not the new setups that interface to the user's breathing apparatus.

OP, it's hard to really suggest equipment when we know nothing about the system(s) you are using or your current communications standards. Any two-way shop worth their merit (including me) will make sure you are using approved equipment that has been okayed by the system admin. This may sound weird but, modern systems have gotten very political…especially P25 trunking systems…to the point of, a radio may be P25 compliant but because it's not on the approved list, you can't use it.

My agency uses APX 7000s.  Last I checked they run about $5000.  I would never buy my own.

One of my customers has been buying them for about $1500 here lately. Prices really dropped after Motorola canceled the APX7000 and APX7500 in mid-2018.

I've got one I was building, but gave up on. They are cheaper used/whole than they are to parts up, which is kinda weird for moto products...