Radius P50 Question

[dcraig5005]

Hi All,

I recently purchased a VHF 2-channel Radius P50 HT from a Hamfest. I know it is not synthesized and is crystal-controlled only, does anyone know if it can be converted to 2M Amateur? Also, does the radio support duplex operation or just simplex?

Thanks!
David Craig N9VJF

[Tom in D.C.]

David,

I have a bunch of these but I've never tried to put them on
2M. If by duplex you mean talk and listen at the same time
the answer is no; no HT does this. If by simplex you mean
PTT then listen the answer if of course yes. The P50 uses
separate receive and transmit crystals.

Personally I dislike working on the P50's board. It's very small
and reminds me a lot of the old HT-220 though the access to
the rocks is a lot easier.

Crystals from Bomar in NJ should run you about $15 each, if
you want to experiment with 2M capabilities. You will have
to do some retuning and the question is whether or not the
oscillator will "reach" down to 145/146/147 mHz.

Regards,

[Dave]

They will do half duplex for repeater operation.

Hi All,

I recently purchased a VHF 2-channel Radius P50 HT from a Hamfest. I know it is not synthesized and is crystal-controlled only, does anyone know if it can be converted to 2M Amateur? Also, does the radio support duplex operation or just simplex?

Thanks!
David Craig N9VJF

[dcraig5005]

Tom and Dave,

Thanks very much for the responses - yeah by duplex operation I mean being able to program a seperate TX and RX frequency (offset) for a repeater.

It is a two-channel unit, so basically I would have to program the repeater input on CH1 and the output on CH2?

Thanks again,
David Craig

[601]

No, each channel is controlled by two crystals, you'll need 4 in total for two channels.

Say your channel 1 is 460MHZ on a repeater, you'll need two crystals, 460.000MHZ and 465.000MHz in the first channel slot, and the same with channel two. You could make channel two the talk around, then needing two more crystals, 1 for TX and 1 for RX, on 460MHz

Simplest way I could think of to describe it.

I believe the P50's were capable of jumping crystals, so you'd only need 3. I'm not 100% sure of that, maybe someone else could answer?

[k2hz]

I believe the P50's were capable of jumping crystals, so you'd only need 3. I'm not 100% sure of that, maybe someone else could answer?

Yes, the P50 has jumpers to allow reuse of the channel 1 RX and/or TX frequency in channel 2 so you only need 2 TX and 1 RX xtal for the usual repeater talk-around set up.