Are Far East Moto Radios as good as US/European sets?

[g8tzl2004]

I have some identical Motorola radios where the earlier dated set is made in the USA or Europe and an "identical" later dated version is made in Indonesia or Malaysia.

Does anybody have any views on whether the Malaysian/Indonesian sets are as well made as the USA/European sets??

I assume the main PCB is assembled automatically - its no longer a labor intensive process. If this is the case, what's the point of closing US/European factories?

Are any Motorola radios still actually made in the USA/Europe?

[N4KVE]

Like I told people needing car parts it's not so important where the radio or car is made, it's the destination which is important. Years ago I got a MTS 2000 UHF "R" split radio that was made at Plantation for some other country. The keypad had a few funny buttons which I replaced. I noticed that in the Ham freq's 440-450 it wasn't as hot as my friend's was. I brought it to a friend who worked in the Plantation factory to align. He said while it was in spec, the rx wasn't quite as good as 4 others he compared it to which were to be sold in the US. He did say however the rx was really hot at 410 mhz. Better than the other 4 radios he compared mine to. He also said a few of the components on the PCB had different pt #'s. On the other hand I have some MTX 838 Jedis for the Canadian market that were made in Malasia, & the RF board looks exactly the same internally, & the specs are the same as US made US sold MTS 2000's. As to why close the US factories? The much cheaper labor in Malaysia. Some US state or federal agencies might require US made radios so maybe 1 line might still be active in the US, but radios for the private sector will all be made offshore. I had lots of friends who worked in Plantation who were let go. GARY N4KVE

[Tom in D.C.]

I once picked up (bought) five or six Asian GP300s that were, according to their stickers, still in warranty. Two of them acted up and my local MSS sent them to the Depot which fixed them, but they also cut off the date part of the label and sent word back that there would be no more free fixes given since the radios were from offshore. The radios worked fine and could not be told from the Mexican (I think) units that were being produced at that time.

[Satelite]

Hello:
I never really gave it much thought but now after reading this posting :
I had a GP300 select5 version come to me for support from a customer that bought it off of Ebay.
And it didnt have as hot of a reciever as the US GP300.
But i didnt bother to get real technical with it since it was used with an in plant repeater so rx sensitivy was not as important and would operate in that enviorment unnoticed with the others.
Now i wonder if it was due to being foriegn manufacture after reading these postings.
Satelite

[escomm]

The issue is not the foreign manufacture of Motorola radios, indeed most of their radios have been built overseas for the last umpteen years (Malaysia, Israel, etc). Rather, I am gathering the issue is the market the radios were intended for. It appears Motorola is building a "better" radio for the US/Canada market ?

[g8tzl2004]

The "official" minimum RX sensitivity spec for Motorola radios always appears to be 0.3uV for 12dB SINAD (117dBm).

Most Motorola radios I have are far better than this, say 0.14uV - 0.2uV (124 - 121dBm) - so up to 7dB more sensitive than the min spec!!! ie. enormous if you are interested in weak signal working

When "identical" radios come off the Far East production line , maybe only the best sensitivity sets are sent to the US/European markets. The deafer sets (although still "in spec" and perhaps deafer due to component tolerances) are maybe sold to local Far East markets???

In general, I find that my Motorola radios have excellent sensitivity - especially dedicated 12.5KHz sets - better than my other LMR sets and ham stuff. I know ham stuff is built to a price but even some "modern" ham VHF/UHF stuff has useless intermod performance compared to my Moto radios and are also deafer!!! - so the poor intermod is not necessarily due to excessive front end gain!!!