Batboard

So I have a lot of questions regarding a first radio purchase. It really depends on the feasibility, legality, budget... anyway, I want to say I am a passionate enthusiast and in no way want to break any laws or offend anyone.

What I would like to do is, for my own business, a few p25 capable radios connected to a simplex repeater.

I would also like to get involved with amature radio and would like to have the same radio capable of hitting some local repeters

Thirdly and finally, capable of monitoring local ems/fire. Analog 482.xxx mhz

What I've learned so far is the astro saber and xts series radios in 450-520mhz are capable of what I want to do. I've learned that they are 'electrically identical' but conversely the astro saber is an old dinosaur not worth resurrecting. I guess what I'm asking is, am I totally off base as an electronic enthusiast in always wanting a Motorola radio? Is it possible to get into something that I can actually use?

Some of us still have and use dinosaurs like the Astro Saber and MT2000 radios on commercial and Ham band.

I'll leave the more technical and legal aspects (that 'simplex repeater,' software acquisition) to those better informed.
However, I think that the Astro Saber and XTS3000 are pretty good starter radios.
They are capable for the mentioned uses and the CPS is reasonably easy to use.
The prices are affordable and accessories are widely varied and available.
They are (were?) very popular with hobbyists and help should be easy to find, both here on the Batboard and elsewhere.

Other than the board and ebay, what are some good places to buy?

They were not nice to me

Yes, they do tend to cop an attitude from time to time when new users post relatively simple questions.

If I'm not mistaken I PMed you there and received no reply.

Yes they can be a little blunt at times which goes against how I learnt (I learnt by others teaching and answering questions so now I try to give a little in return and have given a lot on the Philips/Simoco groups) but they are technically correct that somewhere in the signup it say the group is for those with some experience.

IIRC you also asked some simple bandplan questions which really you should know already before looking to P25 and other interesting technologies as if you don't understand what works where it can be rather daunting starting with the heavy stuff first. I've been in radio for around 20years (always had an interest in them since I was in nappies) and I'm still learning constantly about P25, MDC1200 etc. I've been using commercial radios on UHF and VHF for most of that time (since 99 or so with my first Philips FM92L). So I can see where it can get frustrating if you've not covered the basics first.

Now what are you meaning "simplex" repeater? Simplex implies no repeater unless you are using a "parrot repeater". You do realise a P25 repeater would probably start second hand at around $1500 for the basic box (Quantar)? I need to look more into P25 repeaters myself but the cost is holding me back. I might look into getting a couple of Astro Saber M1s and linking them together for a sheets n giggles test repeater. At least it would be semi affordable. On that though, would a regular Moto40w amp work with P25? I'd think they're just carrier based rather than carrier type based allowing C4FM along with FM?

The XTS3000 was an Astro Saber with a Jedi accy plug as far as I've read and remembered (though I thought there was a change in memory size and swap from vocon to vocoder with them as well). As for the Astro Saber, make sure the vocon is 1mb else IMBE will be a flop.

There should be no reason you cannot get into Motorola for general use. The software is very different to Simoco, Tait etc (what we have here) but once you get used to how the software is laid out the general band designators (that took me a little to remember K was Vhi etc so ran with PDFs on my iPhone for ages doing a search on it at radio swap meets). I use MCS2000s here for my UHFCBs (all have extra receive stuff programmed in them) and they are fantastic radios for general use if you get a standard (non SP) product. They make the best CBs I've come across once you get used to the odd scan programming (most radios here had scan add/delete to add and remove channels from the scan list) and other quirks (repeater defeat zone wide rather than per channel etc) they are amazing. I am looking though at upgrading the MCS2000s soonish to either dual banded/bricked Simoco SRM9000s or more preferably a dual bricked XTL5000 kit for 400-480 and VHF HI. If I have to roll with Simocos I will have to install a BCD996XT scanner in the car thus wanting to roll XTLs instead.