Batboard

Fellas

Currently i have a uhf xts3000 MIII that i am happy with however I am thinking of selling that radio off along with some other gear I have and purchasing an xts2500 mIII. I was looking to get somthing a tiny bit smaller and newer with. Are there any huge differences between the radios obviously both will to conventional and conv P-25 but other than that are there many hardware/engineering improvements between the two radios? I could sell off the 3000 and get the 2500I for even money. The 2500I has host dsp 12 and it has one of the "pre-production" 123abc1234 serial#'s. I know that the 3000 can be hacked somewhat and the 2500 cant. but all i need is a basic analog/digital portable. I wouldnt be adverse to an xts5000 but I cant seem to find any model 3's in the 450-520 split. What do you members think.


take care
john

Remember that you can get FPP on a 2500 but you can't
have it on a 3000, if FPP is one your needs/wants.

I have a couple of xts3000's (R split) and a xts2500 (S split). I hacked the software for the xts2500 in order to take it down into the 440 ham band. My xts2500 is also a 123ABC1234 radio. All three radio's have been upgraded to the latest Host/DSP versions. The xts2500 has a 8 meg board, not a 4 meg.

Personally, I prefer the xts2500 for a number of reasons, but there are some differences that take some getting used to. I definitely like the smaller, lighter radio. Even with a high capacity nntn7335a Li-On battery, it is much more compact than the xts3000's. Subjectively, the audio seems better on the 2500 (both analog and digital), which I have attributed to better DSP.

The key physical difference between the 2500 and the 3000 is that the ABC switch is now a concentric switch and the old two position concentric switch is gone. This has not been a problem for me. There is a major change on the software programming side too. The transmit/receive frequency entry has been moved to a different point in the software. It is no longer in the "personality" menu. Man, that drove me nuts for a while, but then I came to realize that this could be advantageous. I can actually reuse a "personality" with other frequencies.

If I had to get rid of all my UHF radio's except for one, the xts2500 would stay.

John
N1OTY

Another item with the XTS2500 is no more RIB box configuration to program it with a PC. The single cable (USB or Serial) is a nice change and I too recently sold my last XTS3000 and use nothing but the XTS2500 series.

Mark

thanks for the replys so far!
I actually have experienced some of the issues with the 2500 software it drove me NUTS as well. I programmed one for a freind and did not care for some things; for example when you enter the PL"S before you could (if you were entering 4Z for example) go to that feild and hit 4 multiple times and select 4z Now you have to hit 4 then you must use the mouse to move foeward and actually pic 4z from the drop down.
To me the audio sounded the same but the size makes a difference, Personally I love the old A-B-C switch but i can get used to where it is now. FPP would be nice to have tom but where this is one of the 123abc radios can it still be added after? I would also be curious how hard or easy it was to bring the 2500 down into the 440 band


thanks for the comments

Bringing an S split 2500 down into the ham band is a piece of cake, if you can hex edit the band limits in the software. I simply searched for every instance of 450 MHZ and lowered it.

John
N1OTY

Only downside AFAIK is that it seems crypto is impossible to obtain on the 2nd hand market for the 2500.

will become avail with time.. Got 2 of them off panter. 450-520's one had to have the firmware updated. other one already at 12.

Frank

Do the newer firmware 2500's have RF HI/Low power selectable on a per channel/personality basis or do you still have to make up separate HI power and Low power channels ?

I have a old FW code-plug and I see that there is no option for HI power and Low power on the same channel.

Firmware R12.00.00 won't let you do HI/LOW on the fly through the menu.... Maybe R13.00.00 will include that, you never know...


-Marc