Off the /\/\ topic but anyone using a "RELM"

[Charlied]

Has anyone used a "RELM" radio for communication?

http://www.usascan.com/files/RPV599APLUS.html

http://www.usascan.com/files/scv32d.html

[Matt]

My dept has about 6 or 7 of the 2nd link for a back-up / secondary ops type of thing, and they work fairly well. There have been problems though, one of the got batteries melted in, so the back battery contacts don't touch the charger contacts (I still don't know how that happened) Another one lost its programming one day. One of my people turned it on and it wouldn't TX/RX on any channel programed in it.

Other than those their pretty durable radios, we've beem using them for years without much incident in an outdoors / dusty enviroment.

[fire-medic8104]

Our department used to have a chief who loved these radios. And the department bought a couple of the first ones, while our current chief was on vacation.

They both suck.

They are not built for public safety. The 2nd one I never used, but the audio quality and durability for firefighters, it would never stand up.

The 1st one, we have had for 2 months and the 3 we have, 1 lost programming, 1 quit transmitting, and one just went dead altogether.

I would steer clear of them.

[MTS2000des]

total garbage. the WHS150/450 were the ones I used. plastic crap ala pro series only worse. tinny RX audio, horrible front end. about the quality of an FRS radio.

btw, I love that companies play on "homeland security" crap on those web pages. gotta love it...

[KG6EAQ]

Add $30.00 UPS Ground shipping/handling/insurance per radio to a street address in the continental USA.

Holy cow! PER radio?

[BPD109]

Well, you know, it costs quite a bit to keep those Chinese sweatshop workers in the lifestyles that they are accustomed...you know the ones relocated from their homes near Beijing to a city somewhere in the middle of nowhere to assemble Fisher Price radio equipment. *sarcasm...I bid no ill will to anyone of Chinese, Asian, or any other ethnic heritage*

A local fire dept. here opted to uy Relm junk for their entire department, and police. It's a sad and tragic event...but these are ig'nant folk, that think that lowest bidder = best deal not always true. Yes, /\/\other will make you pay more per radio, BUT YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. The Relm mobiles look like bastardized Maxtracs (More like the new incarnation, I believe the are some-letter 400?) and the portables look like Kenwood tk272's with DTMF. The cases on both feel like they are blister pack plastic thin, the radios themselves just "feel" flimsy. Their audio out is HORRID, and difficult to understand at higher volume. My 78 Pinto's factory AM radio sounded better. The transmitted audio sounds just as flimsy when you hear it too.

Sorry for the scathing post, I just feel very strongly that if you want a glorified Fisher Price, Wal Mart quality walkie talkie to talk to use like a CB radio, buy a Relm. If you or your partners life depends on the equipment, go /\/\oto... (or at least Kenwood...) I fought hard to help convince our county leaders that /\/\ was better in the long run. We gave up a scrambler in each portable to be able to get the 1250s, but they are FAR better radios than the other junk floating about.

Ill leave the soapbox now.
Thanks for the audience.

[kmoose]

The RPV series of radios are great radios.............for the market that they were designed for. The links above try to portray the RPVs as Public Safety grade radios, which was never Relm's intention. These are what Relm calls "B&I" radios. Business and Industrial. When used in the proper setting, these radios are every bit as good as M, but at a fraction of the price. The problem with the above links is that the verbiage was obviously written by a salesman. Homeland Security, for a B&I product? I guess you can't blame the salesman for trying, but that is dangerously close to false representation of a product. If you want a conventional analog radio for hobby purposes, the Relm would be a great buy. If your life depends on your radio, in a burning building? Go with a PS rated radio.

On a different note: if you buy one of the Relms, compare their customer service to that of Motorola's, and see what you think.

[kf4sqb]

On a different note: if you buy one of the Relms, compare their customer service to that of Motorola's, and see what you think.

I can answer that one. I called RELM tech support one time. That's right, little ol' nobody me. Did I get a runaround from the REAL, LIVE TECH who answered the phone? Nope. Did I get a lot of trouble about "who are you?", or "are you an authorized RELM service center?" No, I didn't. I got honest, straightforward answers to my questions, and even got thanked for calling! Bet you can't get that kind of treatment from Mother /\/\.

On a different note, I am beginning to think the same people make some of RELM and Motorola's radios. One of the new RELM mobile series, I don't remember which one, is almost the spitting image of the Motorola CM series mobiles. Performs about the same, too. However, as that illustrates, the RELM is not well suited to PS use . For what it is intended for, however, it is a fairly decent radio.

[AEC]

I've used/owned several over the years, and have only had one give me problems, and that one was a ham fest 'special' I paid $75.00 for with two high-cap batteries, rapid charger and spkr. mic.

Funny thing about the fest special, was every battery had those mysterious dented corners on them-like they went through the 5 foot drop test....

And the audio on RX was flaky, so I had to do the MT-500 trick and perform some interconnect pin squeezing and place a laminated shield behind the keypad to eliminate the horrid squeal on high volume, after that, crisp and clean on both TX and RX audio.

I always liked the TX audio of my LPH and LPE portables, they never failed to give me 'loud' audio @ 4 Khz deviation. No crackles, and no distortion.

I've keyed down one of mine for 5 minutes straight and the case(yes, it was diecast) power didn't fluctuate even by .1 watt.
I sure could not even touch the case for several minutes afterward, but it did not fail.

It is NOT a PS rated radio, but I don't work for PS, so I couldn't care less, and I still have my first LPH and it has taken a beating and keeps going, although I did the case swap from lexan to diecast soon after purchase and that made a huge difference in survivability.

As for tech support, I got bum SW, and one call got me a LIVE body to talk to, and a floppy in the mail 3 days later!!

Not to mention the fact that anybody can call and order parts(any) and get the same treatment as the 'big guys' get, and damn better than Circle-M will give you for certain.
I had to order a few rotary switches for replacements for LPX LTR portables and they have a $50.00 min. order, but that's no biggie either.

B/K Relm service is better all around than Circle-M has had in years.

And as a side note, anybody can buy the programming cables/software as well.....NO questions asked!