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Is there a difference in the primary band and secondary band of a dual band APX. I understand that both bands have to be enabled or only the primary band will work? Is this true? Does the secondary band have any limitations such as less channels or are both bands virtually identical or whats the story?

thanks.

This applies to the APX7000 and APX7500. Upon ordering either radio, you specify a primary band that MUST be enabled and a secondary band that does not have to be enabled unless you need it. It just needs to be physically present in the radio. That way, if circumstances change down the road you can pay for a flash upgrade and just turn it on. If your budget only allows for half of a project in one fiscal year, this is a way you can have the hardware in hand and merely bump it up when the rest of the money comes available. Lets say there is a statewide VHF system coming online in a few years, but your department needs new radios for your local 800MHz system which is already online. Why pay extra for the VHF feature set if it won't be used for years? There is no difference in the capabilities or capacity of either band.

Seems to me it would be easier if one just avoided the future reflashiing, ordered the radio with two active bands but didn't program one of those bands.

If you order a apx 7k in just 700/800, it has vhf already installed, just not turned on. Verified this on some radio's that were ordered that way, opened them up and guess what, both bands are present. it also only comes with a single band antenna that way too.

So if you were to buy a UHF1/VHF 7000 & both bands were activated, would there be any difference in operating the radio if UHF, or VHF were the primary band?

N4KVE wrote:So if you were to buy a UHF1/VHF 7000 & both bands were activated, would there be any difference in operating the radio if UHF, or VHF were the primary band?

No. The average user wouldn't even know the difference if you don't tell them what frequency is on each channel change.

Regardless, whatever band is the primary band or not, the radio appears to the user (and the programmer) as one radio that just happens to cover two bands. There's nothing really "split" about it. You can punch Channel 1 as 450.000 and Channel 2 as 150.000 (for a VHF/UHF2 radio as an example).

Only thing I have noticed, is that CPS will see which one is the "primary" band in the radio. All that does is place the lowest freq as the default in the freq fields. IE: You hit a new Freq Option, and the default freq for that band will pop up in the field. Other than that, makes no difference.

Question is answered! Thanks for the replies