Batboard

I have been asked to recommend a portable radio for a group at work.
They have a UHF repeater and license for four simplex channels.
It is a school so nothing to high tech. They are using SP50s now but I would like to look at Icom or Kenwood also. I have no idea on what replaced the SP50 so let me know

Brien

new or used?

The CP150/200 series is basically the replacement for the SP50. It's a nice small, durable radio & compares favorably with the SP50. I personally like them better than P1225's...so far at least.

Otherwise, Kenwood's 2102/3102 series is comparable to the above in build & price.

I haven't worked with a lot of them, but the TAIT Orca series seems pretty good as well. Not sure on price for those.

No idea on the Vertex, don't deal with them at all. I'm sure others will be more than happy to fill you in on those.

Todd

The Motorola CP150 is a remarkable rugged small radio. An additional three-year warranty is available above the standard one-year warranty for a low price.

Nand.

Assuming that, being a school, pricing is going to be a priority, you might want to look at the new Relm RPU416As, or even the RPU499As. The 416s list for about $325.00 each, and the 499s list for about $425.00 each. The 416s are 4 watt, 16 channel. The 499s are...........you guessed it: 4 watt, 99 channel, and are field programmable(front panel programmable). They don't look quite as durable as Motorolas, but they shouldn't get that much abuse, in a school.

They are looking for new and we have some CP150s in the district and theay are working out good. What version of RSS is used to program them.

shouldn't get that much abuse in a school? HA! you should see some of the radios i get in for repair. they look like they were malled by a grizzly. i'm supprised they don't have blood stains on them.

as for choosing, are there any other considerations like compatability with other schools, programming, do they use MDC signalling or just the PTT ID? personally, i go NUTZ when a supervisor orders radios for his/her department and doesn't ask anybody (me) what to get. i only get the waris line like HT's, EX's, and CDM's, but that's only cuz we had that going before i got into this and i have the CPS and like to keep everything kinda uniform. and we do use PTT ID, so that's another reason.

there has to be more than one school in the district. the person asking you for advice might not know that there is already a person in the district that HAS the advice and is waiting for the question. see if you can find that person.

I was the person that ordered the repeater and it is the only one in the district. It does have a phone patch into the PBX but it is beyond the users so they don’t use it. Most other schools do what they want I happened to be in the right place at the right time and got to spend some money when the school was new.
I have transferred to another department and no one has taken my place so all I have to do is answer the question.

I also work in a school district, I had the same question on here about 6 months ago. Our system was on simplex VHF and used a mix of SP50's and VX-160's. The best advice I got was from the local police department and it's techs on what the best portable to use for school use. We have over 40 users in the high school that I work at. We moved from VHF to UHF, we use HT1250 and CP200 radios with MDC-1200 and utilize deskset controllers for the main office which acts as central. Like you we also have a phone patch on a repeater. If this is a public school like mine is, you should have a easy time getting the money, just make sure you use the word saftey over and over. Our system was valued somewhere in the $20,000 range. Schools boards dont think twice when it comes to saftey so the bid went out and was selected in a short time.

eboe wrote:shouldn't get that much abuse in a school? HA! you should see some of the radios i get in for repair. they look like they were malled by a grizzly. i'm supprised they don't have blood stains on them.

It's obviously been a while since I was in school. I really would have never guessed that school use would beat up radios.