I like the GM300 16 channel the best. Some of the other Radius and
Motorola radios that look the same have a 5 pin accessory connector
with less flexibility. Likewise the 16 channel GM300 has more
programability on the 16 pin accessory connector than the 8 channel.
Now, the 8 channel is a lot cheaper usually, and probably would do
anything you need. I stockpile radios in advance of a project, so have
stuck to the 16 ch to make sure I can do whatever I need to with them.
I've bought about a dozen GM300 16ch UHF on Ebay in the last year at
anywhere from $80 to $140 -- one need an IF chip replaced ($20) and
that was the only problem with any of them. I MUCH prefer the 10W
version, which is often cheaper but harder to find. I almost never use
a GM300 in an application that uses more than 10W and they run nice
and continuously at 2.5W for a link transmitter as well.
The GM300 does use DOS-based RSS that will run under windows, but it
can take 10 minutes to read or write a codeplug and sometimes things
fail... I avoid that. I just boot my "shack PC" - a Celeron 2.6GHz
machine off of a FreeDOS live CD and run the RSS off of a small FAT16
partition I keep on the PC's only HDD.
Models to avoid -- use the info on repeater-builder and Batlabs. Don't
accidentally get a GM300 that's narrow-band (unless that's what you
want -- never know an ham to want that), and watch the 45W units if
you're going to use the transmitter. If you need 5W, get a 10W radio,
don't crank down a 45W
On Apr 23, 2009, at 1:42 PM, John Transue wrote:
>
>
>
> Thanks to you all for good advice. The project is to have a VHF
> receiver (remote receiver), a UHF linktransmitter, a UHF link
> receiver (at the base repeater site), and probably a voter. All of
> this is in ham bands. I am getting the idea that good choices for
> the radios would be MaxTrac, Radius, or GM300 radios. These are
> available for about $200. I am reluctant to include SpectraTAC
> because it seems to come in a bunch of modules, and I don’t
> understand which ones I would need, and I suspect that when the
> pieces are ll included, it would be more expensive than the other
> radios.
>
> Questions:
>
> a) Are there specific radio models to avoid?
> b) Are there specific radio models that are particularly good
> for my application (easy to interface, easy to program, good
> performance, etc.)?
>
> c) Is there different specific Radio Service Software for each
> model radio? Are these DOS programs that require a native DOS machine?
>
> d) I see some Midland VHF (71-3051B and 3032B) and UHF
> (71-5051B and 5052B). How do these compare with the Motorola radios?
>
> Your opinions and experience will be much appreciated. Thank you.
>
> John
>
>
>
--
Cort Buffington
H: +1-785-838-3034
M: +1-785-865-7206
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