Business band conversion to 2 meters.

[capewalk]

I know there are Motorola and Kenwood radios that can be converted to 2 meters. I looked into it a while back but with all costs considered it wasn't far off to a new radio. I wonder if that's changed at all. I lost all the bookmarks I had that showed the models that can be used and the programming methods. Can someone bring me up to date? Thanks in advance.

 

[Madball13]

Check out this dual band. From what i hear it's a pretty good dual band for the price and will save you the hassle of screwing with business radios.

http://www.powerwerx.com/wouxun-radios/kg-uv3d-dual-band.html

 

[n1oty]

"J" split Motorola's will do the entire 2-meter band without the need for any hardware or software modifications. Most of the modern Icom and Kenwood commercial VHF radios will do the entire 136-174 MHZ range, including 2 meters. Just program the frequencies, PL's, etc. and go. Since my local group is also into Nexedge/iDAS voice repeaters on 2 meters, most of us use the Icom iDAS mobiles/portables and the Kenwood Nexedge mobiles/portables. They will work just as nicely on analog voice. I will say that my preference runs to the Icom and Kenwood commercial radios over the Motorola's.

 

[Zappa]

I prefer the Kenwood radios myself because the software is easy to find and much easier to use than the Moto or ICOM programs.
As N1OTY says, the radios will do the entire VHF band without any modifications at all.
I like the TK-730's because they're bulletproof and there are tons of them around fairly cheap, however they are heavy and take up some space. But they're remotable too and good for mounting in the trunk.

 

[uncle griz]

I agree with Zap and John. I have 3 Kenwood tk-705's which work 140-174 mc. They are also bullet proof and put out 50 watts in the ham band. You don't even need software, they are field programable and do pl and dcs. Limited to 16 channels, but can be picked up for ~50 -100 bucks. They are small like the 251,261 etc.