Does anyone use anything other than Motorola radios and pagers?

[EMS Fanatic]

Motorola seems to be taking over the ems market for handheld radios and pagers I just wonder who carries something different and do you like that more and why?

 

[exodus]

We're switching from Motorola to kenwood. I don't' know why.

 

[EMS Fanatic]

We can't get very good reception where I live no matter what we do lol

 

[DesertMedic66]

Same as @exodus. Some of our units have Motorola but we are in the process of switching to all kenwood. I've heard they are cheaper and easier to repair.

For pagers we use USA mobility (I believe that's the name).

 

[Smitty213]

At my PT rural gig, the whole county switched to Harris UHF radios just over a year ago; the volunteers still have motorola pagers though. Harris just started in the civilian market, expensive from what I hear, but so far i've been really impressed.

 

[exodus]

Same as @exodus. Some of our units have Motorola but we are in the process of switching to all kenwood. I've heard they are cheaper and easier to repair.

For pagers we use USA mobility (I believe that's the name).

Mines on my cerdenza... brb.

Edit: We have USA Mobility T3Plus

 

[Tigger]

A few years ago we switched from Kenwood to a Motorola Digital VHF system as our primary radio net.

All the county fire districts are on analog VHF (almost all Kenwood products) and we still have a Kenwood Analog unit in each ambulance to talk to them without having to switch away from our primary EMS channel. There is also a large cache of backup Kenwood portables.

We also have a few EF Johnson 800mhz radios but have mostly switched to Motorola for those as well.

Yes, each ambulance has three mobile radios in the cab, it's painful sometimes.

 

[LightItUp98]

We use Vertex STAAAAEFHIY DHURRRRR

 

[NomadicMedic]

There's a couple of large public safety grade vendors and when a county or state buys a new radio system, it's usually speced with the radios (or, as they called in the biz: subscriber units). For example, a Motorola P25 (astro) or DMR (MOTOTRBO) system will specify Motorola radios, even though other vendors make subscriber units that will work on the system.

Its all done by bid, and the larger companies can usually make the most competitive bid... Which is why you see so many Moto systems.

The radio system should be transparent to the end users. It shouldn't matter who makes what, it has to be 99.99999% reliable for public safety.

 

[NPO]

We use Kenwood UHF radios for my agency with multiple repeaters depending where in the county you are, which also has programed in every other public service agency on UHF, however we also have a Kenwood VHF which is our backup radio/frequency that also covers a larger area. We also have another Kenwood VHF radio for interface with local FD.

In addition to that, we have UHV/VHF Uniden scanner for listening to what ever pleases you, but most dont use it, some use this to tune into PD. On LDTs this one frequently gets turned to CB for roadtrip entertainment.

 

[Andy Svendsen]

We can't get very good reception where I live no matter what we do lol

This gave me a laugh and I don't even know why, probably because I know a dude in the middle of nowhere who vollies and has this problem

 

[Bosco836]

Motorola seems to be taking over the ems market for handheld radios and pagers I just wonder who carries something different and do you like that more and why?

For the full time provincial services, our mobiles are made by Motorola with our handhelds made by Tait. However, a few of our fire departments around here either have always used/recently switched to Kenwoods with decent results.

I personally own several Kenwoods (along with Motos) and have been pretty happy with them.

 

[k9Dog]

EF Johnson Viking

 

[ZombieEMT]

In both counties that I work in, Motorola are issued by the county. They provide all the programming and give a designated amount to each agency based on size and number of units. The agencies can purchase additional equipment, but must meet similar standards, most stick with Motorola. At my part time gig, we were using Motorola on an analog UHF system. Our agency wanted to purchase additional radios because the ones we have are falling apart. The problem is, we are switching to a 700mhz soon and didnt want to spend a lot of money. Instead, they bought several Wouxun/Baofeng dual band for 40$.... They work awsome! Even better than our current Motorola. They feel cheap and are very light, but the quality is great.

 

[TransportJockey]

I have used Relm and ICOM radios at various services in the past, as well as Kenwood. But the overwhelming majority have been Motorola

 

[COmedic17]

Motorola radios.

We used to have these god awful "zip-it's" --which were refurbished blackberrys that were basically a pager where you could receive alerts/pages ....then everyone figured out how you could text back to dispatch... Words were said between dispatch and crews that led to a full out blood bath, and crews began purposefully destroying the zip its.... The zip it's would also randomly disconnect from wifi and crews wouldn't be aware they were missing alerts/pages, etc. they also had a battery life of about 15 minutes max.

We have since gone back to pagers.


If anyone one ever recommends zipits- slap them.

 

[k9Dog]

We had zip it's too they sucked! Now we have iPhones and radios

 

[COmedic17]

It was bad. After everyone figured out how to harass dispatch, everyone figured out how to text each other on them. Before you knew it, dispatch was asking why every unit in service was at ihop....

 

[CODE X FLATLINE]

The Batwing always was, is now & always will be the global leader in Land Mobile communications in spite of it's failure in the CB market & it's abandonment of the railroad market. Everything I was ever assigned to in the profession and purchased in the hobby was Motorola, well maybe except for a few Plectron & Federal Alert Receivers for variety.

 

[Akulahawk]

Where I live, the vast majority of equipment is Motorola and they run it on a P25 trunk system. Where I currently work, most of the FDs use Kenwood radios as it's an analog VHF system there. Given the terrain difference, it makes sense. Without a LOT of repeaters located up HIGH, a 700 MHz trunked radio system won't work well at all.