Batboard

I'm looking to buy either a Kenwood 2180 or Motorola PR 860.
I'm looking to hear from people what they thought of them and what would they prefer to buy as well as any endurance stories. My only experiences with motorola is our poorly programmed and maintained ht1250s at the fire hall.

As well as that I have no experience programming Motorola or Kenwood radios, could someone please tell me the options I have for programming programable buttons. If possible could somebody post some screen shots of both the different softwares?
Thanks

I have numerous TK2180s in the fire service and they perform admirably. Button assignment is basically unlimited - any supported function can go on any button.

I have PR860's both in VHF and lowband and I really like them. I like them better than the HT750 for some reason. The buttons are pretty much programmable for whatever you want.

If you are comparing functions the Kenwood will blow the pr860 out of the water. Plus your most likely going to pay a little less for the kenwood right around the same price range. I have used both radios. I really can't say anything negative about the PR-860 the ones I have sold never came back with complaints. The Kenwood is a top notch radio which I am using as my primary fire ground radio. The only thing you will loose with the kenwood is a 16 channel stop knob. It has a continues knob. Which brings me to my next option for the Kenwood the VGS-1 voice guide option board. Adding this board will give you basic channel announcement and function guide. When you change the channel it will announce CHANNEL 1, CHANNEL 2, CHANNEL 3 ETC. To go further you can enable function guide so when you turn scan on it will announce SCAN ON SCAN OFF. TALK AROUND ON TALK AROUND OFF. As a firefighter this is the greatest thing since slice bread. no need to count clicks or look at the display. Plus the keypad lock will lock the channel selector on what channel you are on. Now that the kenwood's have MDC-1200 encode and decode and emergency encode and encode and the option to do quick call and mdc on the same channel The Kenwood is a win win. IMHO

kb9suy wrote:If you are comparing functions the Kenwood will blow the pr860 out of the water. Plus your most likely going to pay a little less for the kenwood right around the same price range. I have used both radios. I really can't say anything negative about the PR-860 the ones I have sold never came back with complaints. The Kenwood is a top notch radio which I am using as my primary fire ground radio. The only thing you will loose with the kenwood is a 16 channel stop knob. It has a continues knob. Which brings me to my next option for the Kenwood the VGS-1 voice guide option board. Adding this board will give you basic channel announcement and function guide. When you change the channel it will announce CHANNEL 1, CHANNEL 2, CHANNEL 3 ETC. To go further you can enable function guide so when you turn scan on it will announce SCAN ON SCAN OFF. TALK AROUND ON TALK AROUND OFF. As a firefighter this is the greatest thing since slice bread. no need to count clicks or look at the display. Plus the keypad lock will lock the channel selector on what channel you are on. Now that the kenwood's have MDC-1200 encode and decode and emergency encode and encode and the option to do quick call and mdc on the same channel The Kenwood is a win win. IMHO

Yeah well the deal I was working on fell through so I guess I'm going to try and find a cheap ht1000. All I really wanted it for was to have a little bit bigger radio for firefighting so the ht1000 should work.