motorola gp68 radio

Bravo24

hi all,

can anybody enlighten me about views and details to the Motorola GP68 radio also is it a licence free or does it need a licence and also is it only a business radio or can anybody use them ....

cheers

mpctc

The Motorola GP 68 UHF is not PMR although it can be programmed (via the keyboard) to PMR446 channels. However, it is a 5 watt set and technically illegal to use on PMR.
There are some good deals from Hong komg on ebay. I have several of these and have had no problems. It is also available in VHF

johnnyturbo

Hi,
The GP68 is a good radio, but you should note:
It is not approved for use in UK as it does not have ETS300 approval being an Asian market radio.
It is only suitable for 25KHz channel spacing, not such a problem on UHF version, but on VHF in UK, the channel spacing is 12.5KHz, a 25KHz radio will not work very well and could cause interference to other radio users on adjacent channels.

If you want a good value radio, sourced from UK with full approvals, then see link below:
Entel - Manufacturers of two way radio equipment
HX400 series available in VHF or UHF are great value, very flexible in programming specific functions and you can get a range of covert accessories to go with them.
Also, to stay legal, you can get a UK General (simple light) licence from Ofcom www.ofcom.org.uk
This allows you to use a number of channels in VHF & UHF bands either portable ot mobile with max. 5W output.

Cheers,
John.

mpctc

Sorry to jump back in, but this is not correct. The GP68 can be set to 5khz, 10khz, 12.5khz and 25khz channel stepping.

johnnyturbo

I am also sorry to have to correct you, but:
frequency steps (i.e ability to tune in xxHz steps) is not the same as channel spacing!
25KHz spacing gives +/-5KHz deviation with appropriate bandwidth receiver filter
12.5KHz spacing gives +/-2.5KHz deviation with appropriate bandwidth receiver filter (this is often known as narrow mode)

So you can see that with a freq. band designed to use radios at 12.5KHz spacing (with 2.5KHz dev) the using a 25KHz radio can cause interference to a user on adjacent channel and as the receive filter is too wide, the rx audio will be low.

Also, on PMR446, apart form the power output issue, the radio needs to be able to tune in 6.25KHz steps, as although 446 uses 12.5KHz channel space, the channel freq.s are offset by 6.25KHz.

I hope this calrifies it for you.

John.

mpctc

If anyone is interested. I have put the manual for the Motorola AP73 which is the same radio here if you want to download it.

http://www.mpctc.eu/ap73.pdf


Cheers
Brian

johnnyturbo

Thanks Brian,

I have saved that in my user manuals file for reference!

Cheers,

Johnny.