Don't believe everything you hear,especially when it comes to radios.What's wrong with Motorola besides the fact they have pretty well safeguarded their product against freq hacking unless you have the proper authority (software) to do it? Their commercial products simply follow FCC guidelines.

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That's how I roll!!

Not as good of quality as they once were. The older radios were built like bricks and had big heat sinks and quality construction. Its like just about everything else made these days they just are not built like they used to be. I think this is one of the other reason they lost some business in the past few years. There is alot of good info on batwing labs about this subject. They had a thread not to long ago on motorola buying vertex standard.
batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73600

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CDX 825
Cobra 200GTL DX
Cobra 148GTL
Cobra 146GTL
Cobra 25
HR 2510
Texas Star 350
Jumbo 400
Yaesu FT 2800M
Motorola M1225
Maco V5000
Iota DLS-45/Optima D34

Motorola is still better than the rest. Even though Micor's are not around anymore the new motorola stuff compared to current competition is where it needs to be.

Maybe they have changed in the last ten years, I don't know.

I do know that I used Moto HTs and mobile units in severe conditions for years and they just kept on ticking. Rain, snow, severe dirt and dust conditions...they just kept working.

We had a fleet of Radius mobiles, their cheap stuff, that had mud built up in all the panels from dust accumulation and morning and evening dew wetting it. Never had a problem with them. They were run offroad 24/7 being pounded by vibration the whole time.

Nothing I've had of any current ham equipment is even close to that build level. There are some decent radios, but truly, there is a reason an HT1500 is about a grand. Just a matter of whether the end user really needs that build level.

Yeah, it's annoying that programming them without paying one of their shops feels like escaping East Berlin, but then again, they have a serious market they serve and need to maintain the integrity and reputation of the product.

Plus, put yourself in the shoes of a land-mobile dealer now....it's a very narrow market with disposable radios. They need some sort of service revenue or Moto would have to foot the bill for the whole pie.

There's a spot for them all, the low end Vertex/Maxxon/Kenwood/Icom and the gold standard, which IMO is still Motorola. I worked with GE radios back when and they were a horror show, even though they were supposed to be direct Moto competitors at the time.

I still perfer ham gear to the motorola gear
their stuff is ok
too big and clumsy and heavy
only single banded

i do have a hook up
a friend of mine has software for most motorola radios

got to tell you though
my Icom T-90A
with external 131 mike

has all the audio and more of any motorola
while i also can easily put high gain antenna on it
(try that on a motorola HT)

plus it is far less weight
oh and easily multi bands

oh and i have yet to see any other HT that allows me
to hit a repeater 55 and 65 miles away (from ground-sea level)

i should use my IC-91AD & see if it is as good as my T-90A

even my kenwood THF6A i like far better
even though it is rather low on audio
but is so small and it is a true tri band

I have a few of the radius radios. I think that was about the time they started changing in quality but the radius radios were built well. I especially liked the GM300 it was new and improved maxtrac and great for repeater TX radios. I curently only have one motorola HT and thats a radius p1225. Its works good to and I have no complaints with it it. I once left it on siting in my garage by acident and walked out there 3 days later and started hearing voices and to my suprise the battery was still good. We have also used some of the old GE radios MVS and Deltas and they seem to disipate the heat better than any motorola. The GEs are geting hard to find but I see some companies are still using them with no problems to this day. I see the same with older motorola units Maxtracs being the most common. Those are fine built radios in my opinion and cant say I see many of todays radios holding up that long but only time will tell.

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CDX 825
Cobra 200GTL DX
Cobra 148GTL
Cobra 146GTL
Cobra 25
HR 2510
Texas Star 350
Jumbo 400
Yaesu FT 2800M
Motorola M1225
Maco V5000
Iota DLS-45/Optima D34

can u use Motorola radios for ham? if so how?

Sure you can. I have used Motorola, Vertex, Midland, E.F. Johnson and Uniden commercial radios for ham radios over the years.
How you do it is not usually that simple, because these commercial (LMR) radios do not have VFO capability, and usually require they be programmed by a computer and software. The software for some radios can be found online, since many of the radios they program are no longer made, and the software is essentially in the "public domain". Motorola, however, is very particular about it's software and doesn't like it freely distributed, so that makes programming a Motorola radio a bit more challenging.
Also, most Motorola dealers will not reprogram a radio into the amateur band, since the radio was not "designed" for those frequencies, even though they will usually work there fine and without retuning. Motorola is not a friendly company, and they come down hard on people about licensing agreements and software piracy.

I did my Moto radios myself by obtaining the necessary software, the necessary programming cables, and in some cases, performing the necessary hex edits to the software code so as to be able to enter in the particular frequencies for the ham bands (as is required to program the GTX line of 900 mhz radios to work on the 33cm ham band).
So, yes, you can use Motorola radios for ham radio, but you need to jump through some hoops to use it.

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Paul

Motorola GM 300 VHF radios are nice i have 2 of them programed for 2 meter and they work very well. Also there built like tanks and theres really no way for user error for people who cant make any other radio work.They sound nice and blow other commercial radios ive had away. So if you have a chance to get one grab it up.Motorola = good

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KD8EPC
Icom IC-751
kenwood tm-241a
g-6
a-99

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