I attempt to compare two popular radios frequently used by fire departments. Both are great radios, and have some great features, but there are significant differences, especially for hobby users like me.
This is one of the most informative videos and comparison videos I've ever seen. Well done sir! As a radio aficionado myself, I love hearing other people's views on Motorola products. Definitely have sparked an interest in learning more about BK radios now. Thank you sir!
Thank you so much, I’m glad I could help. I’m working on another video comparing the past few generations of BK radios, so if you have specific questions you want answered please let me know. Thanks and take care!
@@AdventureCruiser have you placed around with an APX4000xe yet? And in reference to your video, I believe the XE stands for "extreme". or at least that is the way motorola's marketing team makes it seem. haha thanks again for the reply! cheers B
I have had the KNG series and currently use a KNG 2 P800. Everything from BK has been night and day compared to Motorola. Radio was sent in for service and came back better than ever. I’m patiently waiting for the BKR-9000. When it eventually releases I feel like it’s going to really take in the markets. I hope you make more videos about the BKR-5000 as I’m very curious on how the audio and voice sound compared to the KNG series is. Thank you for this you were completely dead on with everything about the BKR.
The BKR5000 top dispaly can do a lot more the just the Ch name. I there is a menu of 18 different things to chose from. The top screen flip can be selcted to be on a soft button of your choice.
Great review! 👏 Just to add... Motorola has solid components, but puts out Fawlty firmware. Relm has component failures often, but puts out decent more-successful firmware than M. Warranty on the BKR is 5 years! Motorola doesn't allow backward compatibility fw and sw, but Relm does. You can upgrade then downgrade fw and sw anytime. Otherwise great comparison. Just a note. Relm kng radios simply need a flash to add features like M does using Depot. However I've been informed the bkr series will not include the boards or options unless initially purchased with them. (GPS is only included with the 9000 model unless specifically ordered with it.) Also the Batts for bkr5000 and bkr9000 are different and not swappable like with apx (6000, 7000, 8000)
Excellent video and impressive radio collection you’ve got! 👍 Only thing I don’t understand at this this juncture; not sore why Moto simply doesn’t just make the 8K, with the ability to choose ONE band, like the 6K? Would seem cost effective.
I am the radio guy for my fire department and just transitioned from ht1000's to the BKR5000's. I recently reprogrammed some of the bkr's and you are able to somewhat reconfigure the top display on them.
Interesting, I’ll look at it again. I wonder if they did an update since the last time I tried. Thanks for the heads up. How does your department like these versus the ht1000?
Excellent comparison, I hadn't heard of BK Technologies before this, and they really seem to have a large amount of useful features that are very similar to the APX. I'm a huge Motorola fan so I'm likely not going to stray from them, but its really impressive what others have to offer. In terms of the channel selector, I personally prefer the end stops, it allows fast changing of the channel without having to use the top display or voice channel announcements, just by feel. I'd really like to see how these two differ in terms of software features, and how the noise cancellation performs on the BK. Also one thing for others to note, creating an account with Motorola is honestly really easy, just one phone call and they'll do it for you, and APX CPS is offered free of charge for personal use.
BK = Bendix/King. Best known for radios and other avionics for small planes (Cessnas), which are still being made as a part of Honeywell today. The land mobile radio part got spun off in the 2000's I believe and has had different names (Relm).
I really like motorola's accessories, but I guess it differs a lot when it comes to the APX vs. the XPR series. They had a really good streak with the XPR6550 and XPR7550, First we lost the antenna connector in the accessory and the SMA antenna that was available on the XPR6550. I guess to push customers toward mobile units. But all the accessories were still compatible. But going to the R7 The design is completely new and is at least physically incompatible, their reasoning being somewhat vague. It's good that people are getting eyes open for the competition.
I’ve also seen TSA using the BK KNG series radios at checkpoints at DFW airport. So I’m not sure what all other federal agencies may use the BK radios.
eXtremely Egregious...? Also, (technically), on the 8k the display is the rear and speaker is the front (as you'll note when it's in that beltclip sleeve...)
Where at in CA are you? I hear you mentioning Cal-Fire. And I have an APX7000. I really want to get the Kenwood/EFJ Viking VP8000. And I think it was APX6000 and 7000 first. Then the APX8000 came out and they are phasing out the 7000 since agencies will either want single band or multi. I’ve had my 7000 for about 7 years now. Have a blue case on it. I am in Menifee, Riverside County.
Yeah, the 7000,7500 series has reached its end of life and I’m told it’s no longer being supported by Motorola, but I don’t know that for sure. I see a lot of 6000 radios still in service and I’m guessing those are the BN models, meaning that they are really single-band 8000 units. A good quick tell is the accessory port. It the top portion has three dots, it’s an AN, if it has concentric circles like a bulls-eye those are BN models. Personally I really like my 7000 in VHF and UHF1. It does 95% of what I need. The biggest drawback is the limit to the scan list size. It can only scan 16 channels where the 8000 can scan around 32. I’m in San Diego County, so not too far away at all.
I really like the gear from these guys. www.coaxsher.com/default.asp they make a chest rig with adjustable Velcro retention that’s easily convertible from rechargeable to AA battery packs.
Just found your channel. In your video about the new remote speaker mic you mentioned a cloning video. Please provide a link for that video. I've searched your channel and haven't found it. I'm a rookie Cal Fire hired equipment vendor with BKR 5000 radios. Nobody up here in Nor Cal seems able/willing to teach me how to use them and BKR tutorials seem to be lacking beginner instruction.
Please feel to post your questions here, if I can’t answer them, I’ll ask people who can. I feel the frustration, and I’ll do what I can to help. What do you mean by equipment vendor? I’ve not heard this term used by my CalFire buddies before.
Cal Fire calls us vendors. I Have a 2K gallon water truck contracted with Cal Fire. Bought it and signed up after selling our previous business. (We had pet supply stores in Chester, Susanville, and Redding. Thanks for the quick response. @@AdventureCruiser
Where can I buy a black housing for APX6000XE? Mine is yellow-green. I'm just a normal HAM radio operator but not a firefighter... that yellow-green is too eye-catching.
I’ve bought them from wiscomm .com. To change the main housing is pretty easy, but it’s very involved to change the top display. You need to take the whole radio apart and remove circuit boards. It’s possible, but not easy and requires some special tools like an antenna spanner wrench. There are aftermarket housings available on eNay, but after testing one I was disappointed… even with low expectations. Keep in mind that if you go through the effort of disassembling the radio to change out the top display, you may also compromise the waterproof nature of the radio as you are opening sealed panels. I hope this helps a little.
Glad Motorola added CPS support to the Next. Do you know off hand if the Next has FPP capability? It’s literally the only thing holding me back from getting one. Can’t wait until the BKR 9000 comes out as it will have also 900MHz. FCC documents from earlier prototypes of the BKR9000 had 900 MHz but skipped ham portion of the 900 band. Spoke with the West Coast BK rep a year ago and he said BK could offer a patch to open up ham portion of 900 MHz band potentially. I love BK/Relm’s support. Much better than Motorola support. Be on lookout for Kenwood VP8000 too. Will do multiband multi protocol with P25, DMR, and analog. Motorola never added DMR to their APX line :( I heard they originally were going to but the idea died.
Now you have me really excited about the VP8000. My initial quest was for one radio to rule them all, or at least allow me to use it for work and play, but so far I hadn’t heard that the VP does DMR too. Motorola’s marketing information states that it will/does have FPP, but the one I had did not. I’m sure it is a feature that must be added through a FLASHcode update. Thanks for the info on the VP8000, I’ll do some checking with my sources to see if I can get get my hands on one.
@@AdventureCruiser The second major firmware revision for the VP8000 will support DMR Tier 2, according to my sources. It will support P25 and analog at release.
@@AdventureCruiser Current hardware in that family supports 64-member radio-wide scanlists. NAS is not supported at this time, though I'm sure the engineering department is being asked to include it.
XE - Extreme Environment, The Higher Factory Standards from the Time of th Old XTS series, Still Don't Trust it until I see that FM sticker on the unit.
@@AdventureCruiser true that but hey that is why I test things out and really see if it is a real one or not but hey its just a test your luck thing but I mean if it works it works
Good question. I’d been told I could buy Motorola directly from the dealers, but I’ve not done that successfully yet. I have bought BK Technologies radios though. I like Vincent Comm or 49er Communications. What radio are you looking for specifically?
@@USN-LT-Lee you have good taste. There is a Facebook APX group I’m told, but I’m not on Facebook so I can’t confirm. Here is my advice. Wait a year and resale prices will come down. All manufacturers are struggling still to get chips so the second hand market is really slim right now. I’m starting to see an improvement and I bet prices will drop. However, if you’re willing to pay current prices I might know a guy selling one with FPP.
@@AdventureCruiser and I’ve been trying to get pricing information for 5 radios, but they haven’t gotten back with me yet. But that seems to be a common issue with them.
The only difference is that the software is easier on the Bendix King because it allows non-affiliate scanning without needing a system key and all the bullshit with it like you would with Motorola junk too sophisticated and too easy to be able to screw something up versus using the king and getting Superior performance without hassles or affiliation attempts and you're less likely to have issues compared to if a newbie were to try to do that to a Motorola they wouldn't even know what a system key is and would not even be able to use the Motorola at all it would be rendered useless and very dangerous to do so if you're going to get something get a Bendix King and call it quits after that because that's all you're going to need as I've done that because it was too hard to figure out Motorola software and I wasn't about to keep fiddling with something and put somebody's life at risk it wasn't worth it so I ended up getting introduced to Bendix King and the problem solved I was able to get the software up and running and program in no time at all not even needing system keys or even having the slightest affiliation attempt at all because the radio was designed not to affiliate at all and allows passive monitoring also known as non-affiliate scanning it's a lifesaver since nobody was able to teach me how to do Motorola stuff so that's another reason why I ended up with Bendix King products and will always stay to that‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️
