Armada rocks!!!! I was a Moto guy for a long time until the big "M" cancelled our MR account (along with several other shops), and I went right to Kenwood, and when I discovered Armada...I was hooked! I just got my VP8000, plus one for a customer and I need to set aside days to play. Great video, thanks!
I just deployed hundreds of the VP8000 units. Super happy with them. As for the WiFi programming, that is a licsensed feature, not a standard option. I learned that the hard way.
Just getting into p25. We just put a new p25 repeater downtown Raleigh NC. On top of a 431’ building. Man down this stuff work great. Running the XTS5000 and what a pain to program until you really figure it out. That kenwood looks great. Thanks for the great video.
I was really getting excited about the kenwood NX radios and got the I think NX5300 handheld with P25 and DMR. It was an early radio, I thought the radio itself was an awesome idea but the customer support is very dealer heavy. So as they were fixing bugs in their system I couldn’t get the latest and greatest firmware nor the latest of the programming software without snuggling up to my dealer. The early NX5000 series were riddled with bugs. So I went back to my APX7000XE, it’s not perfect BUT what I like is if I need firmware or software, its available. I also had problems with the kenwood repeaters locking up. My dealer swapped out the repeater multiple times and still no luck, we ditched kenwood altogether. I’d be willing to try kenwood again if they got it all sorted. Which leads me to my question, how has this radio been for you so far? Also something about the durability on the NX5300, one of the units I had, a user of it had the speaker mic and instead of the mic latching onto the metal chassis of the guts, it latches onto the plastic housing and you know how people sit with radios and speaker mics, it eventually cracked the housing and I had to order a new housing for the radio.
This COULD be a great radio if it also would do NXDN--there are not any multi-band portables out there that will decode/encode NXDN digital. Kenwood is the co-developer of NXDN with Icom, so they should be able to offer NXDN in this radio. That radio would be the ultimate--with analog, P25, DMR, and NXDN.
Nice contrast and compare. I’m looking to make the jump to an all band and the timing of your review is perfect. Comments about non-affiliate P25 systems would be appreciated. Thanks for the work you’ve put into this. Looking forward your next videos.
A little tidbit with the noise cancellation, single microphone on the radio but EF Johnson uses what they call TrueVoice which uses a combination of soft band pass filters and some smart applications of DSP to optimize the human voice. This was introduced with the first gen Viking lineup (VP8000 is third gen) and Kenwood eventually ported it over to the NX firmware. There is a good noise cancellation video that EFJ made about 9 years that highlights some of the differences in various environments.
2015, Matt Baker and Great Lakes had the Cleveland Demo of the NX5000. You couldn't hear yourself speaking, but it pulled you out of that incredible noise, and they could hear us on the inside ! I was blown away! I sure wish they would improve KPG-D1NK cps. The NX series has many free options that VP needs feature licenses for: really disappointing in that respect. But Armada is a great leap over D1NK and APX.
enjoyed the video. I'm looking at the Harris xl200 as a regular civllian am I able to purchase the radio and scan any frequency? also were would I buy Harris radio?
Could you help me with a problem I'm having with this radio? I cannot get my Bluetooth earbuds to connect via Bluetooth option. Do you think there is a certain Bluetooth requirement to accomplish this?
Kenwood has quality issues. I work in a Kenwood shop, and have been fully let down on their quality. Most issues are the cheap volume controls, and the tiny flex connections used all through their models. The NX-820 series are a pain with their assembly, being slapped together by automation. The B+lead and ground connection is really in need of an upgrade for their cheap power cords. The overall quality stinks. KPG-3DN is a software platform designed by idiots, and you can only use it on one computer, and it's cost is NOT for the small shops. I do not like the build quality of the 3000 series portables, like the 3220 Etc.. I will never be a fan of NEXEDGE. P-25 is the digital system of choice, it's codec has the best recovered audio and it sounds fantastic, even the older XTS/ASTRO SABER are still going strong. I have an old XPR6550, and sadly, pretty bare bones, but still does DMR. I think Kenwood still does a better job in assembly/quality with ham gear than their commercial lineup. The older analog portables, such as the 2140, 3140, 2170, 3170 have garbage volume controls, and the biggest issue, is the 2140, 3140 series comes from their internal 'audio' card, which often flops around, flexing the socket pins, causing TX Audi to become nasty, and worse. A horrible design to shrink physical size. I would be far more interested with an EF Johnson label on the radio. To each, their own.
For those wondering NO you cannot use the vp8000 or any vp for passive monitoring a trunk system. A key is required and it will affiliate and is not designed for the NAS method. End of story.
DMR is a specific system type. The VP8000 is capable of doing conventional analog and digital, P25 trunking (FDMA/TDMA), Smartnet/Smartzone (V16) with DMR tier 2 and 3 in the pipeline currently. This radio is also tri-band capable meaning it can utilize VHF, 7/800 and UHF frequency bands.
@John Reno most of the public safety communication use P 25 not DMR. DMR is mostly a HAM communication. It sucks for me because I have to buy two radios. If That kenwood in this video can TX and RX on VHF/UHF/800mhz and do DMR I would only have to buy and carry one radio.
Hey it may be worth mentioning for holsters to look into getting a radio strap, I know sometimes the radios can fit into it without removing your belt clip
Wonderful initial review! My agency opted for the APX line sadly and still waiting for them. Have the NX5700/5800 myself and the RSS is less then stellar to the point I can’t stand it. May have to look at upgrading in the near future to the EFJ. Looking forward to more feedback.
I would love to have that VP. I have had an APX7000 for about 7 years and I bought it used at a pretty penny and took me forever to save up for. I think my first radio ever was a Saber and then had HT750, 1550, XTS5000, XTL5000, EFJ5100 (never quite worked right, think it needs to be tuned) and then bought my APX7000. Still have all of them I think except for the Saber. Stopped using the APX7000 for work since they went to NXDN digital. That battery release is very common on the newer Kenwood stuff we had, NX-5300 have the same battery release. I have been messing around with radio programming since about 2002 with the DOS days of programming. One day I hope I can afford the VP. I love the fact it’s larger than the APX8000, and looks like it has more of a sturdy feel, where you know it’s in your hand and not afraid that squeezing it too hard will break something. You lucked out getting that for the price you did. That thing has tons of features that the APX can only dream of. I love the brightness adjust. The NX-5300 has it, and it has auto, but I like the manual ability to it.
Reach out to a dealer in your area (Viking tech support can get you a list if you don't know who that would be), they should be able to get you current pricing depending on what features you are wanting. That all plays a factor into the end price for each radio!
I wish we went with these since they are suppose to support nxdn soon. We have a county that touches my district that is on nxdn. Unfortunately we are going with Motorola. Great review!! Keep it up!
I knew about DMR. I also heard about their being a software upgrade for the 8000s to support NXDN. Odd that a Kenwood radio will not support nxdn. Lmao.
I only use Motorola gear for 2 meters/440. They're spectrallly pure, sensitive, have great audio, and if necessary, you can use it to literally beat an attacker to death.
Order an Armada subscription from your local dealer. You will get 5 years of Armada along with firmware upgrades for your radios as well. Viking Tech support has a list of dealers in each state if you are unsure of who to contact.
Public safety radio rule of thumb: the list price is the model number, so this is about $8000, with typical options, a battery and a charger. If you're an agency with a contract, you get around 25%-33% off list. If you're a ham and buying 1, you're paying about list, but you forgo options like encryption and TDMA trunking, so it's in the same ballpark.
Let's get something straight, You are not now and never were a Motorola fan boy. A true Motorola fan boy would never stop carrying a Motorola radio and start carrying a Kenwood just because it does everything, A true Motorola fan boy would carry multiple radios before they would start carrying a Kenwood period. So sorry but you Sir were never a Motorola fan boy!!!
5:39 That is not the antenna, it is half of the antenna. The other "half" is the radio chassis and some capacitive coupling to your hand. As a result, the antenna is a specific length to marry up with the size of the chassis and the expected capacitive coupling effect. A wet piece of string will pick up RF, so not such a big deal, but I wouldn't expect a random stubby from another radio to work well on something with a totally different sized chassis. On the Moto DMR gear, you can drop into a service menu to see the RSSI displayed in dBm (not sure about the Kenwoods). Press the left navigation key 3 times, followed by the right navigation key 3 times. Try it - then swap antennas around whilst recieving a repeater (fixed signal). You'll see the RSSI change by a couple of dB with the "wrong" antenna.
WHEN KENWOOD PRODUCES DMR.. I’m buying it. I have missed Kenwood !!! Come back Kenwood to amateur radio HF/VHF. I want an all mode Kenwood Radio. VHF/UHF/HF.
You're thinking of toy radios. Kenwood radios already do DMR; the NX/VP line is the first and currently only radios that do multi-digital mode: P25, DMR and NXDN.
Lmao I have an ailunce, a XPR7550, XTS5000s, an APX8000, and have played with the VP series. The ailunce won’t do P25, encryption, or 800. But for $200 not a bad radio to play with.
Quit jostling, moving, wiggling, wogglin the radio around in the intro! Lemme have a look at it. Quit watching, thumbed down. This all too common utuber tenancy is right behind the use of goofy faces on the click bait title slide. If your content is good, please let us get to it without making us resort to trying to freeze frame to see the product.
Since Motorola has been widely used by law enforcement and many agencies over several decades as well as being well made, it may not seem like much of a concern to many but, for whatever it's worth, it is a Chinese company.
