Dual UHF/VHF radios for christmas island

[BerryV]

Interesting finding from the Christmas Island review a few days ago. Not sure how dual band radios will solve anything.....


RADIO coverage on Christmas Island will be upgraded and a full-time emergency management officer employed in response to the December boat crash that claimed up to 50 lives.

But the federal government has rejected a Greens call to overhaul border protection surveillance amid claims defence radar should have detected the asylum seeker boat SIEV221 before it reached Christmas Island's cliffs.

''The sheer size of Australia's maritime domain does not allow for the persistent surveillance of all areas and threat axes at all times,'' the government's response to a joint parliamentary inquiry into the crash states.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/emergenc ... z1auMvt573

Poor radio communications plagued islanders as they stood above the cliffs of Rocky Point throwing lifejackets to asylum seekers floundering in the water on December 15. The federal government said it will install more radio repeater towers on the island, and purchase dual UHF/VHF radios for Customs. The report cautioned that 100 per cent radio coverage could never be achieved.

The Home Affairs Minister, Brendan O'Connor, said the weather was the ''worst ever experienced by locals'', and the crash had strengthened the government's resolve to stop asylum seekers taking boat journeys.

The opposition spokesman for border protection, Michael Keenan, said the weather was so bad no lifesaving equipment could have prevented the incident. ''The truth is that if people continue to make that voyage then the possibility exists that a tragedy like this will re-occur. There is nothing that Christmas Islanders or any government authority can do to make sure that that does not happen,'' he said.

A permanent memorial will be built and ongoing counselling provided to survivors.

Those survivors not already granted visas are living in community detention, the government said.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/emergenc ... 1ll41.html

[matthewn1983]

one would think, not giving them the incentive to come here. problem solved.

[soupbones]

Specially now as they are sent to 4 star resorts to live while being processed because the detention centres are full.......

[Longreach]

dont get me started on her......................

[SKEYGEN]

If you want to know what sort of radios Customs have already started receiving:

http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/ ... 7000_US-EN

Complete with the sexy display speaker mic.

[matthewn1983]

few radio techs on the GRN have em as well

[centralcoastscanman]

anyone know what the APX series of radios retail for ? as i'd love to get my hands on one of those to have a play with it

[SKEYGEN]

Varies a lot, depending on Flashport options etc. Can be up to $8-9k, depending on how it's configured.

If you don't mind the fact it's not a factory radio, there are parts built and ex Accelerated Life Testing (ie, Motorola abused) VHF/UHF-L radios on eBay for about $2400-$3000. The cryptographic hardware doesn't work on most of them though, so don't expect to ever do anything but software ADP, if that's an issue for you.

[matthewn1983]

if ebay is anything to go by - http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Motorola-APX ... 4aaed1a68c

[Bigfella237]

If you have to ask, you can't afford it!

From memory a dual band/dual display retails for about $11,000, you can pick them up on fleabay already for around $3000-4000, and the display mics by themselves retail for about $350!

Not to be the voice of decent or anything but the APX portables are over-rated if you ask me, the colour display is nice but everything is backwards on them... The speaker's on the wrong side, the PTT's on the wrong side, they even sit in the charger backwards! And if you want a VHF/UHF but mainly use UHF, you still have to put up with the longer VHF antenna.

Realistically, you may be better off with an APX6000 (same radio but just one band)...

http://www.motorola.com/Business/US-EN/Business+Product+and+Services/Two-Way+Radios+-+Public+Safety/P25+Portable+Radios/APX_6000

http://www.motorola.com/web/Business/Products/APX_6000/_Documents/StaticFiles/APX_6000_Spec_Sheet.pdf

Andrew