This radio system was put into service in FL without portable coverage. Mobile coverage is getting better, but is still spotty in some areas. If you are anywhere near a certain popular cell company tower ( hint-beep beep) it will go into a scan mode and you have no comms. This radio is an officer safety hazard and I do not recommend it. Talk to any state L/E in FL who has to use it and you will hear horror stories of lack of comms in critical situations. Batteries do not last an 8 hour day, much less 10 to 12 hour shifts.

The things are atleast prety durable. Bu coverage does suck out in the sticks. And dotn worry everytime they make it better....... it starts changing dispatch locations all on your own. I love being in south FL and hearing whats going on in St. Augustine. Good on those boring nights..... kinda sucks when i got things to say though.

Coverage is not that good does not get out in all situations. I have to come in the office and get a recharge sometimes. I believe this could be a LEO safety issue.

Durable but we are having a lot of problems with them here in florida

First, when you first turn the radio on it takes several seconds to powerup, and sometimes freezes up in this mode allowing no communications until you shut it off and turn it back on. Second, the Push-To-Talk buttons in ours had been recalled (apparently before we took delivery) and after exhausting every excuse the company finally replaced the PTT buttons, sometimes with other recalled PTT buttons...NICE! I think we are finally getting ones that work put in now. Third, while EDACS is the tried and true M/A-COM system, they have apparently gone to some new computer controller in the last couple of years that sucks. We went over twice our projected install time. Finally, as previously noted, the battery life sucks.

Lousy piece of equipment. Must keep it on in while in your car to avoid "down time" in getting it powered up and onto a channel that's open..a period of 2-3 seconds. The plastic outer case is cheap and cracks when worn in a metal belt clip. The crack in the outer shell cause a short circuit in the radio and no transmit capabilities. Stick with the motorola's.

This is our curent issued equipment operating in the 800 Mhz. frequency. There have been some problems with the shoulder mikes and, unless you keep it on, there is a significant lag time from powering it on to the time itt locates and connects with your operating chanel. I rely on my cell phone as much as this radio when I'm outside of my vehicle. One good thing, the battery DOES last a full 12 hour shift and then some.

this radio and the entire 800mhz system m/a com provided to our department is worthless. we had the motorola system before our city went with this, the cheapest bidder and it is awful. you never know when its going to work. dispatch will hear you and officers wont or officers will hear you and dispatch wont. strongly recommend that if your department is considering this system to go with motorola instead.

Great radio, But, We have terrible support and our batteries are S____ !

Currently using these things progarammed in EDACS. we are the only agency in the state using the EDACS system, so no communication with the outside world when the SH*! hits the fan. The radio is durable, and pretty watertight as I found from a bad expeience in the river. We work off one repeater that is technically in the next count over and a low powered repeater from our station which makes transmitting difficult from time to time. The batteries are great out of the box, but if you are not exceptionally careful you can burn them up in less than a week. Over time it is inevitable that the batteries go to he!! anyways. Upgrade the batteries and the charging system and this radio could be one of the best on the market. Overall, I like the radio.

My agency is currently using these things progarammed in EDACS. They suck becuase every county around us has the Viper radio system, so theres no communicating with them. Also the highway patrol is on the viper system so theres no communication with them if we get in a chase. they work half the time, the battery doesn't last, and don't dare put a shoulder mike on it because you stil want be able to hear or transmitt nothing.

My department switched to these digitally encrypted radios in 2002, much better and secure than the 800mhz trunk system. Can't hear us on the scanners can ya bad dudes?

Good radio. It probably would be better made of metal, but I haven't had any problems with durability. Used with my universal radio holder, it's secure and safe.
Good signal coverage most of the time. Some days the radio system gets messed up and is very static all over.

we have this and we use the first model shown and we think it is worthless even as a paper wait... no signal, always having update issues, radios will just turn off in the car... huge safety issue in my eyes

Radio reception is horrible. Product itself seems to be pretty sturdy though.

For the price and the fact that you have to rely on them for your life......Not worth the paper used to box them up and ship them. Lock outs, PA errors, electronic mic key ups, cheap housing, batt. life too short.... Bad choice

definitely has some major drawbacks. First off the battery life is horrible and the batteries have to be reconditioned at least once a month or else the radio will die on you very early in your shift. Secondly,the PTT buttons on all of our portables had to be replaced. The most problematic thing about this is the lag time in powering on when you need it. If you need this thing to "come to life in a hurry" you can forget about that. In other words if you want it to be reliable you have to leave it on the entire time you are working which brings us back to the battery issue.I would recommend any department go with

HCSO and Pasco County use the Ericsson MaCom radios on the EDACS system and HCSO had SO many problems with coverage considering that 40% of the county to the south, southeast and east areas of the county are nothing but country. Forget it if your in a chase, something drastic happens or your in a house with a DV call and you cant get reception. Then you have your CommCenter trying to check on you and get no response, so they have to take a zone car and make sure their partner is ok. CII has been out there SO many times trying to get it to work right, even including going Digital and separating the county into East and West zones, so they could have better coverage. I have several friends who are deputies and firefighters within Hillsborough County and every day they want to launch it into the bay! I just cannot believe that something that costs $5,000, is so horrendous and they don't have any recourse as a county to sue the manufacturer. Miami Dade County uses the Ericsson Orion and P7100, some LPE's and they are on VHF for Highrise penetration. They even had to go as far as make a "Mobile Radio Patch Vehicle" so when they have a mass casulty incident, they have building coverage and penetration. Talk about a paperweight! That's exactly what the Ericsson systems are. JUNK!