Railfan Technology > Some radio musings and one upcoming (maybe) radio of interest

I haven't posted anything for some time, so this post is sort of a hodge-podge of updates, with one piece of interesting news--that I've only seen from one source, so far--about an interesting possible new radio offering supposedly coming soon.  So, here goes:

My continued testing of the Nagoya NA-701C dual-band portable radio antenna is yielding some good results.  This antenna (the real thing from Taiwan, and not the counterfeit Chinese knockoffs) has definitely improved the performance of several of my radios.  

Over the past several weeks, I've had a perfect opportunity to do some real-world side-by-side "shootouts" with several of my favorite radio models, both old and new.  One radio that I dug out of the mothballs is my old Kenwood TK-290 analog VHF "brick" portable radio that I've had for over 2 decades.  Now, this is not a radio that I would recommend to anyone today because its programming software is ancient and really won't even run very well (if at all) on any computer running anything newer than Windows XP.  Still, the sensitivity of this radio is just beyond outstanding, though it can sometimes get overwhelmed by some RF interference.  How sensitive is it?  Well, with just a stock 6" antenna, an understandable weak transmission can be heard on the 0-9 squelch (0 being open squelch) on setting 7, where many other of my decent radios have to have the squelch setting at 1-3 to hear the same transmission.  No wonder the TK-290 was a "flagship" VHF portable radio for the railroad industry up until they started to buy NXDN-capable radios after 2013.  Nearly as good as the TK-290 is in reception are my Icom IC-F3161DT  and Kenwood NX-200 portable NXDN-capable radios.  I've had the 3161 for well over a decade now and the NX-200 for about 8 years--they are my "keeper"  VHF portables.  Their drawback is that they are not dual-band radios that will "hear" the train-telemetry "blurps" on UHF, which is increasingly a necessity--especially in non-urban/rural areas--as VHF railroad radio voice communications have declined greatly in the last few years 

So, now to kind of tie all of these observations together with some news of a (hopefully) forthcoming radio, supposedly to be on the market soon.  A few years ago, I bought an Anytone  AT-D878UVII Plus dual-band portable radio, mostly to dabble a bit in DMR digital radio in the amateur radio realm.  I was disappointed, until recently, with its analog reception performance--the radio just seemed pretty "deaf" to weak signals compared to my other radios, including the inexpensive but decent performing Quansheng UV-K5(8) radio.  Well, I can say that two things recently "woke up" the 878 quite a bit.  First, I put the aforementioned Nagoya NA-701C on it, which helped the 878's reception quite a bit.  Then, after hours and hours of internet searching, I found out how to put the 878 in "service" or "test" mode and how to adjust the squelch sensitivity settings to improve the radio's weak signal reception.  That combination took  the 878 from near the back of the pack in my side-by-side testing up into the top 4 or 5 radios (out of about 15 radios) in reception.  The 878 has always had good audio output, and its buttons, etc. are configurable in a way that I really like.  I don't recommend the 878 because it is a fairly complex radio to initially program and is somewhat pricey compared to some similarly performing dual-band analog radios.  BUT, now something is coming from Anytone (so they say) that is potentially exciting . . .

So, for several years, Anytone has been teasing that there is a replacement for the 878 in the pipeline.  As the old saying goes, "Talk is cheap and beer costs money," so I'm not one to gush about "vaporware" that doesn't ever actually show up, however, this may be solid enough news to say that something really is about to hit the market.  That "something" is the 878 replacement, the Anytone D-890UV radio.  What makes this radio so intriguing is that it is likely going to have NXDN-capable firmware at or shortly after introduction.  Other than a few NXDN-capable scanners out there, this will be only the second dual-band NXDN-capable amateur/commercial portable radio out there--the first being the EF Johnson/JVC Kenwood Viking VP-8000 radio--which just got NXDN capability, but in a portable radio costing between $5K-$8K (yes, you read that price correctly).  Now, we'll see if the D-890UV actually shows up on the market, and at what price.  When it does show up, I will try to get a hold of one and test it, and post the results here.  My guess is that it may show up on the market after Black Friday, but before Christmas--we'll see.

 



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/25 09:47 by WW.

WW--
Thanks for interesting report.

On an unrelated note, do you have any recommendations for a good GMRS handheld?  Other members at my gun club have started using them for communication around the property, and as a backup for safety purposes.  We are in an area with cell phone coverage ranging from "infrequent" to "none". So I want to have one to keep in the truck and use at the range. Terrain is a valley with steep hills on either side, so its not all "line of sight" around the club property.

hotrail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WW--
> Thanks for interesting report.
>
> On an unrelated note, do you have any
> recommendations for a good GMRS handheld?  Other
> members at my gun club have started using them for
> communication around the property, and as a backup
> for safety purposes.  We are in an area with cell
> phone coverage ranging from "infrequent" to
> "none". So I want to have one to keep in the truck
> and use at the range. Terrain is a valley with
> steep hills on either side, so its not all "line
> of sight" around the club property.

There are lots of GMRS radios out there, from simple pre-programmed radios that are basically dedicated to GMRS-only and are very simple to operate, up to GMRS-capable radios that are "full feature" GMRS radios that will also monitor the 136-174mHz VHF band and the 400-470mHz UHF band.  As for GMRS, it operates in part of that UHF band.  GMRS portable radios have generally pretty short range--probably about 5-10 miles at the very most and that is if the radios are in line-of-sight, unless one is accessing a GMRS repeater, which adds a level of complexity.  UHF's advantage is that the physical width of the signal is fairly small, so the whole signal can fit through things like car windows, etc.  Your cell phone operates even higher in the UHF band, up in 800 mHz-900mHz range, so its signal will fit through even smaller spaces to get to a tower outside of a structure or vehicle.  The disadvantage of UHF is that it does tend to be pretty line-of-sight, so it can be iffy in hilly areas, etc.  Also, an FCC license is required to transmit on the GMRS channels.  The physical width of a VHF signal is wider than a UHF signal, but a VHF signal is a bit less of line-of-sight.  To transmit on VHF, though, private individuals must either have an amateur radio license or a business band radio license.  In my case, over the years, I had all three types of licenses--business band, amateur, and GMRS.  Today, I have just GMRS and amateur licenses.

As far as specific radio recommendations just for GMRS, just about any of them will do the simple "walkie-talkie" work of GMRS-only use.  Even though I have a whole bunch of portable radios that I use for railfanning and amateur use, if I need a radio just for GMRS use only, I have a pair of Midland GXT1000G radios that I use just for that.  I've had those for several years.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/25 09:41 by WW.