VHF vs UHF portable radios

[jimthefireman]

Our City department has always used UHF Motorola portable radios for crew to crew communications on the fireground. We have found these to work well generally in the City environment and they are rated as intrinsicly safe for flammable atmospheres as well. There is now an attempt to replace them with UHF radios. When they were evaluated (twice) they were rejected due to problems maintaining coverage in the concrete and steel jungle we operate in. Nevertheless there is another attempt to convert us to VHF. What systems do other City departments use for handy talkies and what advantages/disadvantages do you find with them.
Jim Maclean
Auckland NZ

[WRENCH]

Is that a step backwards.
WE just rercently converted from vhfwith auhf mobile repeater to a fixed uhf system with 3 repeaters spread thru out the town.our cverage has increased 10 fold.. we can go on mutual aid just about any place in the county and be heard portable to portable.
when we set it upwe checked every problem building in town for reception in the worst possible spots with good results.

When I started 25 years ago the entire county was on 46.06 low band every one switched to vhf and now everyone except 1 dept is on uhf. were all in the high uhf 470 to low 500,s.

[neut]

Our dept. uses vhf without repeaters, except an aux. channel w/repeater in town. But what good does a repeater do if it is close to the regular radio ant., if you can reach it you can reach the other ant., to talk to base anyway. We use 100 watt vhf in ambs. and trucks and cover the whole county.Its the hand-held we have trouble with. Used to work for construction company that used uhf with repeater and could talk up to 30 miles away with 4 watt hand-held.

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Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it!