Thursday, June 24, 2004
Walkie Talkie features....or lack thereof
I own Motorola FR50 and T6300 two-way FRS radios. Having used these consumer radios and some professional models used for public safety, there are three features which have become a must for ease of use.
The Kenwood scores well on all three areas. It also has a knob for changing the channel which makes it quicker than using a menu used on most FRS radios. Its only real downsides are that it is heavy and too large for most consumers to use.
The FR50 scores well on all three areas. It could use some improvement on #3 as the orange area for PTT only has about 60% of the area actually activating the transmit button. Channel changing is done via menu, which isn't much of a problem since most people don't need to that very often.
The T6300 fails in all three areas. The belt clip is a not too sturdy piece of plastic. Actually the main piece is ok, it's the plastic release (where is goes from the big release button on top to the 1/8" plastic on the spindle) that broke on me after wearing the radio for 15-20 minutes! The PTT button is smackdab in the middle of the front face. I'm a large handed person so this makes holding the radio and pushing the PTT button uncomfortable when compared to when the PTT button is on the side. Above the PTT button is the menu button, and on either side of that are the volume buttons. Almost everything is menu driven on this radio including channel, subcode, volume, and the rest of the multitudes of features. To turn it on or off, you have to push and hold the button down for 2-3 seconds.
The reality is that the T6300 was a waste of money. It has none of the features that I now consider essential. The half-the-price-with-more-than-twice-the-features FR50 is a better radio. If you can ever find one I recommend the FR60 which has the same features as the '50 and adds subcodes. Today Motorola makes the 6xxx series and the 5xxx series. The 6xxx series doesn't have any of the features listed above that I like, while the 5xxx series has numbers 2 and 3. I should look at other FRS manufactuers and see what they do.
- Solid belt clip
- True off/volume knob
- PTT (Push To Talk) or transmit button on the side of the radio
The Kenwood scores well on all three areas. It also has a knob for changing the channel which makes it quicker than using a menu used on most FRS radios. Its only real downsides are that it is heavy and too large for most consumers to use.
The FR50 scores well on all three areas. It could use some improvement on #3 as the orange area for PTT only has about 60% of the area actually activating the transmit button. Channel changing is done via menu, which isn't much of a problem since most people don't need to that very often.
The T6300 fails in all three areas. The belt clip is a not too sturdy piece of plastic. Actually the main piece is ok, it's the plastic release (where is goes from the big release button on top to the 1/8" plastic on the spindle) that broke on me after wearing the radio for 15-20 minutes! The PTT button is smackdab in the middle of the front face. I'm a large handed person so this makes holding the radio and pushing the PTT button uncomfortable when compared to when the PTT button is on the side. Above the PTT button is the menu button, and on either side of that are the volume buttons. Almost everything is menu driven on this radio including channel, subcode, volume, and the rest of the multitudes of features. To turn it on or off, you have to push and hold the button down for 2-3 seconds.
The reality is that the T6300 was a waste of money. It has none of the features that I now consider essential. The half-the-price-with-more-than-twice-the-features FR50 is a better radio. If you can ever find one I recommend the FR60 which has the same features as the '50 and adds subcodes. Today Motorola makes the 6xxx series and the 5xxx series. The 6xxx series doesn't have any of the features listed above that I like, while the 5xxx series has numbers 2 and 3. I should look at other FRS manufactuers and see what they do.
# posted by Jacob Bird @ 1:54 PM 
