Kenwood USA to unveil dual-mode radios that can operate on P25 and NXDN systems

LAS VEGAS—Kenwood USA is announcing at IWCE 2014 the company's NX 5000 series of dual-mode portable radios that will allow a user to operate on either a P25 network or an NXDN network, according to Jeannie Cameron, Kenwood USA’s marketing manager.

“The first model will be P25 Phase II [operating on 700/800 MHz]—a lot of what’s in our 10 series P25—and immediately after that will be UHF and VHF,” Cameron said during an interview with IWCE’s Urgent Communications. “The first model will be P25 Phase II from launch and will be upgradeable to NXDN—it’s all software-defined. Then, the [VHF and UHF models] will be dual-mode from introduction.

“If you want to specifically talk on either [P25] or [NXDN], you flip a switch and it takes you to the P25 or the NEXEDGE [Kenwood’s NXDN product], but it will scan across both modes.”

These dual-mode portable radios are scheduled to be commercially available during the fourth quarter of this year, Cameron said. Exact pricing for the radios is not available yet, but the cost is expected to be between Kenwood’s high-tier 10 series and mid-tier 20 series of portables, she said.

“The plan is that the pricing will fall between the 10 series P25 and the 20 series,” Cameron said  “So, it’s not intended to replace the 10 series of products that we have now—the 5210, the 5310, the 5710 and the 5810—it’s intended to be a completely different product category, so pricing will fall between the 10 series and the 20 series.”