My Bendix King Addiction

Bendix/King or BK-Radio

Many have heard me talk about these radios so I thought I’d do a little write up/review of these and why I find them fascinating and useful as HAM radios. 

Bendix King is owned by Relm who also brands radios.  The Bendix King name is better known for their avionics packages and aircraft two-way radios.  The other side of their business, known as BK Radio, relates to government, military, and wildland firefighting radios.  They also compete with Harris and Motorola in the APCO-Phase 25 (P25) project and provide a couple of models that are considered top-tier in that industry that follow the format of the more familiar to us, Motorola APX series radios.  These BK Radios are known as the BKR-5000 and BKR-9000 handhelds. 

BK Radio BKR-9000               Motorola APX                     Harris XL              JVC/Kenwood/Viking VP8000

The above radios are the current top tier P25 radios for urban fire and law enforcement.  All radios come in the day-bright color schemes of bright green. orange, or standard black.

P25 was forced on- but has not been widely adopted in rough terrain areas for the USFS as (I’ll just say it) digital sucks out there.  Start Rant:  I like to play with digital voice modes… but they really do suck! if you are actually moving around in a wide area not clearly in sight of a repeater network –or- not sitting at your desk with a hotspot close by :End Rant

I know we all respect the quality of a Motorola radio… but in the hierarchy of radios.  Number one is Bendix King (aka Relm), then Harris, then Motorola.  Then likely, Hytera, Kenwood, Vertex and finally Icom in that order IMHO.

Current military and government adopters use BK and Harris with Motorola being more prevalent in the law enforcement, urban fire, and business DMR.

The wildland fire radios are my favorite for two reasons.  First, I fought wildland fire for a few years and the EPH/DPH handheld was standard issue, I know the radio well, it’s easy to program channels, and set command priority channels and scan groups all from the keypad.  After an experience like that I just don’t want to carry a radio that needs a cheat sheet to remember the basics, or a cable and computer to program it. ALL modern ham radios just make me scratch my head in wonder most of the time with their lack of general intuitiveness. And! We all love our dual-banders… but single band radios have an edge with selectivity and sensitivity that becomes very noticeable when out in the boonies. 

The DPH was my lifeline in a few scary situations and it is built like a tank. So I guess you could say I hold some sentiment to that radio.  Secondly, they are 100% front-panel-programmable and designed to be programmed quickly from the front panel or cloned with an already programmed radio.  This is because most of these large fires have crews responding from many different agencies and regions and communications are CRITICAL to keeping firefighters alive.  The ‘comm plan’ is the first thing a responding firefighter seeks out.  Second is the stack of orange AA battery packs usually littering a tailgate of one of the fire rigs.  Always start with fresh batteries.

The default for these radios is alkaline batteries for the reason that you don’t have a place or the time to charge and rely on rechargeable batteries.  The National Wildfire Coordination Center keeps and maintains the cash of radios used each year and is said to purchase around 350,000 AA batteries each season!

The DPH handheld may look like an old relic, but it is still currently in wide use and only recently discontinued and replaced by the KNG series radios.  Even still, the DPH and KNG can clone each other.  If you look at the two side-by-side, you would never believe it.  They can be cloned with a simple cable.

The DPH is the standard that anything newer will have to follow because of the wide adoption of this radio. It is proven; it works, and remains in demand on the used market.  You can pick up a used DPH for around $600 if you hunt.  A used KNG in fair condition can be found in the $850 range.  Not cheap.. but expected because they are meant to be purchase with “tax-dollars”… not our ‘regular’ hard-earned dollars.

From a prepper standpoint, you aren’t going to beat these series of radios.

Stories like the following are pretty common.

From the USFS:

“[A DPH Radio] that was apparently lost near Steamboat Springs, CO. Was just returned to me last week. I had to cut the radio out of the leather case since it had shrunk down very tightly on the radio. Put a battery on it and it turned right on… The DPH was last accounted for in 2011. So it’s possible that one spent 8 years outside.”

These are the radios I currently own:

DPH (P25) EPH (analog) 7-watt Handhelds

KNG (P25) 5-watt Handheld

GMH (analog) 50-watt Mobile radio

The basic specs of the older DPH/EPH Handheld for reference…

– 400 Channels, 25 User Groups, 16 Channels per Group
– 136-174 MHz Frequency Range
– 5/2 watts RF Power
– User-selectable Network Access Codes and/or Code Guards
– Optional DES/AES Digital Encryption
– Rock-solid Reliability
– MIL-STD amd NIFC Fire Certification Specs
– APCO P25 Specs
– Easy to Use, Easy to Program and Customize
– 18+ Hours of Battery Life Between Charges
– Exceptional Audio Quality
– Weatherproof Design
– Cloning Technology
– FLASH Technology
– Quick-Call and Automatic Call-Back

Anyway, Just a quick history of my addiction with these ridiculously priced radios J

73, Todd KB7RQQ