Thoughts on the Motorola XTS3000

Mercenary · Post by **Mercenary** » Mon Nov 11, 2002 11:00 pm

I WAS WONDERING WHAT ANYONE HAS TO SAY ABOUT THE MOTOROLA XTS3000, 800MHZ TRUNKED RADIO. DOES THE RADIO TRANSMIT AND RECEIVE AS GOOD AS THE HT1000 OR IS IT JUST ANOTHER HT1250 PAPPER WAIT.

Heterodyne · Post by **Heterodyne** » Mon Nov 11, 2002 11:16 pm

Yah can't get enough of those darn papper waits.

Cpd014 · Post by **Cpd014** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 6:14 am

I have both radios, but they are in UHF and the XTS smokes the HT1000 by a longshot in manny different aspects. Just look at it this way the XTS is a Caddilac and the HT1000 is a KIA and hopefully I did not offend any KIA owners out there.

Astro_Saber · Post by **Astro_Saber** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 7:19 am

makes a great parts radio if its dropped

Cpd014 · Post by **Cpd014** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 9:39 am

Very True they are not very rugged at all, I think the Astro Saber is better if your gonna use the heck out of it.

mike m · Post by **mike m** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 10:13 am

Word I got last week from the LAPD horses mouth in person is that they love the XTS3000 in Astro mode and positively hate the Astro Sabers in Astro mode. They say the Astro Sabers audio fluctuates while the XTS3000s is stable and they would like to replace the Astros with XTS but unfortunately the dollars are not there, this is just the opinion of one PD using the XTS, and yes they do have a very small number of XTS3000s in use, mainly in the airborne division.

So at least there is something positive to say about the XTS3000s, in analog FM mode I don't think they are as good as my standard saber, audio wise, and I use VHF, UHF and 800 5 days out of the week in both analog and digital modes.

I hope to get my hands on Astro saber soon to confirm the LA complaint, no it woun't be an actual LAPD version either but that doesn't matter, I just want to see if the Astro audio is really as bad as they say it is.

Mike

Cpd014 · Post by **Cpd014** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 10:56 am

The XTS is a great radio all around, but in terms of ruggedness I would go with an Saber, so both radios do have ups and downs to it and its just a matter of preference mainly.

Mercenary · Post by **Mercenary** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 1:21 pm

MOTOROLA SELLS A MORE RUGGED MODEL BUT THAT MODEL COST MORE MONEY

Cpd014 · Post by **Cpd014** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 1:51 pm

That rugged model is only available in 800mhz am I correct on that??

Mercenary · Post by **Mercenary** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 3:41 pm

IM NOT SURE ON THAT.

Post by **xmo** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 3:48 pm

R models are listed for VHF & UHF as well as 800.

Dale Earnhardt · Post by **Dale Earnhardt** » Tue Nov 12, 2002 5:01 pm

All I can say is knowing LAPD, you wil never get your hands on it, you wil see it end up at a trash, and ready to be run over by those steam rollers

mhaynes41 · Post by **mhaynes41** » Tue Dec 03, 2002 7:50 am

Dale Earnhardt wrote:All I can say is knowing LAPD, you wil never get your hands on it, you wil see it end up at a trash, and ready to be run over by those steam rollers

Not by Law they really can't do that. All radios are brought with public money and there for MUST be either auctioned off or used as trade in against new radios say from Motorola even though they don't give them much for them but makes them think they do. Kinda like when you take your used car and get a trade in on it for a new one. How much do you really think you get????

Post by **wavetar** » Tue Dec 03, 2002 12:57 pm

We have sold several hundred of them, and have had a grand total of 3 come in for repairs. One gave a low battery beep even with a near fully charged battery. We had to send it to Motorola for them to align the low battery voltage parameter with their LAB RSS (I suspect). The second had a defective RF board causing poor receiver sensitivity. The third had some sort of logic issue, it worked fine in test & conventional modes, but wouldn't work on the trunking system. Motorola eventually replaced that one. There are many hundreds more on our system that we don't service, they go direct to Motorola (Government contract). The users of those radios have nothing but good things to say about them. I have yet to see a broken display, in spite of some people claiming it's a probable weak point. These are all 800MHz units I'm referring to. I have no real experience with VHF/UHF versions.

Todd

Justin · Post by **Justin** » Wed Dec 04, 2002 2:11 pm

The XTS 3000 is just like the 3500 that I own with A few exceptions. Those being that the 3000 has 3 boards inside of it, and the 3500 has but a single one. That makes no difference in the overall operation of the radio for the average user. I also believe that the software used to program it is very similar to that of a AS3. As far as how it is used by the user, it is just fine. As with any other Motorola radio, just don't drop it. Case will break, battery will pop, display will die, antenna gets messed up, etc. The only Astro portable that can take abuse like that is the Astro Saber series. If you need a durable portable, shoot for one of those bad-boys.

BTW, as I understand, no Law enforcement departments destroy radio equipment like that. They usually end up stored away for back-ups or reprogrammed and transferred to other city positions i.e. School, PD/FD Explorers, etc. The only folks that do are the Fed's-I am sure you can guess why that is. Anyway, thats how that goes.

Justin

wa2zdy · Post by **wa2zdy** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 6:50 am

The NJ state police used to bury old radios in a pit. I don't know if they still do, but I know they did. I'd been there and seen it.

My dept sold off our old Smith and Wesson model 66 357s, but not radios. Go figure. (I work for the state and our radio system comes under the state police too.)

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr I'd have enjoyed having some of those LB rigs the state police had.

Thoughts on the Motorola XTS3000

Thoughts on the Motorola XTS3000

xts3000