The Philips PRM80 series of mobile radio equipment was designed for conventional and trunking radio systems.
A wide variety of models were made available to cover the low and high VHF bands with another range available for the low, mid and high UHF bands.
Many of these radio units have become available on the second hand radio market and can be purchased for a reasonable price at many of the amateur radio swap meets (Hamfests).
I currently run a dedicated VHF unit and a dedicated UHF unit in the shack as standby radio’s. They are mainly used for monitoring and are perfect in this role as they have the capability of scanning user selected groups of channels, with an excellent receiver and programmable 25 watt/1 watt power output.
One crtical design feature to note is that these radio units were designed for commercial/government radio network use as mobiles, where typically transmissions are short and to the point. You know where I am heading here – they were not designed for lengthy transmissions at 100% duty cycle so be warned!! The radio units were designed with a 25% transmit duty cycle in mind, so consider your continuous transmission times when using this equipment.
A plethora of information on the PRM80 series of radio equipment, together with programming information and schematic diagrams, may be found by joining the PRM80 Yahoo Group.
