The Radio Information Board

I have read and been told that the Legacy series 1, 2, 3, are based on the Motorola Astro Saber and the series 6 Radio is EFJ,s own based on the XTS 5000. What is the series 4 based on? Some have told me its EFJ,s own version of the XTS and some have told me that it is a Astro Saber and others have told me that its a XTS better than the XTS3000 but not as good as the XTS5000. I'm lost does anyone know what the series 4 is?

Series 4 were the first rf decks EFJs did (sub contracted). They are not based on the saber deck. IMO they are equal to an XTS3k but not close to an XTS 5k.

I.S.

Thank you very much, finally a strait answer.

Intrinsically Safe wrote:Series 4 were the first rf decks EFJs did (sub contracted). They are not based on the saber deck. IMO they are equal to an XTS3k but not close to an XTS 5k.

I.S.

Elaborate if you can on what you mean when you say "not close" to the 5000. I hope you only meant the 5100 ver 4 is not a Zero-IF board like the 5000, which make the 2500/5000 less susceptible to stray or near-field RF that are a harmonic of the IF stages, which the 5100s sometimes do.

I've put up both UHF-Hi and 7/800 ver 4 5100 radios up against both 5000s and 2500s in the same bands and they performed on par, if not slightly better, in receive sensitivity. During testing the XTS3000 was the Rock-Solid Benchmark (arguably Motorola's best built portable RF deck) in all cases. We used an R2670 with P25 options for the test. Tests included both digital and analog performance.

To the point you made earlier, I concluded after the test that although the 5100 decks were not a stable as the 3000, they were close. They also offered a much wider band coverage with great to decent sensitivity, where as the 5000 decks would Fail 001 when taken outside of 10-15Mhz of their intended split. For example, a 450-520 split EFJ could hit 426-538 where the 2500 hit to 439-526, and the 5000 did 444-529. As with all radio equipment, some units ship "happier" from the factory than others, so maybe it was just a combination of good vs bad hardware tolerances in the lot of radios that made the EFJ radio come out looking nice.

Just sharing my experiences.

flat4turbo: What you have said about the 5100 series 4 is have I have been told by some friends. Now what I.S. said was also told to me by some other friends. Maybe I should ask what XTS radio would the 5100 series 4 be compared to for performance and features the XTS3000 or XTS5000?

I would say closer to the 3K. The ES (series 6) is more like the 5k IMO.

I.S.

Thanks I.S. So it would be like XTS 3000 with the bugs worked out plus a little extra. Kind of like a turbo charged XTS 3000 with a bit of XTS 5000.

Since you seem to care enough to be interested in the performance of these radios, heed my advice:

No matter what vendor you choose Motorola of EFJ, the factory tuning is always a quick-tune and not an exhaustive measurement. Both vendor's factory tunes are not that close to where the radio could perform. You gain to squeeze between a 15-50% improvement in the radio's performance just by calibrating the radio. The job takes between 15-20 minutes depending on the radio, but you'll be so much happier (and your radio too) when you do.

-f4t

I had had taken my 5100 series 4 to a friend when I got it. He hooked it up to the service monitor and checked it out and then checked it with PCTune and then said that my radio performed better than XTS3000 and very close to a XTS5000. That is when I told some others (series 1, 2, owners) and they told me that the series 4 was a Astro Saber, and some said it was a knockoff of a 3000. I guess that I have one of those radios that has been fine tuned. From what I.S. has said the series 4 is based on a XTS3000 and from what flat4turbo has said when it is tuned it can come close or equal to a XTS 5000 for performance ( as my friend who tested my radio also said). Now if someone asks me about my radio I can tell them "The radio is a 5100 series 4 that is based on a XTS3000 but has been tuned to perform close to a XTS5000" I think this sums up my 5100.