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Comment by Avery Dale on October 8, 2010 at 8:32am

My preference is Kenwood, portable's & mobile's.

Comment by Alex Sharp on October 7, 2010 at 12:18pm

Bendix King radio's. They are reliable. Example During a wildland training burn I set mine on top of our engine and then got distracted by another engine getting stuck in the mud by the port-a-tank. I got down and helped then we went to leave. I did my walk around and didn't find anything. about 2 miles down the road I heard a clunk, clunk, clunk and saw a black thing tumble down the road behind me. At first I thought I lost a tire but didn't hear a bang. I pulled off the side of the road and watched 3 fire engines drive over it watching as pieces flew off. I walked back to get what ever it was and as I got close I realized it was my BK radio. The entire right side was in pieces and the battery was destroyed. I put a new battery on it and turned it on and it worked! The channel selector nob was missing the speaker was not working but it still transmitted and the screen and keys still worked. I sent it back to BK and they put a on a new shell, speaker, channel selector nob and a few other little things and it works like new.

How's that for falling 8+ feet at 55m.p.h. and then getting run over by 3 fire engines.

We also use BK mobile radios in our equip. We switched from a variety of kinds to all BK. We have always had BK VHF Portable radios (HTs).

Hope this helps

As for getting frequencies, usually radio shack has a list of Rx frequencies for the local area. As for getting Tx frequencies you might have to get a radio load from your dept.

Now scanners I like the Uniden product line. They have portable and desktop scanners.