Old radios:
Radio model | Digital mode | Approx. price | Waterproofing | Notes | Availability |
Icom IC-F4029SDR | dPMR | - | None | First digital PMR446 radio. | Discontinued. Icom recommends IC-F29DR2 instead. |
Icom IC-F29SDR | dPMR | - | IP67 (submersible) | Icom IC-F29DR with display. | Not officially discontinued but availability is poor |
Icom IC-F29DR | dPMR | - | IP67 (submersible) | Discontinued - Replacement is Icom IC-F29DR2 | |
Kenwood TK-3401D | dPMR | - | IP54 (splashproof) & IP55 (water jets) | Discontinued - Replacement is Kenwood TK-3701D | |
Kenwood TK-3601D | dPMR | - | IP67 (submersible) | Not officially discontinued but availability is poor | |
Motorola XT660d / XT665d | dPMR | - | IP55 (water jets) | Motorola's first and only dPMR446 radio. XT665d includes LPD channels (low power, not PMR446 and they have worse range so not much benefit of having these channels) | Discontinued - No replacement. Motorola only sells analogue PMR446 radios now. |
Hytera PD355LF | DMR | - | IP54 (splashproof) | Discontinued | |
Hytera PD365LF | DMR | - | IP54 (splashproof) | Discontinued |
Current radios:
Radio model | Digital mode | Approx. price | Waterproofing | Notes | Availability |
Icom IC-F29DR2 | dPMR | £174 | IP67 (submersible) | Programming cable is about £50 and software (CS-F29DR2) is about £24. | Good availability |
Kenwood TK-3701D | dPMR | £125 | IP54 (splashproof) & IP55 (water jets) | Programming software is about £20 and cable is generic kenwood style so many can be found cheaply. | Good availability |
Hytera BD305LF | DMR | £97 | IP54 (splashproof) | Not so good build quality. Not recommended. | Good availability |
Hytera BD505LF | DMR | £153 | IP54 (splashproof) | Not so good build quality. Not recommended. | Good availability |
Hytera PD505LF | DMR | £178 | IP54 (splashproof) | Seems better build quality than Hytera BD series. | Good availability |
My recommendations
For PMR446 use, dPMR is better for most
users because it uses 6.25 kHz channels rather than 12.5 kHz which
gives it slightly better range than DMR. DMR has to do some trickery to
allow the same effective number of channels (32), whereas with dPMR
there are 32 channels by default. For these reasons I recommend people
pick dPMR radios over DMR when choosing digital PMR446 walkie talkies.
This
leaves just the Icom IC-F29DR2 and the Kenwood TK-3701D. Both are
good options. The Icom has better waterproofing (submersible) but is
more expensive to buy. The programming software and cable are also much
more expensive. The Kenwood is only splashproof and water jet proof but
is cheaper, and the programming software and cable are also cheaper.
It's not necessary for most users to reprogram the radio though, as it
can be used out of the box.
The
Kenwood is much better value for money so I would recommend most people
choose this instead of the Icom unless you need a submersible radio.
These radios will not be able to talk to each other out of the box due
to being programmed with different CTCSS codes on the analogue
channels, and different Common IDs on the digital channels, however
they should be able to talk if reprogrammed using the programming
software.
Compared
to analogue (FM), which is what you get with cheaper PMR446 radios, the
range of DMR should be about the same and dPMR should be slightly
better.
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If you find any radios I've missed off this page, please leave a comment below and I'll update the page.