Hi Everyone,
Does anyone have experience with EF Johnson 5100 ES radios? Are they easy to program?
Thanks,
It is quite easy to program, provided you have the software AND the proper programming cable. (If you are using them for GMRS and/or “Ham” use, make sure the “wideband” option was included! – These came out during the whole “narrowbanding” era)
I haven’t programmed one in several years now, but at one time I had a municipal customer with several hundred between the PD / FD / EMS and OEM.
Most were using them in narrowband analog mode using Motorola Quantar repeaters.
The EFJ 5100 is actually a nice radio. If you can find one (or more) in excellent condition at this point… They do use the Motorola XTS-5000 battery and I’ve found Honeywell makes the best lithium replacement batteries that were lasting close to 2x 12 hour shifts with high use.
Rumor has it (I’ve heard this for many years but never got a definitive answer) -->>
The 5100 was supposedly a modified Motorola XTS5000 that was produced for EFJ to permit them fast access to the P25 phase 1 market without the years of R&D truly necessary. It then benefited //\ by permitting them to essentially compete with themselves.
Sorry…
I forgot to ask your level of 2-way programming experience.
You MIGHT just luck out and discover the radios are “FPP” enabled.
Most of the initial DHS radio gear shared local infrastructure and then handed off their initial hardware (5100’s and 51sl’s) had “Federal Front Panel Programming” functionality, permitting most programming (analog / p25 phase 1) right from the front of the radio, providing it was a model 3 version (display and full keypad).
(the exception – NO TRS ! – it’s far too complex to handle without the programming software – PcConfigure)
Many of the 5100’s and 51sl’s were used in the early days of "interoperability’ before “Big Mike’s Hubby” got involved in the lucrative RF Spectrum auctions and other highly profitable Demoncrat activities. I am NOT kidding… the games they played over a few month period effectively froze out most of the new first responders from implementing and/or modifying their systems. They also had a “drop dead” date looming in just a few years where their newly licensed UHF “T-Band” frequencies had to be rescinded and systems taken down.
The Obama admin effectively set back true interop with the 2012 “stimulus act” which had a provision to take back all of the UHF “T-Band” spectrum that was given mostly to public safety after that portion of the band was abandoned by television stations during their move to digital.
470-512+ MHz was fantastic. (except for the rare “tropospheric ducting” issues) It was “clean” without existing licensees and unlicensed users and was initially very easy to get coordinated and licensed.
There were 13 or so areas in the continental US that were given priority access to licensing and areas like NYC and NJ immediately began the move from a mess of frequency use (everything from simplex vhf low-band to vhf high-band to conventional UHF to 800MHz and there really was no effective way to communicate with neighboring municipal first responders or agencies coming a distance. (during both the 1993 and 2001 WTC attacks, most mutual aid coming from outside NYC had nearly zero means of communicating with FDNY / NYPD / PAPD).
UHF “T-Band” was literally enough spectrum for the entire NYC public safety user base.
Knowing these municipalities only had 7-9 years max to abandon their new systems and could not make any changes to their licenses in the interim, many hoped there would be a reprieve, but not many chanced it. They then moved to the newly allocated 700MHz block and back to VHFand conventional UHF.
NYC refused to even think about complying. After nearly 2 decades of work and an incredibly functional group of systems (PD/FD/FD-EMS/PAPD/OEM/ETC) with transmitters on the higest buildings and bridges and voted receivers on most city owned tall buildings, most of NYC had excellent coverage with a 2-watt UHF portable (they went low power to ensure the radios could do an entire shift without battery charging or swaps – remember , design stages were in the NiCad battery chemistry days)
It would literally be impossible to migrate the over 120,000 radios to new frequencies without having major disruption and a severe danger to the first responders and the public.
President Trump had been hearing of the problems for years.
He pushed through the rescinding of the legislation, but many users had long abandoned their systems, placing first responders back all over the bands again.
Sorry… got very long-winded there…
If you need assistance with programming, I still have most of the software and tools required to program and tune the radios.
If you’re near the NYC/Northern NJ area, you can bring 'em by.
OR
I can help out remotely.
N/C as long as it’s not more than a dozen or so or isn’t involving a trunking system w/ complex configs.
