Tait Radios

[Agent 48]

I bought a job lot of 9 Tait T2000 series transceivers from ebay as untested/unknown bands or condition all for 22 pounds including postage.

I thought for 22 pounds you really can't go wrong. I only received 8 so one missing.

I power tested all and all power on and appear to work. I haven't yet tested transmit or receive but I have a ready made Tait codeplug to put right on to these radios so I wont have to spend time re-programming them which is actually something I do enjoy doing but as I've worked on lots of Taits before I already have a code plug I made ages ago.

First thing I noticed is that all are band 3 radios which are 136 MHz to 174 MHz apart from one which is 175 MHz to 230 MHz. all very useful.

I haven't properly checked them yet... I will charge up the laptop tonight and read the radios tomorrow to see what they are programmed to. Some are T2030 radios which are trunked but I believe 4 conventional channels can be programmed into the T2030 versions.

I was hoping for some Low Band models and some UHF versions but VHF Band 3 is fine.

The VHF Band 3 models seem to be the most common.

The Band 4 (175 - 230) will still be useful, these can still be programed out of band for 169 & 173 MHz for UK light private VHF PMR.

The band 3 radios can be used on the 2 Meter Ham Band or for marine band receive quite handy if you like listening to marine traffic you can program these to scan. They also make excellent radios for 2 meter repeater systems.

I look forward to seeing whats on them tomorrow and seeing if they transmit and receive. i don't want to do too much on them right now otherwise I wont have nowt to do tomorrow while waiting in for deliveries.

All in all not bad for a total of 22 pounds & 40 pence.

[Agent 48]

This works out 2.80 per radio which is alright. In working condition these 4 channel transceivers barely make 10 pounds online, of course you get the business PMR scalpers that are stuck in the past who try to sell them for 100 pounds offering free programming, how generous

Or you get the "its vintage" retro rip off merchants who have no clue what they are selling.

Generally they sell for about 10 pounds each in working condition... the UHF models may go for slightly more but not by a huge margin and the Low Band versions tend to fetch about 20 to 25 pounds because people want them for the 4 Meter Ham Band, bearing in mind you only have 4 channels on these sets.

I decided to get my laptop out and with a couple of the radios I had bought because I was getting excited to work on them... I then realized I didn't have the Trunked programming software installed I only had the Conventional and these radios all appear to be Trunked.

The two T2010 radios which are conventional should read under the Conventional Tait programming software but one gave an error of "incorrect radio version" and the other failed to read at all... this would be the first time I've had a failure of reading Tait radios.

Anyway it struck me that those two Conventional T2010 radios came from the same fleet as the Trunkers so could likely have T2030 Trunked boards in them rather than T2010 Conventional boards... yep time to find my Tait CD disks... I have the originals but I could not find them. I then thought here we go again hunting down software and all I'm finding are greedy scalpers who are actually charging money for programming software for obsolete junk... well I'm not going to feed the greed and pay a scalper.

I found a back up of my Tait programming software but what I didn't realize was that the software contains both the Trunking & Conventional and lets you select which one to install or install both... so I already had it but because it didn't say "Trunked" I had no idea... I don't normally deal with Trunkers junk so its software I never selected when I installed the Tait software on my laptop... I only ever work on Conventional T2010 T2015 T2020 models.

Now the good thing about these 4 channel Trunkers is that you can still program them with 4 conventional channels and I was under the impression that there would be no CTCSS on the Trunkers, however when I took a look inside one of the T2030's they do indeed have CTCSS boards inside them so perfect. I can program simplex & repeater channels.

I will get working on these tomorrow and I will post my findings/progress.

[Agent 48]

I've got the laptop on charge and software ready.

I was just thinking about CTCSS on the Trunkers that may not work regardless of whether they are fitted with CTCSS tone boards... it all depends on whether the trunking software allows CTCSS to be selected. I know the old version 1 radio that used MS-DOS didn't allow CTCSS but as they are the newer models the software is Windows based and the software runs under Windows 10 and I use Serial Port and not problematic USB where Windows 10 will give you a major headache with driver issues. I always prefer Serial Port over USB when it comes to programming radios because its generally hassle & headache free.

It doesn't matter if the trunkers don't take CTCSS, simplex is fine for 2 meters and marine band listening, however the Band 4 business Tait may present an issue because that will need CTCSS.

So the band 4 Tait is 175 MHz to 225 MHz. This will be on UK Light Private Mobile Radio.

I have a friend who has some land and uses two way radios, however they are all hand helds, he is looking for a couple of base radios that will communicate with his VHF hand held business radios so I said I would keep my eye out for any old Tait radios. The Tait band 4 radio will be perfect for this as it can go down to 169 MHz easy for UK Light Business radio frequencies.

[Agent 48]

I had a faulty cable so I changed that and I was able to read one of the T2010 conventional radios and get it programmed easily however it has been modified inside, something to do with DATA so I imagine it was used for receiving DATA only. As a result of this there is no PTT so when you plug in a mic and press the PTT nothing will happen. I will need to look at this and un-do the modification. It has brilliant receive tho. This radio is programmed onto the 2 meter Ham band, just need to sort out the DATA mod and get it transmitting.

2nd T2010 conventional transceiver will not read... this is because this transceiver is a version 1 which requires the MS-DOS programming software so I will come back to this one later. I have the MS-DOS software but will need to dig out an old computer which I can't be bothered to do at this time.

As for the T2030 Trunkers I can now read from all of them no problem at all but I don't understand Trunkers jargon so I will need to figure out how to turn off the trunkers stuff and just have the 4 conventional simplex channels so that they can be used as two way radios.

[Agent 48]

Oh well mostly a big bust... Trunkers junk good for nothing. All will be going in the bin apart from the two Conventional ones which have no transmit enabled.

I will strip the output transistors off them save all the screws and save the BNC sockets and volume knobs that is about all that is worth saving on these. Waste of 20 quid still worth the gamble I thought because you never know what you'd get.

[Jose777]

hello, Agent 48, could you help me to obtain the tait software, I have needed it and I have not been able to get it, you are a hope if among your possibilities you would please send it to me