A while ago, I posted about the Tait 8110 Radio, beloved (hated) by the taxi community, back in the days when we actually had taxi radios, a taxi community, and, actually taxis that weren’t fucking Ubers.

Lately, following the takeover of my company (thankfully by a bunch of lads who hate Uber as much as I do), all our radios have become surplus to requirements.

So, what can you do with a bunch of 25 watt radios capable of working 66–88MHz?

Option 1:

Dodgy (yet licensed) private use

Well, under the terms of the Business Radio (Simple UK) Licence (which seems to go under many names, including UK Light, Simple Light, Business Light etc, depending on which bit of the OFCOM or Ofcom website you visit), you can crank them down to 5 watts and use them on the following frequencies (for £75 for 5 years):

• • 77.6875 MHz
  • 86.3375 MHz
  • 86.3500 MHz
  • 86.3625 MHz
  • 86.3750 MHz

The restriction on this is that it is for “business use”. Which means that you and your mates can’t buy a box of used (and programmed up) radios from me to use with your 4×4/caravan club, get a licence, and be all legal.

Not that Ofcom actually give a shit. They’ll happily take your money, pretend everything is hunky-dory, and that you are a a sole-trader working in “Communications Research”. Not me, I must add. I don’t want to jeopardise my real licences.

So, Option 2:

Convert them for 4m Amateur Radio use

My prefered option.

So this is how I’m programming up my clutch of TAIT 8110 radios. So, firstly we’ll look at the frequencies we want (for FM), all 12.5KHz:

• #1 – 70.450MHz – Calling Channel
• #2 – 70.400MHz
• #3 – 70.425MHz
• #4 – 70.450MHz (yes its a duplication, but it stops my minds hurting!)
• #5 – 70.475MHz

As for the buttons across the front panel, we’ll have Squelch On/Off, Power Max/Min, two channel change buttons, an unused button, and a Scan button.

Like this:

 

I’ve managed to get myself a “Base Unit” (that means it comes with it’s own Tait PSU), and a mobile unit, now I’m just waiting for a 4m band base antenna, so I can go out in the car and do some radio testing.