About two years ago the FCC changed requirements for land mobile service radios. This was part of a narrow band plan to get more radio channels in the same amount of spectrum space. Land mobile radios must be type accepted by the FCC. The industry had ten years warning that this change was coming so radio owners could fully depreciate existing radios. The old Motorola radios did not meet the new standards so they had to be replaced with approved radios. Obviously Kenwood gave a lower price.

The new FCC standards do NOT require digital operation at this time. However in the future the FCC probably will require digital operation so purchasing digital radios makes sense. Many digital radios also will send and receive analog signals so they will be compatible with existing analog.

Some older scanners do not meet the new FCC standards and will eventually become obsolete.