ICOM IC-F5021/F5121D, Kenwood 7360, or Vertex VX-4600

[K5AHH]

--Hi, all. For a while, now, I have had a Ram Mount in my 2013 Silverado that mounts to the underside of the passenger seat. It works just fine, but whenever a passenger sits in the seat, they hit their left leg on the mount. I am about to take it out and put in a Havis 940-8 console, that way, nobody will hit their leg on it. The console will hold three radios. I am having trouble deciding between the radios above. Since I don't want to have to mess with buying an external speaker, the radio really needs to have a front-firing speaker.

--I have had good luck with ICOM in the past (I have an ICOM IC-F221), and the IC-5021 is the cheapest of the bunch. The 2nd cheapest is the Vertex VX-4600. For about $60 more, I can get the Vertex VX-5400 which has TDMA digital, but I don't think that modulation scheme will work with the new Yaesu digital amateur radios (CDMA, I think??). Since it's not CDMA, I can't think of why I would need TDMA, lol. There is the ICOM IC-F5121D, which is just a little bit more than the Vertex 4600, and it has NXDN digital. Nobody uses NXDN around here, but when traveling, there are at least SOME NXDN 2 meter repeaters. Finally, there is the Kenwood TK-7360, which is the highest price of all listed analog radios.

--So, for the people that have owned these radios, or dealers that sell and service these brands, what brand/model would you go with? I think I am leaning towards the ICOM 5021, or the Vertex 4600. Primary use is for two meter amateur radio. I just want something a little tougher that has a front-firing speaker. The only amateur radio currently made that is front-firing is the Kenwood TM-281, but I don't really want that one. If both radios are equal pretty much, but one is made in Japan and one is made in China, that would be the deciding factor. Sorry for the long post. I appreciate the help, though.

P.S.
I forgot to add something. Are there any software issues with either the ICOM 5021 or the Vertex 4600? Specifically, is the software easy to purchase and use? Finally, I know with my ICOM F-221 I have, I have used part of the software to actually adjust the power output to whatever level I want. It's a 45 watt radio, but if I really wanted to, that part of the software would let me make it 32 or 13 watts, or whatever amount I wanted to. I ended up setting the output power to around 35 watts or so, just so it would run a little bit cooler. Nobody missed those extra watts, anyway. Do you know if either of the above radios has part of the software that allows for this?

 

[Avery93]

I have two of the mentioned radios; an F5021 set up as a base unit, and a TK-7360 in my truck.

Between the two, I like the TK-7360 much more than the F5021. In fact I would say the 7360 is probably the best mid-tier analog only mobile in production. It has a ton of features, excellent TX/RX performance, and is simple to use. The F5021 does have a few strengths however; namely being FPP capable, and it's around $100 cheaper.

Here's a few of the pros/cons of the TK-7360 and F5021, from my experience:

TK-7360
Pros:
*Lots of signalling formats: DTMF, 2-tone, FleetSync and MDC1200. All supporting encode and decode.
*Excellent transmit audio quality, with great frequency response as usual from Kenwood.
*The fastest scan speed of any radio I've used, and very short priority sample time.
*Very good sensitivity and receive audio quality.
*10 character display
*All 10 programmable buttons are completely customizable. You can assign a different function to both press, and press-and-hold.
*Controls are intuitive.
*Operator Selectable Tone function lets you program 40 PL/DPL tones that can then be selected from the front panel. You can also alpha tag them.
*128 channel and zone capacity.

Cons:
*You can't program a button to change power level. It must be done per channel in the software.
*Doesn't have scan lists per-se. If you don't need the capability of scanning across zones (i.e. being in one zone and scanning a channel in another), then you can program the radio so each zone is essentially its own scan list. This makes adding and deleting channels from the list easy, and changing zones automatically changes the "list". However if you do need the capability of scanning across zones, you will only have one scan list, and you will have to add/delete channels and zones as you see fit.

F5021/F5121D
Pros:
*Front panel programmable, but is somewhat tricky to enable. Google "Icom maker reserved" for more info.
*Very flexible scan list functionality. 10 scan lists that have their own parameters such as priority Ch, transmit Ch, etc. Lists can be changed on the fly from the front panel.
*Possibly louder receive audio than the TK-7360. Hard to tell due to the different environments I use them in.
*F5121D is capable of 6.25 KHz NXDN.
*Very inexpensive.

Cons:
*Controls aren't really intuitive. Scan gets disabled when you change channels, and you can't change zones with scan enabled.
*Not nearly enough programmable buttons. Only 4 (6 if you count CH Up/Down) and you can't assign a different function to press-and-hold.
*Scan is very slow, and the priority sample time is pretty long so you get noticeable gaps in the audio when using priority.
*Only 8 zones.
*Has the equivalent of Operator Selectable Tone, but only 9 tones and you can't alpha tag them.
*Slightly funky transmit audio quality that's hard to explain. Almost like there's too much emphasis on the lows and especially highs but not enough mid-range? Still better than the lower end Motorola mobiles and most ham gear though.

Both radios are plenty durable, and I haven't had any hardware problems out of them.
Both Icom and Kenwood programming software is easily obtainable and relatively inexpensive. Both are easy to use as well. The F5021 software has an adjustment utility built-in, not sure about the TK-7360's software.

I don't have any experience with the VX-4600 or EVX-5400, but they do look good on paper. The EVX-5400 is DMR capable, and is compatible with MotoTRBO in conventional (non-trunking) operation. One thing you might want to be aware of regarding the VX-4600 is this thread, where a dealer had a major issue with scanning on these radios. According to him Vertex was unwilling to address the issue.

Hope this helps!

 

[K5AHH]

--Thank you. Yes, it does help. I wish the Kenwood was cheaper, though. The Vertex 4600 might have been a nice happy medium if it wasn't for that scan issue. If one of the above radios don't work out, I just might go with the ICOM IC-V8000, which is a 2 meter only radio. It has a front-firing speaker and actually has a fan on the heatsinks (on the back). Thanks again!

 

[K5AHH]

--Oops, forgot to add that I used to own a Kenwood 8160 I used to use for 70cm and GMRS. It was a great radio. I do remember it seemed to get hotter at the same power level when compared to my ICOM IC-F221. I guess it has something to do with the heatsink on the bottom, I dunno. No biggie, as it was used at home and I later started using a fan on it. Not sure how I am going to get rid of heat inside of that Havis console, though. I do have a 4 inch fan at 67cfm, so I might could cut a hole in the console somewhere and place the fan in the hole so it will suck at least some air out. I might have to get a more powerful fan, though, as I hooked it up the 12vdc and it doesn't seem that powerful. Oh, well...maybe if I don't have long winded talk times, I will be okay. I never see fans on the consoles in police vehicles.

 

[Avery93]

--Oops, forgot to add that I used to own a Kenwood 8160 I used to use for 70cm and GMRS. It was a great radio. I do remember it seemed to get hotter at the same power level when compared to my ICOM IC-F221. I guess it has something to do with the heatsink on the bottom, I dunno. No biggie, as it was used at home and I later started using a fan on it. Not sure how I am going to get rid of heat inside of that Havis console, though. I do have a 4 inch fan at 67cfm, so I might could cut a hole in the console somewhere and place the fan in the hole so it will suck at least some air out. I might have to get a more powerful fan, though, as I hooked it up the 12vdc and it doesn't seem that powerful. Oh, well...maybe if I don't have long winded talk times, I will be okay. I never see fans on the consoles in police vehicles.

Yeah, heat usually isn't that big of an issue in public safety or commercial mobile applications. I am not a ham, and only use those two radios as a volunteer FF/EMT, but I will say that my TK-7360 has never even gotten warm after transmitting. However the most I have ever transmitted was maybe 25% of the time in a ~2 minute period. I really haven't transmitted enough on my F5021 to comment on it.

Duty cycle isn't listed in the specs for the TK-7360, but the TK-7160 was rated for 20%; I would expect them to be roughly the same. The only info I can find on the F5021 is a warning in the manual saying not to exceed 50% duty cycle, due to FCC RF exposure limits.

The TK-7360 has fins along the bottom of the radio, a moderately sized heat sink on the back, and a fin on each back corner; much like the TK-7160. The F5021 on the other hand has fins along the top of the radio, and one large heat sink on the back. Just judging by looks, the F5021 appears to have a more effective heat sink design.

 

[powerlineman]

Icom

I really like Icom amateur products but can't stand their commercial line. The software is goofy and their scan is terribly slow. The scan is the biggest issue. The Icom fans will get defensive and tell you that it's slow on purpose... Missing parts of a conversation or a reply isn't desirable for my purpose. Knocking the scan off to manipulate the radio and not being able to scan off hook sucks too. It's 2013...Icom seem to be stuck the ground the microphone days. Maybe they like it that way in Japan.

 

[K5AHH]

--Thanks to all that gave me helpful info. I managed to find a Kenwood TK-7160H for my VHF needs from usedtwowayradios.com . I used to own an 8160 for GMRS/Ham Radio use and really liked it. It was easy to program, and sounded really nice.

 

[cabletech]

I really like Icom amateur products but can't stand their commercial line. The software is goofy and their scan is terribly slow. The scan is the biggest issue. The Icom fans will get defensive and tell you that it's slow on purpose... Missing parts of a conversation or a reply isn't desirable for my purpose. Knocking the scan off to manipulate the radio and not being able to scan off hook sucks too. It's 2013...Icom seem to be stuck the ground the microphone days. Maybe they like it that way in Japan.

Maybe you just did not look at the differant settings.

I run a F520, two F620's two 5021's and two F6011's all but one 6011 have off hook scan with a min of 6 channels in the scan list.

Have had thes for many years and have had no problems with the scan.

 

[rapidcharger]

The big problem on the icoms (for hams anyway) is the cooling.

They go into thermal fairly quickly on a mid power+ rag chew. The display dims out and the LED starts flashing. They're really designed for very brief transmissions like "132 & Bush, I've got him at gunpoint"

I use a few different Icoms for base radios with fans the only with with decent cooling is the 1720 series which you can yap on for a real long time without a fan. They're nice radios. p25 upgradable. Can be found new or like new for high 100's to mid 200's without the digital board. 2 line dot matrix display.

I haven't used the 4600 personally. I looked at them at one time. It's a newer radio and the prices have been pretty high on them.

As for the scan in Icoms, some people seem to have problems with the scan. Some find it diffficult to set up and while I found it easy to set up, the scan mysteriously went out on one of mine.