Icom IC-R3

[RPZ57]

Recently aquired an IC-R3 in a private sale.

I have not devoted much time playing with it yet; mostly tuning into local emergency services. One noteworthy point so far, as reflected by a reviewer on Strong Signals - the 'R3 is just a tad deaf. I have started "collecting" various antennas to try out, which has already been somewhat expensive. Then, antennas are probably like pistol holsters, hats and fishing flies; you fill a box with them, and wind up using a few of them regularly.

Anyone had any great success with any particular antenna/accessory in any particular frequency/band range? My interests are quite broad, so I am not just interested in any one particular range.

 

[Turbo68]

I got the Icom-R3 and the performance on the radio is excellent and its not deaf at all and these are the antennas that i use on it Diamond-RH-771/Watson-881 Super Gainer/Icom-AH7000 Discone and the version that we got in australia never heard any problems with them and i know because i worked for Icom and it seems different markets around the world have different radios although we always seem to get the radios last but we probably end up with a better radio and i have heard and seen same model radios from different countries but differnt outcome when it comes to perfromance.

Regards Lino.

 

[RPZ57]

Hello Lino,

Thanks for the antenna input. The 'R3 review I refer to can be found here (the writer compares it to an 'R2);

http://www.strongsignals.net/access/reviews/reviews.cgi?type=display&rtype=rev&class=recv&num=037

I have not figured out how to manually break squelch with the squelch monitor yet, and I need to copy an antenna reference table to have handy to adjust the telecoping antenna for best reception on any given frequency.

 

[scosgt]

Use the radio shack 800Mhz antenna. Works great for everything except TV, which won't matter anyway come Feb 9

 

[Mike_G_D]

...I need to copy an antenna reference table to have handy to adjust the telecoping antenna for best reception on any given frequency.

Just divide 2952 by the frequency in MHz and you will get the approximate 1/4 wavelength to set the telescoping antenna for in inches.

Example:

Frequency = 155MHz

2952/155 = 19.045 inches (this is what you adjust the antenna to).

This is approximate but will get you in the ballpark and should be fine for receive only purposes. You can "fine tune" the antenna afterwords for whatever you are listening to - it will probably be optimum at lengths a little shorter than the calculation result depending on the surrounding environment and such.

-Mike

 

[RPZ57]

Thanks Mike! Handy to know.