Icom radio's
When I was working for a dealer I saw more kenwood prolbems as opposed to any manfacture they sold their. And the prolbems were realtivy dumb ones at that, stuck keys because someone spilled pop on their radio and failure of soft keys to the radio on and off. Granted most of these radios were used 24/7 but still it does not say much. Also, seeing a fd threw a huge hissy fit for good reasons because of their crappy kenwoods it hard for me to choose that line. They are now using xts1500 and what a difference that is from kenwood, also a huge price difference. And then on top of that when speaking to a tech in a shop other then the one I worked for he didn't have to many nice things to say. He said he was aware of simple prolbems with vertex, motorola, icom and that for the most they perform equally across the borad.
However, funny I got it the other way before saying kenwoods are better then icom's. So, far my experience has been good. But, I think it all comes down to the price point of the radio and what you plan on getting out of them. One prolbem that I had was RF feed power coming back into the radio, a few tests and talking with Icom, about my radio and it was fixed at no cost to me because of the warrenty. I would have to say its about 1/100 as well considering I have five mobiles and two portables that can support the idas feature. That would be the direction I'm going in for if I purchase a new repeater. The only thing that aggervates me is the output wattage with Icom ic-FR5000 and the fact that you have to buy the additional power plug equipment etc. I wish they would have made it turn key at (45/50 whatever maybe the case) watts full duplex, as Rich and I have discuss. The only alternative is to put an amp on it and if I could find a decident price for one maybe we can talk idas sooner. Oh by the way their is a emission designator that is a catch all for digital and analogue format with data as well. I stumbled upon it on a new license for a company that just built their data center in my home town. And the tech was surprised that the icom was having rf power feedback into the radio, but noticed it when doing two radios by each other. Said that was rather unusal for that model considering its track record.
*What I can say for the positives*
-Modest Price Range
-Features Loaded
-More channels then I'll ever needed
-LTR, 25/12.5 Analogue all in one with option boards
-Wideband coverage
-Mutiple tone selection for ctcsss/dcs combo
-MDC1200
-Big Display, easy to radio, activated by turn key channels
-User grip, easy to handle
-Quick Chargering, Battery life is awsome, easy storage for spares
-Firmware upgradable
*what would I like to see*
-Time Clock-
-Menu Driven by soft keys-
-Voice Storage-
-Multi Band platform, uhf, vhf, 800
What do I think Icom needs to delvop in
800/900
and mullti band options in one radio
more power watted radio, more juice. But, from what I see this is being delvoped on some level with remote heads.
Company Wise
Can I stress even more- they listen to their customers for future delvopment.
Additional Notable prolbems, that seem to have been address
The microphone has issues with the clip and the audio quality, but once again thats one thing. But, they have released a new version of the microphone. So maybe that nipped this issue.
