Best radio for Air band?

[Uplink]

Going back to your original question, as an aviator, and amateur radio operator, I'm picky about aircraft radios. I've been thru lots of them. I like to have selectivity, sensitivity, and a quiet-fast AM squelch tail, and good AM AUDIO quality.

As MANY have mentioned, go with a Uniden, such as BCT15X (nice as it has milar too), even the older Unidens, such as the BCT8, and even the little BC355N series (although they have no keypads), all are OUTSTANDING aircraft receivers.

Suprisingly one of the BEST AM receivers I have heard is the ICOM IC-208 tranceiver, I will never sell mine, as I LOVE the sound and quality of it's AM aircraft receiver, and even milar coverage as a bonus.

 

[KD8FSJ]

Recently got a new dedicated air scanner. I almost got a BCD260DN. I felt the BCT15x was a better choice with it's dynamic memory system.

 

[Uplink]

Regarding the filters, the little BNC connector style FM Broadcast-notch filters, or the Aircraft band-pass filters that Scannermaster sells work great when your in a large metro city, they will knock out the adjacent FM broadcasters which will de-sense your aircraft receiver noticably.

I found that my aircraft receiver base antenna in Century city listening to nearby Santa Monica airport was suprisingly weak, and the airport was only a few miles down the road, it was almost like the antenna was broken off. Put the filter in line and bang, made a HUGE differnce.

If your in the suburbs or beyond, you don't need to bother with them.

 

[Ubbe]

Suprisingly one of the BEST AM receivers I have heard is the ICOM IC-208 tranceiver,

I took a look in its schematics and it looks really good in VHF air. It has a varicap filter at the front end that tunes to the frequency, similar to the excellent Uniden BC780, and then one dual gate GaAs fet transistor with a 1dB noise figure followed by 3 different varicap filters in series that tunes to the frequency monitored and then another of the same type GaAs fet transistor. An impressive receiver design for its 118-174MHz range.

What's the scan speed of programmed channels? Is it possible to have a delay after the squelch closes and then continues to scan?

/Ubbe

 

[michaelscoofield]

Many thanks for useful info.
208 and 780 sounds good!

I see some IC-208 on eBay but from Japan. No idea if there is some blocking point to obtain it from Japan for usage in EU…

 

[michaelscoofield]

Many thanks for useful info.
208 and 780 sounds good!

I see some IC-208 on eBay but from Japan. No idea if there is some blocking point to obtain it from Japan for usage in EU…

Btw is it big issue the lack of 8.33kHz step please?

-m

 

[xms3200]

In the U.S, 8.33khz spacing is not yet implemented, you will be fine

 

[Alain]

I took a look in its schematics and it looks really good in VHF air. It has a varicap filter at the front end that tunes to the frequency, similar to the excellent Uniden BC780, and then one dual gate GaAs fet transistor with a 1dB noise figure followed by 3 different varicap filters in series that tunes to the frequency monitored and then another of the same type GaAs fet transistor. An impressive receiver design for its 118-174MHz range.

What's the scan speed of programmed channels? Is it possible to have a delay after the squelch closes and then continues to scan?

/Ubbe

/Ubbe

I've had my 208H for over 20 years. Still performs as it did when I bought it. The owners manual does not offer the scan speed in the specs, but I can tell you that it is v-e-r-y fast indeed. Much faster than my SDS200, in fact.

Yes, there is a delay after the squelch and it is programmable. Page 59 of the owners manual states that you can choose from 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 15 second delay.

Great, great radio!

 

[natedawg1604]

/Ubbe

I've had my 208H for over 20 years. Still performs as it did when I bought it. The owners manual does not offer the scan speed in the specs, but I can tell you that it is v-e-r-y fast indeed. Much faster than my SDS200, in fact.

Yes, there is a delay after the squelch and it is programmable. Page 59 of the owners manual states that you can choose from 2 seconds, 5 seconds, 10 seconds and 15 second delay.

Great, great radio!

What is the scan list capacity, for memory channels?

 

[Ubbe]

The IC-208H has a total of 512 memory channels (including 10 scan edges and 2 call channels) for storing often used operating frequency, repeater settings, etc.

You misread the user manual. It is the normal Icom way of pausing a fixed 2 sec delay after the carrier drops. The other timing values are when forcing a scan after a delay even when there's a carrier present.

/Ubbe

 

[Gmork]

I ordered a BCD260DN and it arrived yesterday. I wanted a simple old-school memory style analog wide-band scanner.

So far I am very pleased with it's receiving capacities in the air band which I specifically purchased it for. The alphanumeric screen as been great to remember what frequency is what.

 

[michaelscoofield]

In the U.S, 8.33khz spacing is not yet implemented, you will be fine

I am in EU where it is implemented already. That is also why I am worrying which differences are between EU / US / JA versions…

-m

 

[Ubbe]

8.33 are only done to the frequencies used at high altitudes, as an aircraft will cover almost the half of Europe from up at 30.000ft. So they will need all channels possible for that as they cannot reuse frequencies. At lower levels they name the channels as they would be 8.33 but are in reality still using the old 25KHz channel step. There's usually nothing interesting to hear from the 8.33 channels. All the interesting talk are from the chat channels and the company channels and sometimes approach and departure channels if some problem happens like a go around or engine failure at take off and needs to land.

/Ubbe

 

[michaelscoofield]

I have the offer for Icom IC-208. Should I grab it, or should I wait for BC780?

 

[xms3200]

Grab it...Icom is awesome

 

[rf_patriot200]

I have the offer for Icom IC-208. Should I grab it, or should I wait for BC780?

GRAB BOTH ! They're Both great picks!

 

[G7RUX]

8.33 are only done to the frequencies used at high altitudes, as an aircraft will cover almost the half of Europe from up at 30.000ft. So they will need all channels possible for that as they cannot reuse frequencies. At lower levels they name the channels as they would be 8.33 but are in reality still using the old 25KHz channel step. There's usually nothing interesting to hear from the 8.33 channels. All the interesting talk are from the chat channels and the company channels and sometimes approach and departure channels if some problem happens like a go around or engine failure at take off and needs to land.

/Ubbe

This is not correct. Many airfields use 8.33kHz channelisation, especially small ones. Having a look at IR 1079/2012 is worthwhile in this regard.

Specifically it says that "In 2012 (IR) (EU) No 1079/2012 requires the move to 8.33 kHz VHF channels below FL 195..."

 

[Ubbe]

This is not correct. Many airfields use 8.33kHz channelisation,

I've looked at several airports in the past and they use the 8.33 channel names but the actual frequency are still a 25KHz one. Do you have any example I can look at?

I suppose the reason to not use 8.33 channel step at lower flight levels could be that private smaller aircrafts are still not obliged to use a radio with 8.33 channels? There's no shortage of frequencies at lower flight levels, and what I have seen all approach/departure and ground frequencies remain the same they have been for many decades. It's just their names that have changed to conform with the new 8.33 radios channel names.

/Ubbe

 

[G7RUX]

So, the AIP SUP indicates that pretty much all UK airports are now operating on 8.33 kHz channelisation, with an exemption in place where multi-frequency ground-air systems are in use. Some still use their original 25 kHz raster frequency but many do not. Large airfields tend to not switch frequencies if it can be helped as the cost in doing so can be large and these tend to be the ones using multi-frequency systems.

A number of the UK air control sites use 8.33 kHz, non-25 kHz frequencies.

Looking at the current database it is difficult to see which are still on their original freqs but I would expect that the large airfields are, although I can see dozens in the databse which use 8.33 kHz-only frequencies for ground-air as well as even more for local ops.

It is incorrect to state that low-level use of 25 kHz causes no issues since shoulder channel interference to higher-altitude aircraft will occur. That is of course less of an issue than air-to-ground interference but it is still an issue which occurs.

In short, in the UK if you are listening to your local smaller airfield then 8.33 kHz is probably needed but the bigger airfields, probably not.

 

[michaelscoofield]

So simply to ask, what filter bandwidth is used on AM in case of IC-208 please?
If it is too narrow, then lack of 8.33k could be an issue for scanning the band.
If it is a bit wider then it would work with let say 10k steps, isn't it?

-m