Best radio for Air band?

[sparklehorse]

Late to the party here, but I’ll throw in my 2¢ for posterity. I haven‘t used my scanners much since all our local law enforcement went encrypted several years ago. But a month ago I saw some posts about the new-ish Icom IC-R15 and it intrigued me. I thought I’d give it a try as an Airband scanner and see if I liked it. Well, honestly I don’t like the Icom much. At least at my location, where I have 8 high power FM broadcasters on a tower a mile from my home, the R15 kinda sucks as an Airband scanner. The leaky squelch is extremely annoying, and the sound quality is not good. It’s kind of high pitched, kind of ‘hissy’ on VHF Airband. But that might have as much to do with my RF environment as anything. I did try various FM traps and the ScannerMaster Air band-pass filter. They helped, but not nearly enough. Plus they’re awkward on a hand-held. I did however really enjoy re-engaging with aircraft monitoring, something I did quite a lot of about 50 years ago. And happily it hasn’t changed much in 50 years, at least the radio technology hasn’t. Still VHF (or UHF), still analog, still AM mode, still no encryption! So I dragged out my old DPD OmniX antenna, mounted it on our second story deck, and dragged out a bunch of my old scanners to have a little scanning fun. The big surprise for me was how good an Airband scanner the Realistic Pro-2006 is. It’s probably not quite as sensitive as my BC780XLT, but it just sounds better. Might have a bigger, better speaker, I don’t know, but it sounds great on Airband. So I can highly recommend the Pro-2006 to anyone looking for a good Airband machine. Of course, these are over 30 years old now, so getting a good one might be hit and miss. Plus mine does have the annoyingly dim backlight, which I tried to fix years ago to no avail. But it’s a great old radio none-the-less. Also my two BC780XLTs are still awesome on the VHF & UHF Airbands, probably better than any others I own, but the BCT-15X, the BC796D, BCD325p2, and even the venerable old BC250D are all right there in the running. So there’s a few good Airbanders to check out for anyone looking to get started listening to what’s happening up in the sky. I’d honestly skip the Icom R15, you could easily get two or three or even four of these great older radios for the price of one R15.
My 2¢ or maybe a nickel.
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[hill]

Have no issues with air band or mil air on the older BCT15.

My Yaesu FTM-100D works well aircraft and spent a lot time monitoring mil air.

Would think the other Yaesu radios that cover air band would do as well.

 

[xms3200]

Amazing how everyone's mileage varies, I live 5 miles LOS from a major airport, no FM transmitters nearby and the IC-R15 is the best airband radio I have owned. I had the BCT15X and find that even the Icom 705 is better on airband than the BCT15X as a desktop model, with the IC-R15 best overall.

 

[sparklehorse]

Amazing how everyone's mileage varies, I live 5 miles LOS from a major airport, no FM transmitters nearby and the IC-R15 is the best airband radio I have owned. I had the BCT15X and find that even the Icom 705 is better on airband than the BCT15X as a desktop model, with the IC-R15 best overall.

Yeah, I think your proximity to your airport is a factor with the R15. I’m closer to 10 miles from my local airport, with trees, houses, and bit of a hill in between, and so my reception of planes on the tarmac there is weak and spotty at best. Ground Control and Clearance Delivery signals are weak, even one of the approach control frequencies is MIA as far as the ground transmitter. So a lot of what I’m listening to are weak signals, and that’s where the R15 struggles. It sounds decent enough on strong signals, but it’s also struggling with some RFI within my house somewhere, which I think is what gives me the leaky squelch problem and causes me to have to run the squelch at like 7 or 8 to keep the damn thing quiet. Yeah, maybe I could track that problem down, but NONE of my other radios have that particular RFI problem so I’m just not motivated enough to try. I’ll probably sell the Icom sooner rather than later. Which is too bad, because there’s a lot of things I do like about it.
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[kc2asb]

Yeah, I think your proximity to your airport is a factor with the R15. I’m closer to 10 miles from my local airport, with trees, houses, and bit of a hill in between, and so my reception of planes on the tarmac there is weak and spotty at best. Ground Control and Clearance Delivery signals are weak, even one of the approach control frequencies is MIA as far as the ground transmitter. So a lot of what I’m listening to are weak signals, and that’s where the R15 struggles. .

To hear ground control / clearance transmitters 10 miles from the airport is very good. All things being equal, it's usually necessary to be closer than that to hear these comms. I would say your R15 is performing quite well.

 

[DudleyG]

@sparklehorse - one of the things that "us" early users of the R15 discovered is - if you are near (within 5 feet) of a LED Computer Monitor or Television set, you will get a lot of "noise" and have to turn the squelch up quite a bit. Are you using your R15 near any of these types of devices? Also, if you are near LED light bulbs, sometimes you have the same problem.

 

[xms3200]

Vert true about the IC-R15 and Rfi around the house together with LED lights. I can only use the IC-R15 is the dining room area in my house, too much static around the rest of the house.

 

[JASII]

I am following this thread. I currently have a Uniden SDS100, which is okay on VHF-AM aviation, but I am wondering if I can do better.

I am looking for a portable. I gather my choices are a scanner, amateur radio or dedicated aviation transceiver.

The scanners I have used on aviation generally scan fast, but aren't particularly sensitive or selective on aviation frequencies.

The amateur radios usually scan slower than scanners and might be a bit more sensitive and selective on aviation frequencies.

I have never owned a dedicated aviation transceiver, but the reviews I am seeing for some Icom and Yaesu portable transceivers look good.

I am assuming they are a bit more sensitive and selective on aviation frequencies. How fast is the scan speed? Is it ham-like slow?

Also, do both the Icom and Yaesu transceivers still have some accessories from the amateur and/or land mobile divisions that work with them?

For example, batteries, battery chargers and remote speaker microphones?

Best Hand-Held Aviation Radios

Discover the best handheld aviation radios based on features like range, battery life, GPS, and ease of use.

www.flyingmag.com

 

[xms3200]

Buy an Icom IC-R15 scanner, 150 channels/sec and you will be amazed on airband

 

[Trucker700]

Or, pick up a Uniden BC125AT for cheap on Amazon and have an excellent CivilAir and MilAir scanner. It doesn't do digital or trunking. But, for Airband and railroad scanning, it cannot be beat for the price. It scans fast and has surprisingly good audio.
James

Replace the antenna with a Diamond RH77CA and the radio will definitely come alive.

 

[xms3200]

Uniden BC125AT with the Diamond RH77CA is a great combination for a reasonable price.

If you want to go all out, Icom IC-R15 with a Smiley antenna, 6" rubber ducky.

 

[JASII]

I like the built-in Bluetooth and IPX7 waterproofing and pro-grade construction of the Icom IC-R15.

One of my other hobbies is e-biking. I think the Icom IC-R15 might be better suited for that.

I think it would have more audio than the Uniden BC125AT.

 

[natedawg1604]

Buy an Icom IC-R15 scanner, 150 channels/sec and you will be amazed on airband

Is there a mobile equivalent, in terms of scan speed?

 

[Trucker700]

Uniden BC125AT with the Diamond RH77CA is a great combination for a reasonable price.

If you want to go all out, Icom IC-R15 with a Smiley antenna, 6" rubber ducky.

At $600.00 it would definitely be going all out! I think dollar wise, it would be tough to beat the BC125AT. Especially for the performance it provides in such a small package. More so, if your target usage is for Airband and railroad scanning.
Just using the Service Search it's scanning speed rivals my 436hp when it is scanning the database.
James

 

[dzirzow]

Both units are nice...... I own both and several other Icoms. You will get USAF F-16 demo team on the ICON where the 125AT is deaf at.


To ease the $600 pain, there was a credit card offer from a bank..... ($200 credit from Huntington if I spent $1,000 in 90 days in my area). So maybe look at a new credit offer and use that bonus money to offset new scanner.

 

[bearcatrp]

JASII, you may want to check out the Uniden 160DN. When I compared mine to my R30, it was close on airband with the R30 just a bit better. Some folks say the 160 is to sensitive. For the cost, about half of what the R15 cost.

 

[Trucker700]

JASII, you may want to check out the Uniden 160DN. When I compared mine to my R30, it was close on airband with the R30 just a bit better. Some folks say the 160 is to sensitive. For the cost, about half of what the R15 cost.

I agree, the BCD160DN has a very hot receiver. I found it works great outdoors. Indoors where there is a lot of potential RFI floating around, it can be too hot and pause on interference. Locking out those frequencies will take care of that problem. One thing missing that some find useful is Close Call. I like it for finding things at airshows.
The audio on the BCD160DN is plenty loud. But, it doesn't seem quite as good as the BC125AT. Not a huge difference. But, having both radios side by side, there is a, very, slight difference. Had I not compared the two together, I would have been completely fine with the BCD160DN.
James

 

[Echo4Thirty]

One word of caution on the BC125AT. If military airband monitoring is what you are after, it is missing the top end of the band where there are AM comms. It stops at 380 MHz. Even some of the Blue Angels frequencies are out of range of this receiver.

• 225-380 MHz

The Euro version of the reciever is the UBC125XLT and it does not have this limitation.

BC125AT: - BC125AT VS> UBC125XLT

I apologize if this has been covered before. I found a thread at one point that recommended the XLT, UK version over the US version for Air-Band listening. I can't locate that thread again. I'm unable to tell the differences between the US and UK versions of this scanner. I'm interested in...

forums.radioreference.com

 

[Trucker700]

And the UBC125XLT shipped from the UK costs as much as the BCD160DN. That was one reason I didn't buy the 125XLT and bought the BCD160DN instead.
James

 

[Echo4Thirty]

Yeha for giggles I went over to eBay to see what one could be had for... holy smokes, Batman!