Convince Me: Icom R1500, R2500 or just keep what I've got???

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rja1

rja1

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I sold my R-8500 & looking for a replacement. I'm in Putnam County, NY & we have no trunked or P25 services here. One county north (Dutchess) is just about all trunked, but I can't hear them here using an Austin Ferret or a Create LPDA. I'm a Ham radio op & have an Icom 756 Pro III transceiver & it does double duty as an excellent SW receiver. Parents are in NJ and I use my 246T when down there.
There it is in a nutshell........Should I go for one of the Icom receivers or just stick with what I've got (see below). Your opinions or experience with the R1500 or R2500 most welcome!

rja1

ICOM: 756 PRO III, 2100H, 2330A, R5, R3 & P7A.
ALINCO: DJ-X7, DJ-G5 (2).
STANDARD: C508A (3), C228A (2), C288A
UNIDEN: BC-246T, BC-780XLT
RAT SHACK: PRO 83, PRO-2042, PRO 2006, PRO-2035, PRO-51, PRO-2032 & PRO-2044
COLLINS 51S-1
SONY 2010
 
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gcgrotz

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See this months QST for a report on the '2500. I believe they did one on the '1500 recently also. If you're looking more for scanner use you might look at WinRadio stuff or if it is for SWL use then I think the TenTec 340 is the best way to go.

The QST article mentioned software for making the 2500 follow trunking and it also has an optional P25 board.
 
KC1UA

KC1UA

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GreatLakes said:
I hate to tell you this, but you should have kept your IC-R8500!
Click to expand...

Do you own one? I don't recall hearing from you in the threads on here when we were trying to figure a lot of the issues of the 2500 out. Some have been solved. The R2500 is a good but flawed receiver. It is relatively simple to enable P25 decoding above 780 MHz. Should Icom have stopped supporting P25 at 780 MHz? No. But they did, and a workaround was discovered. I added a page in the Wiki under Icom receivers that outlines how this mod can be performed without the use of a soldering iron. While there you'll also find a mod from Lindsay that outlines the method for adding a 10.7 MHz IF output as well.

Icom's cellular blocking on the 800 MHz band is out of whack as well, starting at 868.0125 instead of 869.000 as it should. This is the biggest problem right now, but one that will be solved for us when rebanding occurs.

I own both an R2500 and a PCR2500 that has P25 decoding capability. The quality of P25 is excellent. The dual receive capability is a very nice feature. Between my R2500 and PCR2500 I have "four" receivers. The audio quality via USB is excellent. Sensitivity seems good, selectivity as well.

Incidentally I had a R8500, which is a fantastic piece of gear. I sold it after concluding that I was happy with the 2500's. I use them mainly for DX'ing, and they've performed admirably in that regard.

With regards to trunking, the TrunkPCR program will allow the 2500 to act as a trunking capable radio. I don't have much experience with that software so I can't comment on it, but I have heard that it works well. The 2500's scanning speeds are about 60 channels per second.

The R2500 provides the best of both worlds, giving you a remote head or computer control. The remote head does not provide all of the features of computer control. I'd like to see some improvements there, specifically being able to add a user defined step as you can with the software, namely 7.5 KHz for VHF-HI band use.

These radios have their flaws. It seems like Icom can't release one without these little (and sometimes big) oddities. However, I believe them to be good performers.

My .02.
 
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iMONITOR

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scancapecod said:
Do you own one? I don't recall hearing from you in the threads on here when we were trying to figure a lot of the issues of the 2500 out. Some have been solved. The R2500 is a good but flawed receiver. It is relatively simple to enable P25 decoding above 780 MHz. Should Icom have stopped supporting P25 at 780 MHz? No. But they did, and a workaround was discovered. I added a page in the Wiki under Icom receivers that outlines how this mod can be performed without the use of a soldering iron. While there you'll also find a mod from Lindsay that outlines the method for adding a 10.7 MHz IF output as well.

Icom's cellular blocking on the 800 MHz band is out of whack as well, starting at 868.0125 instead of 869.000 as it should. This is the biggest problem right now, but one that will be solved for us when rebanding occurs.

I own both an R2500 and a PCR2500 that has P25 decoding capability. The quality of P25 is excellent. The dual receive capability is a very nice feature. Between my R2500 and PCR2500 I have "four" receivers. The audio quality via USB is excellent. Sensitivity seems good, selectivity as well.

Incidentally I had a R8500, which is a fantastic piece of gear. I sold it after concluding that I was happy with the 2500's. I use them mainly for DX'ing, and they've performed admirably in that regard.

With regards to trunking, the TrunkPCR program will allow the 2500 to act as a trunking capable radio. I don't have much experience with that software so I can't comment on it, but I have heard that it works well. The 2500's scanning speeds are about 60 channels per second.

The R2500 provides the best of both worlds, giving you a remote head or computer control. The remote head does not provide all of the features of computer control. I'd like to see some improvements there, specifically being able to add a user defined step as you can with the software, namely 7.5 KHz for VHF-HI band use.

These radios have their flaws. It seems like Icom can't release one without these little (and sometimes big) oddities. However, I believe them to be good performers.

My .02.
Click to expand...

I used to own an IC-R8500, and I've regretted selling it. I also owned a PCR-1500, but I never went for the 2500 when I started reading all the controversy. Maybe I'll take another look.
 
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Turbo68

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Hello,I would like to say that the ICOM-R2500 that we got in Australia is an Excellent Receiver and all the People that bought the Radio in Australia gave ICOM Good Feedback at a Recent Radio Show and maybe the American Version is Different thats why they are having problems with this Radio.

Lino (Melbourne Australia)
 
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