ICOM 2820 Diversity Reception?

[jon_k]

The Icom 2820 sports a 'diversity reception' feature. Documentation on the internet claims this can all but eliminate fading signals and spotty reception. They claim it could be the difference from a signal going in and out in reception to being fully readable.

This sounds great for simplex reception and could be a valuable tool. My questions are:

*How well does it work with this radio?
*Do you have to have an identical antenna design?

I have my current antenna in the back of my truck. I was thinking I could put the other one in the front of the hood. Thus creating seperated antennas for better reception.

Is it worth the extra antenna?

 

[Tom_G]

I am not personally running with diversity but a few of my friends are and they love it.
Most of what I read states using 2 identical antenna's spaced at "least" a half wavelengh away from each other.
When using diversity receive, the radio needs to be in single-band mode.
Let us know how it works for you if you decide to give it a whirl.

 

[fineshot1]

I know this is a little off topic but I have this feature on my Panasonic 5.8Ghz digital cordless phone base unit and it does work great. I have the ID-800H and wish this feature was available for it as I would use it all the time.

 

[jon_k]

When using diversity receive, the radio needs to be in single-band mode.

Oh man, so if you have dual band turned on, diversity will not work? Hmm, Dualband is why I got the radio. ;-)

 

[Tom_G]

Jon,
Yes, unfortunately thats true and I am not thrilled with that either.
I guess it makes sense because you can only use diversity on a single band at a time.

Thanks,

 

[detroit780]

Diversity on the 2820

Well with the Icom 2820 you can only use 1 D-Star frequency at a time anyway. That is if you are monitoring 2 D-Star frequencies at once the sub band will always be muted. The reason is the radio only has 1 D-Star VOCODER. So by using diversity when working a station you don't really lose the other frequency because you never had it to begin with.

I haven't used diversity yet since my car is rather small I don't think I really want a second antenna on it.

Les

Oh man, so if you have dual band turned on, diversity will not work? Hmm, Dualband is why I got the radio. ;-)

 

[jon_k]

I tried diversity this time. It seems with diversity turned on - both antennas transmit as well. I just happened to have my scanning antenna connected thinking perhaps it would get better reception -- and the SWR meter pegged 3:1 when I keyed up! Very dangerous. Especially if you run diversity with no secondary antenna. Sounds like a good way to fry the finals.

Seems like it will be nice if I ever get a good SWR secondary antenna installed. For now though with transmit on both... no good.

 

[Tom_G]

The diversity connector on the back of the radio is for receive only
The radio will only transmit on the primary antenna.
The receive antenna gets by-passed on transmit so nothing will get cooked...

Thats why its called "Diversity Receive"....

Thanks.....

 

[eaf1956]

Jon,
Yes, unfortunately thats true and I am not thrilled with that either.
I guess it makes sense because you can only use diversity on a single band at a time.

Thanks,

So I guess my question is how do you set it to single band? Do you mean just have like 2 meter Freq on each side or do you mean single receive on the radio? The manual doesn't really say much about the feature. I guess I would assume you mean to just have single receiver showing on the display instead of two. I have my 2820 set up for diversity but haven't seen where it was working. I will try the single receive display and see what that does.

OK so I put the radio on single display and yes I got the dual antenna display. Tried a couple of repeaters and the closer ones stayed with the transmit antenna. some weaker ones switched to the other antenna. I am not using exactly identical antennas, one is a Diamond 7900 NMO and the other is a MFJ 1432 knockoff of the 7900.

 

[robertmac]

Is the Icom 2820 a scanner. Thought it was a D-Star Amateur Radio. Not that I'm into digital ham stuff. How does diversity work. Does it work on receive only or transmit as well?

 

[Delta]

The radio has a small black Tag on the cover and shows RX/TX on both antenna connections. I made sure diversity is disabled but it's probably a good idea to check and see the secondary connector is hot when transmitting. I'm using a Diamond 500 for the primary antenna and discone for the diversity as a short test using simplex base to mobile. Both antennas have a perfectly usable standing wave. I didn't notice much happening though. It's a nice mobile radio.