Kenwood: Kenwood th-78A question

[Josh380]

So I recently acquired a kenwood th-78A in a $100 box of ham goodies.

Upon powering it up, it appears this radio has the "beyond MARS" mod, and receive in the air band (amongst others) is avaliable now.

According to this site, when in the air band (if im reading it right) the radio should be able to receive AM transmissions, although its unknown to me whether the radio actually switches to an AM receive mode.

Can anyone confirm if this particular radio does receive AM signals in the air band?

 

[K9KLC]

According to this it received air band before any kind of mods on AM.

Edit: maybe that was after some kind of mod seems there is conflicting information.

RigPix Database - Kenwood/Trio - TH-78A

 

[Josh380]

According to this it received air band before any kind of mods on AM.

Edit: maybe that was after some kind of mod seems there is conflicting information.

RigPix Database - Kenwood/Trio - TH-78A

I haven't gotten to that section of the user manual yet. Lots of features to figure out on this radio.

I don't believe this radio received the air band pre-mod, it was originally intended to be just a dual band ht.

I guess it just automatically detects the mode as I don't see any keypad function to switch to AM.

 

[K9KLC]

I don't believe this radio received the air band pre-mod, it was originally intended to be just a dual band ht.

I guess it just automatically detects the mode as I don't see any keypad function to switch to AM.

Henceforth why I edited the post, I was finding conflicting information. I had a TH-78 when I first got licensed in 95 somewhere along the way along with the TH-79 but I don't recall ever trying to get the Air band on it. From what I can tell looking now, it's frequency dependent on what frequency you have selected as many were back then. I don't know how good the receive sensitivity will be down there though, like I said I don't remember ever trying to use it (or most other ham transceivers back then) to get the aircraft band.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Not sure about the TH78, but the TH-79 definitely received Air band. I listened to a high altitude traffic control mountain top site that was not far from where I grew up.

 

[AK9R]

From the manual available online, the receive range out of the box for a US-spec TH-78 is 144-148 MHz in FM mode (F3E).

I had a TH-78 many years ago. It was an intermod sponge. I didn't keep it very long.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Most ham stuff was of that age. My IC-2SAT was bad. Even with the stock antenna. Take them into a mall and there would ALWAYS be RSSI indication. The only radio that truly had good front end filtering was the HTX-202.