[HCRA] ID800 Initial Impressions Review

[Daniel Sullivan]

Well I have just gotten an ID800 the other day and this is an initial review
of the rig. This is my first Icom radio after 15 yrs in the hobby. I have
mounted the rig in the back of my car and bought the remote kit so I can
mount the head up on the dash of my 2002 Ford Escape XLT. It is run into a
diamond tri-band antenna through a diplexer that is shared with a TS480SAT.

 

The rig itself is quite small but that by no means reflects its abilities.
The radio does not seem susceptible to most interference but I did notice
that I have to run the squelch dial up quite high to be effective. As I like
simplex I may opt for an external filter someday so I can open the squelch
more. My former rig, a Yaesu FT-8900 did not seem to have to be set so high
for 2m work. The display is very nice with large clear letters. I did notice
a limited field of view that did not make mounting easy and might cause the
display to be a bit hard to see with sunglasses on. 

 

The microphone is one of the best I have used. It is well lit and for once
all the functions of the button seem to be displayed on the button itself in
a font that can be easily read. The weakness is the scrolling buttons are on
the far left of the face rather than the right or top of the mic. This works
well for left handed people, but for right handed people it can be a stretch
and will require some getting used to. Listening to audio from other ID800s
in both analogue and digital modes it sound very nice.

 

The memory program I got to program the rig with works wonderfully. It is
very user friendly and very quick to use as long as you know what you are
putting in. 

 

I did not test the transmit output power so I will take Icom at their word.
I do notice that the rig's fan runs a lot. Since it is remotely mounted in
such a way as to have plenty of air I am not worried about over heating or
being annoyed by the noise. It is rather soft but present. 

 

The weakest part of the whole package is the direction manual. I think they
used a machine to translate out of the Japanese. Sitting side by side with
the direction manual of the TS480SAT they are world's apart with the Kenwood
book being easily superior. It really needs an edit by a group of native
English speakers knowledgeable of the radio. 

 

I got the rig for the digital aspects of the radio. A group of very active
people here are getting on the DStar bandwagon and I expect to see a few
stacks operational over the next few months. The digital mode is taking
getting used to. To me almost everyone sounds like they have marbles in
their mouth, however, I am lead to believe you get used to this. The audio
does have some advantages over the analogue (which on this rig sounds very
nice) in that it is a bit clearer (marbles aside) and fuller. It is kind of
neat to see call signs of the people you are talking to scroll across along
with various status messages. I have a lot of playing around to do before
being more authoritive on the DStar aspect. I also have noticed that where I
could not work someone before on analogue (same antenna and power on 2m,
about 1/2 power on the Yaesu as the Icom) I can indeed work them on digital.
It is not always true, but more often than not it is.

 

All in all it seems to be a good rig and I look forward to working with it
for a while to come. 

 

Dan Sullivan

KO1D

Falls Church, VA