[ICOM] Worth of radios..

[Adam Farson]

On the subject of HT's. I have favoured pressing commercial (LMR) handhelds
into amateur service for as long as I can remember, starting with Motorola
and Repco crystal-controlled units in the mid-1970's and later the Icom
IC-H16 and IC-U16.

The LMR radios have far better intermod rejection than the amateur HT's as a
rule. (Doubtless, there are some exceptions such as the single-band Radio
Shack HTX202 and 404, which were ham band only.) An LMR transceiver must
meet receiver as well as transmitter performance criteria in some countries,
so generally incorporates a multi-pole tracking preselector.

Currently, I am using an Icom IC-F70T and IC-F80T (VHF and UHF
respectively). These radios have 75 dB intermod rejection, and I have
operated them in such places as downtown Vancouver and even central London
without hearing any of the typical intermod "munge". Both radios are
optioned for field programmability, and it was very easy to program in
blocks  of European repeater pairs with 1750 Hz tone-burst, UK repeaters
with CTCSS and North American repeaters (carrier and CTCSS). I assigned the
tone-burst to the red emergency key on the top panel.

These radios show up on the second-hand market from time to time, at
reasonable prices. 

Cheers for now, 73,
Adam VA7OJ/AB4OJ