[Kenwood] Kenwood TH-F6A info

[Dana Luke]

Hi to all on the Kenwood reflector,

Here's some input to a request for information from David S. McCallum W7SAC
about the Kenwood TH-F6A tri-band HT.  A friend of mine (Bryce K1GAX) has
one, and as I am also considering getting one of the units, I asked him a
question about battery charging and got this response from him... so I
thought I'd share it with the group.  I hope it helps and is useful to those
who are thinking about this unit, I know it was for me.

On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 10:25:43 -0500 "Dana Luke" <danaluke@maine.rr.com>
writes:

Bryce,

I have a question about the Kenwood triband walkie TH-F6A that you have...
is there a way to charge the lithium ion batteries when they're not in the
walkie? Does the wall wart or whatever plug directly into the battery or is
there some kind of external charging unit available?

73 de Dana KA1PK

Reply from Bryce K1GAX:

Stock, out of the box - no...  You can't charge a battery pack external
of the radio.  The wall wart plugs directly into the radio (not the
battery pack) and the Kenwood battery does not have any external charging
tabs...  Kenwood doesn't have any drop in charger for the HT.  Good news
is that the charge is fairly quick - 6 hours (as opposed to 12 to 15 for
most HT's charged with a wall wart).

Now, for the good news...  Yes, you can charge the battery externally...

First (what I do).  I picked up a Maha MH-C777Plus (make sure it's the
MH-C777Plus, not the older MH-C777) charger (charges Nicads, Nickel Metal
Hydride and Lithium Ion packs).  The battery can be charged through the
internal battery tabs.  The charging rate is not much faster than the
wall wart due to the special charging characteristics of the Lithium Ion
battery packs.  It works well though and will charge my spare packs when
off the radio.

Second...  W & W Associates (out of New York - the battery folks you
normally see at Hosstraders) have a third party pack for the TH-F6A that
has external charging tabs.  They also sell a drop in charger for it.
The battery pack is slightly larger (in capacity, not size).  I can't
speak for the drop in charger, but the battery pack seems to serve well.
I didn't pick up the charger as I already have the Maha charger and I
only have one of the W & W Associate packs (have a spare Kenwood pack
without the external charging tabs)...

I'm quite happy with the TH-F6A unit.  Programs easily, manual is on line
(in case you lose the original) and overall a pretty nice small HT, with
a lot of capabilities...  I like the 2 meters, 1 1/4 meter and 70
centimeter capability as there's little, if any activity on 6 meters
(that you could hit with an HT) and almost nothing on 1.2 GHz.  The only
thing that disappoints me is the programming software...  It's lacking a
few features that the Icom and Yaesu software has...  Oh well, nothing's
perfect (and the software is free to boot of the Kenwood web site)...
The stock rubber duck is painfully inefficient, so I bought a Comet
(Maldol) replacement unit (a little longer, but a heck of a lot more
efficient (especially on 222 MHz).

One other minor dislike...  With the alkaline battery case, the power
output of the unit drops to 500 mW.  Not really a big deal, but a minor
annoyance...  Otherwise, a great little HT.  I enjoy mine.  Comparing it
to the Icom IC-T81A, it's a dream to program...  The "joystick" menu
control is easy to operate (considering the T81A's is a monster).  Just
minor references to the manual to program...  I think you'll like it.

So there you have it...  Now, you know the rest of the story (have we
heard that somewhere before?)...

73, Bryce, K1GAX



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