Portable/back up transceiver

"Morgans" wrote in message
...


"jan olieslagers" wrote in message
...
Steve Hix schreef:
In article
,
bobengr wrote:

Looking to buy a protable/backup transceiver. Any recommendations?

I've got an Icom IC-A6 that's pretty nice.

Same here. Don't know where you are but here in Continental Europe it's
often worth a train ticket to England to buy it there. Typically 400 €
vs. 200 GBP.

Mind you a true back-up must cover all radio-failures, meaning it should
not be powered from the aircraft power bus. But making sure the batteries
are fully charged is one more point on the already too long pre-flight
checklist.

Buying the optional extra alkaline battery pack will make that point moot.
--
Jim in NC

And using rechargeable NiCad's in the 6xAA battery pack will save the
factory battery life (no need to use) and you can carry spare AA batteries
which will also probably fit your flashlight and other stuff.

My pilot shop has the Icom A6 for under $250 including the optional AA
battery pack and the headset adapter which is really expensive (~$75)
separately.

Happy landings.

NiCads a

a. Horrible for the enviornment (that's the Cad part of NiCad)
b. Have a lousy self-discharge characteristic
c. Are relatively expensive.

NiMH a

a. Not too harmful of Mother Nature
b. Have a fairly decent self-discharge characteristic
c. Are relatively inexpensive (check out thomasdistributing.com)

You may also look into a LiIon pack, depending on which radio you buy. THey
are even better than NiMH.

Jim



"Private" wrote in message
...

And using rechargeable NiCad's

RST Engineering - JIm schreef:

NiMH a
c. Are relatively inexpensive (check out thomasdistributing.com)

Jim, thanks for enlightening me on the ecological aspect, I must admit I
never looked into that. Could it be you are in Caleefornyeah?

As for the economic side: that must depend much on location. I never did
any research, but have a feeling that NiMH is rather expensive here in
Europe, plus requires special charger.

Of course NiMH have better capacity, but Murphy says they'll be full
anytime anyway, except when you need them.

"jan olieslagers" wrote in message
...
Of course NiMH have better capacity, but Murphy says they'll be full
anytime anyway, except when you need them.

That's why I don't particularly like rechargeables of any type for emergency
use. A good fresh set of non-rechargeable alkalines will give you about 5
years of shelf life depending on how they are stored and lithium batteries
will last a bit longer. The manufacturers sometimes spec 10 years or more
on lithiums, but you're getting down to 50-70% of capacity at that point
which is not exactly what I'd like to be thinking about in IMC. Most of the
portable transceivers have battery pack options that allow you to use
alkaline or lithium batteries along with rechargeables. It's very nice to
have both packs so you can swap them around when you're using the
transceiver for non-emergency uses.

Enough about batteries. Want portable/back up comm recommendations -
Icom, Sporty's etc? Have portable GPS, so Nav is not that important.

On Jul 27, 9:32*pm, bobengr wrote:
Enough about batteries. *Want portable/back up comm recommendations -
Icom, Sporty's etc? *Have portable GPS, so Nav is not that important.

You can't go wrong with Icom. I have had an A2 for over 20 years, and
have had no trouble (other than batteries). Don't waste your money on
an optional
Nav function.

Regarding batteries, I use alkalines exclusively. Rechargeables need
to be cycled regularly (run down then charged up) to be dependable.
The batteries
in a backup tranceiver tend to see only very occasional use (with long
periods of neglect in between). Alkalines have an excellent shelf
life. The only
downside is that they have a higher internal resistance, and don't put
out current as well as the others. That translates into "use low power
on transmit
unless absolutely necessary to use high power".

Dave

"bobengr" wrote in message
...
Enough about batteries. Want portable/back up comm recommendations -
Icom, Sporty's etc? Have portable GPS, so Nav is not that important.

I had a Vertex that failed completely after about 5 years. I now have the
Icom A4 and I like it just fine. It's no longer being made, but you can
still find them for sale new. It's been replaced by the A14. I think it
might have a slightly lower power output than most, but it wasn't enough
that I could notice any difference compared to my old Vertex. None of them
work very well unless you're reasonably close to the ATC radio anyway,
although if you have an externally mounted antenna you can increase your
range somewhat. All of them are limited by power output, so most are going
to have virtually the same range.

Given the fact that a 1 watt transmitter on one end and a 1 microvolt
receiver on the other end have a maximum theoretical range of 1800 miles,
how in the world can you say that a 4 watt transmitter is "limited by power
output"?

The limitation is always by line of sight or antenna configuration.

Jim


"Mike" nospam @ aol.com wrote in message
...

.. I think it
might have a slightly lower power output than most, but it wasn't enough
that I could notice any difference compared to my old Vertex. None of
them work very well unless you're reasonably close to the ATC radio
anyway, although if you have an externally mounted antenna you can
increase your range somewhat. All of them are limited by power output, so
most are going to have virtually the same range.

"Mike" nospam @ aol.com wrote in message
...
I had a Vertex that failed completely after about 5 years. I now have the
Icom A4 and I like it just fine.

A sample size of 1 tells us little. I have owned 2 Vertex aviation
portables over the last decade or so with zero problems. (Yes, a sample
size of 2 also tells us little)

In my experience (too many years in the 2-way radio biz) Vertex and Icom are
the "Honda and Toyota" of that market. You are unlikely to go wrong with
either brand.. I wouldn't give you a dime for the difference between the
two.

Vaughn

"Mike" nospam @ aol.com demonstrates his rudeness:

I got a really good chuckle out of that one, Jimmy boy. Nice dodge, but I'm
really going to have to send the BS flag up on that one. Both Vertex and
Icom produce amateur radios that are virtually identical in size to their
airband models and some use the exact same batteries. Many models have
multiple power settings depending on how much battery life you want, and
almost all of them produce more power than their airband models.

And they all generate this power when transmitting FM, not AM.

FM is measured by the constant transmitted power. AM is measured
by the carrier power, which is 1/4 of the peak envelope power, but the
device still needs to be able to generate that peak power. Thus, the
FM units produce more power.


Oh yeah, I
almost forgot to mention that many of them are also at least half the price
of the airband models.

Put a stamp on it that says airplane, and get all the governmental
approvals, and it costs more.


I mean, after all, 1w will go "1366.7
statute miles", so it's kind of a head scratcher that the FAA reuses the
same enroute frequencies every 600 miles or so, no? Well, at least for you
maybe.

Perhaps you had not heard that the earth is approximately spherical,
not flat.

Alan