Portable/back up transceiver

"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

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

In article
,
bobengr wrote:

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

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

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.

"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.

"RST Engineering - JIm" wrote in message
m...
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


Well, it's pretty hard to whistle any praises for NiCad batteries. I dunno
about the environmental issue, which could just possibly be overblown, but
the combination of self discharge and the possibly misnamed "memory"
charastic (when floated on a charging supply) are so bad as make any
environmental impact trivial. After all, who would buy or use one today
when much better choices are available.

As to NiMH, I am just not sold on them for occasional use products that have
to work when needed. As a real estate agent, I am simply stuck with one of
them, in the form of an electronic access key for the "secure" keysafes that
we are no using; but I damned well do not have to like it or think that they
are really a good product. My complaint is that the NiMH batteries are
temperature sensitive, and a missive was recently circulated demanding that
the devices not be left inside an automobile because of the damage that
[would] occur. In fact, to the best of my recollection, NiMH will discharge
in less than a month of disuse unless it is kept refrigerated.

Admittedly, NiMH seems to work acceptably in mild parallel hybrid
automobiles--at least if they are used almost daily. But LiIon certainly
appear to be the future!

Peter

In article ,
jan olieslagers wrote:

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

Central California.

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.

Now if I can just find the AC adapter ...

"RST Engineering - JIm" wrote in message
m...
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


I do not disagree with anything you said, defer to your electronic
knowledge, and do not personally have enough battery knowledge to have much
of an opinion. I deal with a specialist battery store with an owner who has
been very helpful and cost effective.

FWIW, His opinion is that NiCads will by far outlive (x10-30?) NiMH in terms
of total number of recharges, PROVIDED that they are charged by a proper
computerized charger which is properly programmed to both fully discharge
before charging then control the rate of recharge (high rate (~2hrs) to
start followed by low rate (~12hrs) to finish.)

He does not like LiIon and considers them hazardous. He regularly replaces
the (NiCad & NiMH) cells in computer and other battery packs but will not
allow LiIon packs in his store. I think he does sell packaged LiIon
batteries.

He also had a couple of other reasons (including cost, and others which I
forget) which led him to recommend NiCads over NiMH. IIRC, noname NiMH
rechargeables were 2-3 times more expensive.

He did convince me to buy the proper charger which IIRC was ~$70 but since
it will charge both NiCads and NiMH (and LiIon?) I don't think he was
motivated by the battery sale and would have sold me either.

He also said that in his opinion the best alkaline non-rechargeables
available are some very pricy branded ones which he did sell and the
Kirkland branded batteries from Costco which were the same but much cheaper.

IMHE alkaline battery life is very device dependant. I have a Nikon Coolpix
camera which is only able to get a few pictures before reporting low battery
but the batteries that will not run the camera will continue to run a
flashlight for a very long long time. I have been told that NiMH works
better than alkaline or NiCad in this application because they do not reduce
output gradually as they are used. I wonder if this is similar in
transceiver usage?

Happy landings,