Right now I'm looking at purchasing an airband portable transceiver. Initially looking at the Vertex VXA-220, anyone had experience with this transceiver, or any others under $200.00 that might be better?
RM
Icom makes some good portables for airband. I've got one and i've been very happy with it.
ditto for ICOM. They also have a AA battery pack you can buy. Makes a great backup battery (which can be reloaded in the field with fresh batteries) to the NiCad battery.
Quote from: Short Field on August 16, 2009, 12:48:41 AM....They also have a AA battery pack you can buy. Makes a great backup battery (which can be reloaded in the field with fresh batteries) to the NiCad battery.
Anyone know if there's a place that produce "AA" packs for other brands of radios? You can buy AAs just about anywhere, so it would be nice to have the option.
http://www.batteriesamerica.com/newpage71.htm
ICOM. They also have a Digital Air Band radio for $49.95.
http://www.discounttwo-wayradio.com/category/batteries
ICOM, VERTEX, and others.
http://www.sportys.com/acb/Category.cfm?did=19&CATID=165
ICOM, VERTEX
I am sure there are more out there.
Nice. Alternate power options were one of my concerns when getting a radio.
We may never have to, but I try to carry whatever I need for a three day mission that doesn't count on readily available power.
At our last SAREX, we had guys pulling up WMIRS using cells as modems. Power outlets were in short supply, so not everyone had the option of just plugging something in. Got to keep alternate power sources in mind.
Come to think of it, is there anything out there that could be programmed for CAP, is P25 compliant, and usable on airband? A single radio would be nice.
Probably a long shot, but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't exist.
Quote from: Hawk200 on August 16, 2009, 11:46:43 PM
Come to think of it, is there anything out there that could be programmed for CAP, is P25 compliant, and usable on airband? A single radio would be nice.
Probably a long shot, but it's not the end of the world if it doesn't exist.
Well, considering that the CAP frequencies are FM and air band is AM, not likely. It would also require an antenna that operates over a pretty wide frequency band.
There are a few military SDR (software defined radios) that will do this, but they cost tens of thousands of dollars. Yaesu briefly built an airband handheld that you could do the VHF "CAP MOD" to, but could never ever be CAP-kosher. ( Its pretty hard to make an AM/FM transmitter!)
Major Lord
Quote from: RADIOMAN015 on August 15, 2009, 11:49:05 PM
Right now I'm looking at purchasing an airband portable transceiver. Initially looking at the Vertex VXA-220, anyone had experience with this transceiver, or any others under $200.00 that might be better?
RM
Take a look at the one Sporty's markets under their own name( http://www.sportys.com/pilotshop/sp-200.cfm ). I've got one and have been very happy with it. It operates on AA batteries or can plug in to your 12/28 VDC outlet with the right accessories. Also spare battery packs are reasonable.
I have both the Sporty's model and ICOM. Both are good radios.
Sounds like one of the MBITR types would do it, but that's not worth the hassle.
Then again, not like I really need one with such a spread to it. It was more of an idle question. I'm sure someone else that was wondering the same thing found the answers informative.