RoundOut
Explorer
New (for me) HT - Kenwood TH-F6A tri-band
I made the mistake of swinging by the local amateur radio shop yesterday, looking for a reasonably priced handy talkie. While there is a bunch of radios available on ebay real cheap from China from manufacturers I have never heard of, I was not comfortable ordering from them, even though buddies of mine locally have had success. Our local shop deals only in Yaesu, Icom, Alinco and Kenwood. I was leaning toward another VX7 (I had one originally, but had to get rid of it for the funds during a crunch), but when I asked the local guy, he said the new Kenwood TH-F6A has been flying out the door. It has 2M, 70CM and a band I had not heard much of, the 220mhz band. He said it is becoming real popular and there are several new repeaters in the Houston area on that band.
Anyhow, I started looking at it and was real impressed. It has all-band receive, including weather, aviation, and even the HF bands if you have the right antenna connection. It will pick up local broadcast stations, too. I was also pleased that it had a Lithium Ion battery instead of the NMH or NiCad, and the product now ships with a 2000 mAh battery instead of the advertised 1550 mAh one.
It is also pretty easy to operate (coming from a guy who had trouble entering frequencies on my first HT and my mobile unit and got so frustrated, I gave up for months). I spent about a half hour in the manual and had it down.
It will receive on two freqeuncies simultaneously, even on the same band, too.
I'm in no way an expert on radios, but it looks like this little jewel will have all I need in an HT.
I made the mistake of swinging by the local amateur radio shop yesterday, looking for a reasonably priced handy talkie. While there is a bunch of radios available on ebay real cheap from China from manufacturers I have never heard of, I was not comfortable ordering from them, even though buddies of mine locally have had success. Our local shop deals only in Yaesu, Icom, Alinco and Kenwood. I was leaning toward another VX7 (I had one originally, but had to get rid of it for the funds during a crunch), but when I asked the local guy, he said the new Kenwood TH-F6A has been flying out the door. It has 2M, 70CM and a band I had not heard much of, the 220mhz band. He said it is becoming real popular and there are several new repeaters in the Houston area on that band.
Anyhow, I started looking at it and was real impressed. It has all-band receive, including weather, aviation, and even the HF bands if you have the right antenna connection. It will pick up local broadcast stations, too. I was also pleased that it had a Lithium Ion battery instead of the NMH or NiCad, and the product now ships with a 2000 mAh battery instead of the advertised 1550 mAh one.
It is also pretty easy to operate (coming from a guy who had trouble entering frequencies on my first HT and my mobile unit and got so frustrated, I gave up for months). I spent about a half hour in the manual and had it down.
It will receive on two freqeuncies simultaneously, even on the same band, too.
I'm in no way an expert on radios, but it looks like this little jewel will have all I need in an HT.
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