UdoR wrote:
Now that is a beautiful idea. But isn’t this a potential input for noise?
A port on the panel would have to be switched, so it shouldn’t be, because it should be disconnected from the rest of the system while not in use.
If there’s any other radios using that antenna you need a switch otherwise (a) the radio in the panel will have a horrible mismatch (its own transmissions will reflect off the open connector in the panel, and if you have an unfortunate length of coax between the radio in the panel and the panel connector (e.g. a quarter wave) you can stop the panel radio from being able to transmit at all by unintentionally creating a pretty decent notch filter, and (b) the moment you try to transmit on it with another radio, you will blow up the RF front end on radio in the panel which is only expecting to have a few mW on its input, not 5W of RF power.
I carry the Yaesu 750 which will definitely work for an ILS as you see in that thread.
VOR reception is not much good these days.
But also half the intention is to have this when sitting in a life raft, when a radio could be priceless.
I charge it up at each Annual, and the lithium battery lasts for a lot longer than the year.
For sure if connecting to a rooftop antenna you want a cable loop which disconnects other transmitters.
Any other good suggestions for a handheld that will take a headset jack? Someone borrowed my Yaesu and forgot to return it. :(
eurogaguest1980 wrote:
Any other good suggestions for a handheld that will take a headset jack? Someone borrowed my Yaesu and forgot to return it. :(
The only one I know is Sporty’s PJ2+ ; I am not aware of any distributor in Europe, though, therefore you’d have to smuggle it from USA one way or another. I like it for the direct headset connection, its ability to take AA batteries, and USB-C connector for external power. Besides, it’s very price competitive at $249.
As a matter of fact I am now looking at either the PJ2+ or Icom A25CE. If I go with the A25 I’d leave the AA battery pack in the aircraft (with fresh batteries!) for emergencies and use the rechargeable battery of other uses (mainly listening to tower frequency as mentioned in my previous post). What I don’t like with the Icom: you need an adapter to connect your headset, the charger plug is proprietary. But on the plus side, it seems more rugged and, of course, there’s a rechargeable battery pack for my mundane uses. It costs around $150 more.
Not sure how the radios (the most important point!) of each model, and of the equivalent Yaesu, compare. Does anyone have experience on this?
UdoR wrote:
It’s a top-of-the-line product, even with these gimmicks like ILS receiver. But who would really fly an ILS based on this?
As a last resort (if the on-board receivers and/or HSIs/CDIs are non-functional; or unforecast IMC on a VFR-only plane that doesn’t have an ILS receiver nor a GPS able of LPV, or no LPV approach available), I would definitely use my Yaesu’s ILS to land instead of some timed procedure based on an NDB or the approach controller telling me “radio shows you at start of procedure now”.
Since I have never in my whole life flown a SRA, I’m actually not sure which I would prefer… SRA or my Yaesu’s ILS.
The YAESU radios come with a headset adapter and the 850 has BT
lionel wrote:
unforecast IMC on a VFR-only plane
As a VFR-only pilot in a VFR-only plane, I cross my fingers – and do everything else in my power! – to never be in this kind of situation.
But if I were, I’d declare an emergency and try to get to the nearest suitable airfield with radar vectoring from the ground.
Of course, if unforecast IMC happens at the same time as a full electric failure, I imagine I’d be screwed…
The Yaesu 850 has Bluetooth as mentioned above, it works well with my lightspeed BT (after adjusting some settings) headset as a backup, starts etc. Also had a redundant ELT ant so works even better with that.
I wouldn’t discount the value of a handheld radio. One of the airplanes in our club recently had a series of radio issues and the handheld saved the day twice for pilots flying it. It was one of these impossible to diagnose issues and the problem was finally found to be – the master switch! Don’t ask me how that could affect the radios but not the other avionics, but it did. In any case, in both instances the pilots had a handheld and were able to communicate. I carry an old iCom with the headset adapter. I use it mostly to get the ATIS and to communicate with TWR when I know I’ll have a long wait for instrument release and don’t want to sit there idling the engine for 30 minutes. There’s also the safety aspect, at least flying out here over hostile terrain. If you have a forced landing you can call an airliner overflying your location on 121.5. The thing is, you never know when you might need it. But when you do, you do.
I occasionally had to use my Icom handheld in the Jodel. It had the VOR but I found it useless in practice. The radio was excellent with just its own aerial.
When we went 8.33, I replaced it with a dual l 8.33/25 Icom, with no navigation feature. I used it once delivering a non-8.33 aircraft Lincolnshire to Inverness, and found it much inferior to the old radio.
