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What handheld radio to choose ?

The battery issues I referred to were only the typical NICD or NIMH one of self discharge.

Those batteries nearly always self discharge in something like 2-3 months.

They also have the memory problem, which one gets around by flattening them periodically, but that’s difficult to do in the Icoms because they auto shut off when the battery voltage falls to a certain value which is well above “flat”.

The YAESU radio is a lot more modern so uses a lithium battery which doesn’t have a memory problem and its self discharge is much lower – of the order of a year or two of shelf life.

These issues were never really solved in commercial products. In a previous life I used to design various “intelligent” battery chargers and it’s a sad fact that a lot of very good products are let down by battery technology. A lot of it is to do with overcharging by the product not detecting a full charge condition.

The A24, which is what I had for about 15 years, is not 8.33 (is there a newer model now?) and that makes it virtually useless today, when even some VFR stations are 8.33.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I figured out a million years ago that you could get a AA dry cell configured battery pack for my ‘80s vintage Icom radio. It’s easier to change non-self discharging AAs than screw around with wall chargers, especially on a trip.

The old Icom A21 serves as the primary (only) radio for controlled airspace in one of my planes. Works well, my original of the same type broke due to abuse by a previous owner so I replaced it with one of same, used, for US $100 in around 2007 A new Pilot PA200 intercom was about the same price. My two Lightspeed headsets cost about ten times as much combined as the aircrafts avionics suite.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 24 Dec 22:28

That’s true; I now recall I had that too. It took something like 10 x AA battery, 1.5V each. I sold it with the radio.

But while that solves the battery shelf life issue, you can’t really use that battery pack for normal usage, because the batteries are a bugger to change, and alkaline AAs are expensive.

A middle way would be to use that battery pack with the Sanyo/Panasonic ENELOOP AA cells. These are NIMH but use some some clever modified chemistry to give them not only a shelf life of 6-12 months but also a much flatter discharge curve which effectively increases their usable capacity. I use these in various gagets. But they need an intelligent charger, which charges each one individually, and that is not possible with a battery pack which has say 10 of them inside – unless one brings out the individual cells onto a connector which, hey ho, is exactly what is done in the model plane LIPO battery business

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I buy AAs in the massive size (i.e. buy enough for the rest of your life!) packaging available at the warehouse type shops in the US (Costco etc). The cost is not too bad because ten of them last probably four or five flights. You can change them in a couple of minutes on the ground, but It’d be virtually impossible in flight. So I have two AA battery packs on board, one with fresh batteries. You can change the entire pack in the air on my Icom, not sure about the later model Icoms. I’ve done it once by necessity although obviously it is something to be avoided.

What luxury to have ship powered 1988 Narco digital radios in the other plane Even the iPad running Forelfight has its own on board 5V power. A modern marvel, and the Narco com has even been updated to 760 channels, wow…

But it all works fine for my use…

Last Edited by Silvaire at 24 Dec 22:50

I switched over from the ICOM to the YAESU FTA-750LEU. No regrets. Much better battery life as well.

EDLE, Netherlands

Worth mentioning (sorry if I’ve missed it somewhere) that the 550 and 750 are now officially approved – I don’t think they were when the last thread came out.

http://www.hamradio.co.uk/userfiles/file/FTA550-750_CAACertification.pdf

I can see now that there is a way to build a short ‘breakout’ cable to enable the original connector to do its job, but it seems a shame to have additional connectors in the system.

That is an interesting document [ local copy ] because the UK CAA stopped approving radio gear about 15 years ago…

This “CAA approved” topic has been going around ever since. Icom Marketing made the best of their CAA approvals but I have never met anyone who thinks these approvals have any legal meaning, provided the equipment meets the transmitting equipment requirements, which these clearly do.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

kwlf wrote:

the 550 and 750 are now officially approved

No they aren’t. The document you quoted is not a CAA approval, it’s a self declaration by Yaesu UK that they meet the requirements of a CAA document called LA301075 – which must be long obsolete as it cannot be found anywhere on the net (at least I wasn’t able to)

LSZK, Switzerland

the PTT button only connects a resistor across two of the wires

Actually, it grounds one of the contacts on the mic. jack, I think it is tip but might be ring.
This makes you can have as many ptt-switches as you like – all connected in parallel.

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

I should have looked at my own website before posting that

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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