Hand held radios.

frfly172

frfly172

Touchdown! Greaser!
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ron keating
Putting an antenna for a handheld radio in. Looking for advice on which handheld works best as a second radio.
 
Anything you can put alkaline batteries in. When you need the handheld, you don't want to be messing around with dead rechargeables. Learned that the hardway. One of my two times flying NORDO into IAD (neither time in my plane).
 
I have the Sporty's L6 Com Radio and I'm very impressed. Alkaline or lithium batteries, headset plugs directly into the radio, and the antenna is removable with a BNC connector. Additionally, you can power it with a USB C connection.
 
flyingron said:
Anything you can put alkaline batteries in. When you need the handheld, you don't want to be messing around with dead rechargeables. Learned that the hardway. One of my two times flying NORDO into IAD (neither time in my plane).
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And consider possibly messing with a headset adapter, too. The one for my handheld screws in. I can just imagine it slipping between the seats as I'm trying to get it attached.
 
Invest in a couple sets of Eneloops or similar low self-discharge Ni-MH cells and a decent charger. Some radios that take alkalines are very tight on tolerances, and the slightly larger rechargeables might not fit.
Also, if your plane has an electrical system, get a radio that can take 12V from your plane. Icom A-23 is great (and small), but it needs an adapter for the headset, and it's definitely on the flimsy side. I would make some sort of a retainer/strain relief bracket for it so you don't smash the connector if the radio gets dropped. It's also a bit of a pain to close the lid on the battery case after loading it with rechargeables.
 
flyingron said:
Anything you can put alkaline batteries in. When you need the handheld, you don't want to be messing around with dead rechargeables. Learned that the hardway. One of my two times flying NORDO into IAD (neither time in my plane).
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Lithium batteries for long term storage in emergency use items. Alkaline can corrode
 
Yep. Get something that has an alkaline battery pack. Then buy a spare.

Put the Energizer lithiums in both and call it good.

I have one, but I kinda like the direct jacks on the sportys radios. The buttons on sportys are huge as well, that's probably a good safety feature.
 
personally, I'm a fan of the idea of a simple radio. Mine is very old, VHF and VOR rcvr. To tune freqs it's button push or memory presets..... but every time I won't to use the thing I'd nearly have to pull out the book There are too many menus and shift keys, and abbreviated functions to poke through. Maybe newer ones are much better...but if I ever look to buy another I'll be looking for a simple one with two knobs...one to twit to turn the freq, the other for the volume and squelch.... just like an old-time panel radio. That way I figure, it's intuitive and anyone can figure it out in the heat of the moment when you need it.
 
asicer said:
And consider possibly messing with a headset adapter, too. The one for my handheld screws in. I can just imagine it slipping between the seats as I'm trying to get it attached.
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Mine has an adaptor that screws in also, and I just leave it that way.
 
I have an Icom, and like it a lot. It has a lithium battery, so it doesn't self discharge much and doesn't develop memory. I have the expensive headset adapter, which is great because it's sturdy and works in a noisy aircraft. It's heavy and rugged. Works fine as a primary radio for aircraft without electrical systems for non-controlled fields, with stock antenna in aircraft I've flown in.

Radios with AA trays can be OK, but my experience with similar size and power VHF ham radios is that alkaline batteries are terrible in terms of power output and life. With disposable AA lithiums, assuming ok for the radio, would probably be fine.
 
edessa said:
Mine has an adaptor that screws in also, and I just leave it that way.
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That's fine if your handheld is secured to the airplane. In my flight bag, I'm worried about the adapter cords getting torn up.
 
asicer said:
That's fine if your handheld is secured to the airplane. In my flight bag, I'm worried about the adapter cords getting torn up.
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That's exactly why I bought the Icom. It has a silly expensive adapter that uses two separate plugs, side by side, to attach. It's very sturdy, bounces around with no problem. Others I've seen have one 1/8" adapter that looks like it really wants to be snapped off.
 
Keep it simple. If you need to grab the backup radio, you don't want to remember complex menus in order to use it. Been there and done that.
 
I have an older Icom A-22 that will run on ships power. It used to stay in my bag but I haven't needed it in many years so, like possiblity many others, it sits on the table and listens to local traffic. I'm a VFR only guy ...
 
We have the sporty's , it's a good, easy to use, and not having a an adapter is nice.
 
Thanks for all the replies looks like a sporties or a simple I con
 
FPK1 said:
I have the Sporty's L6 Com Radio and I'm very impressed. Alkaline or lithium batteries, headset plugs directly into the radio, and the antenna is removable with a BNC connector. Additionally, you can power it with a USB C connection.
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I know two people with Sporty's radios that failed. One caught fire.
 
I had a Vertex710, but more often than not I use this one I got for next to nothing from a fellow boardie. It was missing the antenna so I just stuck some random rubber duck I had around on it. Several miles away in my home office, I was able to reach Dulles Clearance Delivery.
 
I have a Yaesu FTA-550. It's okay, but the display isn't bright enough in clear sunshine. The radio will receive VORs and display a CDI but it's very difficult to read it on a bright day. The menus and submenus get a bit cryptic, but in the air I just punch in frequencies with the keypad and that works okay. Newer Yaesus might be better but I haven't looked at them.

It's mounted on a homemade bracket on my panel, and I have jacks to connect it to my audio panel and an external antenna. I also power it from onboard 12V, though I have lithium batteries installed so it will keep working if I loose aircraft power. In normal operation it's my COM2 radio and it does okay in that role, though the squelch could be better and it picks up a bit of noise. There's already a headset adapter already attached and I use cables from it to the audio panel, so if the plane loses electrical power all I have to do is unplug my headset from its normal jacks and plug it into the Yaesu, which will continue running on its internal batteries.

It's a versatile setup, making good use of the handheld as a COM2 radio with easy re-config into an emergency backup.


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172andyou said:
I know two people with Sporty's radios that failed. One caught fire.
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I had an early Sportys PJ2. I liked the simplicity and the built in headphone jacks. There was a design flaw with the 1st gen battery packs that would lead to a short. Mine didn’t catch fire, but one day I did find that part of the pack had melted

Sportys response was that I should buy their redesigned pack at full retail. I did, reluctantly, and soon thereafter the on/volume rotary switch failed.

I really wish somebody else would make an equivalent radio with more attention to quality control.
 
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I used an Icom A24 as my primary (only) radio for some years. Ran it off the aircraft power, so batteries weren't an issue. It worked quite well for me, but one thing to bear in mind with the Icoms (they may have fixed it on the later models?) is that they can suffer from bad RF feedback when transmitting using a headset, requiring an external antenna to be located some distance from the radio.
 
Dana said:
they can suffer from bad RF feedback when transmitting using a headset, requiring an external antenna to be located some distance from the radio.
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True for my Yaesu as well, and my headset ANR will break the squelch if I’m not using an external antenna.
 
Dana said:
I used an Icom A24 as my primary (only) radio for some years. Ran it off the aircraft power, so batteries weren't an issue. It worked quite well for me, but one thing to bear in mind with the Icoms (they may have fixed it on the later models?) is that they can suffer from bad RF feedback when transmitting using a headset, requiring an external antenna to be located some distance from the radio.
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Icom has a PDF somewhere in their site with an explanation and instructions on how to add a ferrite core to your headset cable.

I didn’t have much luck. Apparently the feedback gets in on the mic cable. I could work around it by unplugging the mic cable and using the built in PTT and mic, then listening through my headset.

It was only a problem when using the external PTT.

Hopefully that’s been fixed in their new models.


Edit: found it -

A24 / A6 Feedback from headset: How to eliminate feedback

icom.custhelp.com icom.custhelp.com
 
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Doesn’t anyone do a search for previous and many discussions on this very subject?
 
Matthew said:
I didn’t have much luck. Apparently the feedback gets in on the mic cable. I could work around it by unplugging the mic cable and using the built in PTT and mic, then listening through my headset.
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Apparently it was on the hairy edge... I followed the instructions and it was still intermittent, sometimes I could wiggle the wires or move them a half inch and the feedback would come or go. Mostly it was usable.
 
Dana said:
Apparently it was on the hairy edge... I followed the instructions and it was still intermittent, sometimes I could wiggle the wires or move them a half inch and the feedback would come or go. Mostly it was usable.
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What worked great for me in the glider was a speaker-mic. I could clip it on my shoulder harness next to my head and hear everything, then I just had to turn my head a little bit to talk into it. I never did try it in an airplane, though.
 
Matthew said:
What worked great for me in the glider was a speaker-mic. I could clip it on my shoulder harness next to my head and hear everything, then I just had to turn my head a little bit to talk into it. I never did try it in an airplane, though.
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I imagine it would work just as well in an airplane if you shut off the engine.....
 
Half Fast said:
I imagine it would work just as well in an airplane if you shut off the engine.....
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Turning up the volume high enough to hear probably would be enough to hurt your ear. It would have to be a pretty big emergency
 
frfly172 said:
Putting an antenna for a handheld radio in. Looking for advice on which handheld works best as a second radio.
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Have you considered using a KX-99 instead of a separate antenna for a handheld. It allows you to use an existing antenna. You have to be careful and remember to shut off your panel-mounted comm radio, however, before using the handheld.

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KX-99 Piper PA24 / PA32 Radio Transmitter Receiver Coupler | eBay

BAS Part Sales was founded in 2012 in Greeley, CO. We have a comprehensive inventory spanning across Cessna, Beech, Piper, Mooney, and more. BAS Part Sales will also buy parts inventories and unwanted aircraft so let us know what you have.
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