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Icom has finally given us the replacement to its much criticized IC-R1
communications receiver in the new IC-R10. While the R10 is much larger than
its predecessor, it has been improved in several areas. This does not mean it
doesn't have its shortcomings.
Icom seems to have an agenda that mystifies many when it comes to introducing a new radio. Many people are under the impression that it is in direct competition with offerings from RadioShack and Uniden. It is not and must be viewed in the terms under which it was designed; as a communications receiver and piece of test equipment. And in this respect it does admirably well. Keep in mind that a considerable number of these radios are sold to various 3-letter government agencies. What follows are my personal impressions regarding the features and performance of this scanner. This, in no way, should be viewed as an endorsement to purchase this radio. I have no personal or business relations with Icom Incorporated. These are simply thoughts offered to my fellow hobbyists who may be interested in purchasing this particular radio. So grab a drink, some munchies, sit back and relax...'cause this review ain't short!
Rich Wells |
| Channels | 1000 |
|---|---|
| Banks | 16 |
| Coverage | 500 kHz - 1300 MHz (minus cellular in US) |
| Scan | 6 channels/second |
| Search | 17 freqs/second |
| Steps | 0.1, 0.5, 1, 5, 6.25, 8, 9, 10, 12.5, 15, 20, 25, 30, 50, 100 kHz & User selectable |
| Modes | AM, FM, WFM, USB, LSB, CW |
| Sensitivity | FM: 0.3 - 0.8µV WFM: 1.0 - 1.5µV AM: 1.0 - 2.0µV SSB/CW: 0.3 - 0.6µV |
| Conversion | Triple |
| IFs | 1=266.7/429.1 2=10.7 3=0.455 MHz |
| Priority | any 1 channel |
| Search limits | 30 |
| Search skip | 100 frequencies |
| Auto-store | 100 frequencies |
| S-meter | Yes |
| Delay | 2/5/10 seconds |
| Lockout | Per channel |
| Attenuator | Per channel & search |
| Lock | Yes |
| Tone codes | No |
| Computer intf | Yes |
| Rotary control | Yes |
| Channel count | No |
| Data skip | Yes |
| Clock | No |
| Timers | Sleep |
| Weather | not programmed |
| Weather Alert | No |
| Light | Display + Keypad |
| Power | 4 AAs or 4.8-16V DC |
| Audio | 120mW |
| Size | 2.3" W x 5.1" H x 1.2" D |
| Weight | 10.9 oz |
| Memory | non-volatile? |
For the most part, these are glaring mistakes and should be immediately obvious and will not keep you from learning about all the features.
One thing I did not find immediately in the manual was how to delete a programmed memory channel. Playing around I figured out how to accomplish this then scoured the appropriate section of the manual. Sure enough, it was there in the 'Memory channel edit flow chart' diagram. The CLR key is mentioned with an asterisk which informs you that the "fixed contents will be cleared" using this key (don't just press it but hold it down for 2 seconds).
Construction and Physical
This is definitely an Icom radio. Fit and finish are excellent. The radio is
nicely sculpted and has a wonderful feel about it. All the controls are well
designed giving good feel and feedback. The entire unit is black with white
keys except for the POWER key which is orange.
That's right! This radio does not have the typical power switch usually associated with the volume control. You turn it on and off by holding down the POWER button for at least one second. This is the same method Yupiteru chose for their new MVT-9000 and which is more and more popular with makers of amateur radio equipment. It takes a little getting use to if you wear it on a belt though. Listen for the beep to let you know it turned on, hold it down for at least two seconds to make sure you turn it off properly and you'll be fine.
The front panel consists of the speaker grill on top, followed by the generous display with the keypad on bottom. The top panel houses the BNC antenna connector, volume, squelch and rotary controls as well as the 1/8 mini jack for earphone use. The volume control is marked with a small green dot as a visual setting aid while the squelch control is striped with a green mark to do the same. When the squelch is set at its usual ten o'clock position, it is hard to see the stripe since the antenna is in this direction and only 3/16" away.
The right side houses the mount for the hand strap as well as rubber caps that protect the CI-V computer port and DC power jack. The left side contains just the FUNCTION key used in association with the keypad. The back has the mounting holes for the belt clip and the battery compartment cover which simply slides straight down like the AR8000. Inside the battery compartment is a switch used to enable or disable charging of the batteries when the unit is powered by the AC adapter.
It's size is wonderful and belies the capabilities in such a small radio. Very similar to a modern portable cellular phone. Considering the current crop of receivers, this appears to be the third smallest radio out there behind the R1, which it replaces, and the Welz WS1000. Even though it is among the smallest, the keypad has wide spacing and large keys in a 5 x 4 layout.
The antenna is similar in appearance to the one used on the AR8000. It's a base-loaded coil covered by a a fine quality rubber coating that extends over the BNC connector giving the radio its overall professional appearance. This antenna is very flexible and tapers quickly to a pencil-sized diameter. It's length is consistent with those found on the typical AOR, Radio Shack and Uniden models but is still one inch taller than the R10 itself.
Performance-wise, this antenna is much better than the R1's. It shines in the VHF lo band and 800 MHz, is OK in AM commercial and 440-460s but plain old sucks in the VHF-hi band and for SW work. Depending on what you listen to most, you might want to opt for an extendable base-loaded 2m/440 whip that will do well on VHF-lo and -hi as well as giving better SW coverage.
As for the belt clip; it is definitely a step backward in its evolution from the R1. The R1 had a nice, wide metal belt clip that has held up well. The R10 uses a smaller plastic clip which proves hard to attach or detach to pants or a belt. Once attached though, it hangs on tenaciously for dear life which is a good thing!
Features
The display is a combination of custom LCD and dot matrix readout. The custom
portion is used for most of the various visual indicators. The two dot matrix
lines are use to display bank and channel numbers, the frequency, alpha-tags
and S-meter. There are also a few indicators which are displayed here as well.
The display itself has a 4-way adjustable contrast setting which makes the
viewing angle and usage under different lighting conditions even more flexible.
When used in the normal setting (#3), it is readable from all angles and most
lighting conditions.
The characters in the dot matrix area are almost as large as those on the AR8000. This is good news considering the size difference between these two radios. The S-meter is displayed on the bottom line and consists of seven segments quite similar to the AR8000.
The speaker is listed as 36mm and rated at 120mV (120mW?). Volume levels are basically identical to the R1 which is rated at 150mW. It is also equivalent to the PRO-60 (180mW) and PRO-26 (250mW - give me a break; who measured this one?). Audio is very crisp and might be too "tinty" for some. Interestingly it has less low end response than the R1 which has about a 40% smaller speaker. I attribute this more to the speaker grill which acts to muffle the audio on the R1.
Good news is that a radio that produces higher frequencies is more likely to be heard above background noise. Granted, it is no AR8000 or MVT-7100 but does a very respectable job for its size. The frequency response is much better than the muffled PRO-26 and quite similar to the PRO-60 and to a lesser extent the AR8000 which has better mid-range giving voices a more natural color. Unlike the MVT-7100, AR8000, PRO-26, BC3000 and many others, there is no audio hiss from the speaker while it sits inactive on a frequency or while scanning or searching.
There is a beeper that sounds when keys are pressed. It can be turned off which is nice and its volume varies with the setting of the volume control. The beeper is also used to indicate low batter power along with the visual indicator on the bottom line of the dot matrix display which displays "LOW BATTERY".
Unlike the R1, the clock was lost and therefore with it, the ability to use the radio as an alarm clock to wake you up. The R10 does retain the sleep timer which can be set for 20, 40 or 60 minutes. This allows you to go to sleep to your favorite radio station or police dispatcher and can be used for those who are absent-minded and may forget to turn it off (as long as the don't forget to enable it!).
There is a lock feature which effectively disable all keys (except POWER, MONI and FUNC) and the rotary control. The lock does remain intact if the unit is powered off and on. It can also be engaged while searching or scanning.
Another nice feature that is always welcome on a radio of mine is power-on resume. When you power-on the radio, it continues with what it was doing when you turned it off. If it was sitting in VFO mode, that's where it goes. If you were doing a search, you continue right where you left off. If you were scanning, it starts right up again! I get tired of using Uniden and Radio Shack models that insist on scanning as soon as they come on. A lot of the time I would like to return to what I was doing. Thank you Icom, AOR and RELM!
The manual also mentions two resets which are available from the keypad should your R10 act up for some reason. One is a partial reset (only effects VFO and SET options) while the other is a full reset which wipes out memory and returns all settings to factory defaults.
The R10 comes with an adjustable power saver feature. It can be turned off or set to a 1:4 or 1:16 duty cycle. I set mine on 1:4 and got good performance for this evaluation using a set of alkalines. I figured about nine hours typical usage. I figure with the NiCds that were supplied, rated at 1.2V 700mAh, you'll probably get somewhere in the 5 hour range.
And of course the R10 comes with a backlight. It does a wonderful job of illuminating the display and the keypad. The R1 did not light the keypad but it did have a receive indicator which lit whenever the squelch was broken.
The light may be turned off, locked on or you can put it in AUTO mode so that key presses or activating the rotary tuner turns on the light for five seconds. However, to set the light, you have to enter SET mode (described below), scroll through the other settings to find the LIGHT option, then change it to your liking. Needless to say this is not very "handy" and downright difficult to do in the dark!
Here's a little hint : always leave the SET mode menu on the LIGHT setting. This way, if you have to access it in the dark, simply hold down the FUNC key and press the key in the top right of the keypad (CLR/SET). You are now in SET mode on the LIGHT setting. Just turn the rotary tuner to change the option. Both AUTO and ON settings will light the backlight instantly and you will now be able to see what it is you are doing!
VFO
Like most communications receivers in this class, the R10 has a VFO for
temporary frequency storage and band tuning using the rotary controller. The
V/M key is used to toggle between VFO and memory mode.
The R10 is programmed with the US bandplan for automatic selection of step size and receive mode for the frequency you enter into the VFO. While I did not check the accuracy of the entire plan, a glaring mistake popped out during testing. The UHF aeronautical band for military operations is set not only for 5 kHz steps, but for FM mode as well!
Using the MODE/TS key, you can override the tuning step or receive mode upon command. There are a large number of step sizes to choose from and you can even program in one of your own choosing (USER).
Entering a frequency is as simple as typing in the numbers and the decimal point. An improvement has been made over the R1 for entering frequencies with 12.5 kHz steps with 4 decimal places. With the R1, if you wanted to enter 855.9875 MHz, you had to enter it as 855.987.5 and press EN. Not so with the R10! Not only do you not have to enter the second '.', any time the fourth decimal place is keyed in, the radio automatically enters the number into the VFO!
Another handy feature for tuning the VFO is the Dial Select feature. You normally change the VFO frequency via the rotary tuner. This is fine for moving around within a few hundred kilohertz. If you want to jump to a distant range, you either punch in the new frequency or you can use the Dial Select feature. It effectively allows you to tune the frequency by 100 kHz, 1 MHz, 10 MHz or 100 MHz steps. This tuning is activated by holding down the Function key.
I usually leave the dial select step set at the 1 MHz position which works well. You can use it to select any one of the four tuning steps mentioned above. Once set it remains there until you change it. This is a great feature and is one you don't think you really need until you use it and get use to it quickly!
While in VFO mode, the band scope feature can be enabled if you are in FM mode. This feature is used to monitor activity on the channels adjacent to the one in the VFO. Specifically, you can watch five channels either side of the VFO frequency up to a maximum step size of 20 kHz (i.e. +/- 100 kHz of center). Icom's version is a vast improvement over the AR8000 because it updates in "real-time" and does not affect audio quality while receiving on the VFO frequency.
While receiving a continuous signal (like NOAA weather), it is interesting to watch the bandscope in action to see how fast it updates and the job the filters are doing to attenuate the signal either side of the VFO frequency. Move the radio around and watch the pixels dance!
On a side note, I can't wait to get a MVT-9000 whose bandscope covers a much wider range and has a movable cursor allowing you to select an active frequency within the bandscope and set it into the VFO for immediate listening!
While in VFO mode, you also have access to the 20dB attenuator, Noise Blanker (NB), Automatic Noise Limiter (ANL) and Voice Scanning Control (VSC). The attenuator is used to reduce the incoming signal strength and can be used in VFO mode or while searching and can be programmed on a per memory channel basis. The Noise Blanker is used to remove pulse-type noise from USB, LSB and CW transmissions. ANL is used to reduce noise components for AM mode.
VSC is similar to what Uniden calls Data Skip. It is a method whereby the microprocessor tries to detect an unmodulated carrier and thereby skip over it while searching/scanning or mute the audio when in VFO mode.
The VSC works fairly well but tends to be over aggressive at times. When in VFO mode, if an active speaker pauses for more than a second, the VSC kicks in and mutes the audio until it detects modulation on the frequency. This feature can also be used in searching and scanning.
And for instantly breaking the squelch without changing the physical setting of the control itself, just press the MONI key. This feature will also break muted audio when VSC is active. This monitor feature is usually found on Icom rigs and proves very handy!
Programming
First off, let's talk about the Function key located on the side of the radio
that is used to activate secondary functions for the keys and rotary tuner.
Icom chose to use the same scheme as the R1 in that you must hold it down while
accessing the secondary control. I wish it were programmable like the AR8000 so
that you could press and release it, then key in the secondary control.
The R10 has 18 memory banks. Like the AR8000, they are labeled with alphabetic characters (A-R). Sixteen of them are "normal" 50 channel banks used for everyday usage. The last two banks, referred to as Q & R contain 100 channels each and can be used for auto store and search-skip respectively. If you choose not to use either or both of these features, then you can use them as regular memory banks.
Programming a memory channel starts with selecting the frequency in VFO mode. While here, the mode can be overridden if desired. The memory write process is started by a key press, the FUNC key + rotary control is used to select the bank then the rotary tuner alone is used to select the channel within the bank.
After a memory channel is programmed, you can use the edit mode to change the frequency, mode, attenuator, skip setting, channel name (8 characters) and bank name (10 characters). The skip setting is the equivalent of lockout in the Uniden and Radio Shack scanners. In order for the skip to work, MEMORY SKIP mode must be enabled via the SET mode (see below).
Once programmed, you can use the rotary tuner to scroll through memory contents. However, the rotary tuner only scrolls within a bank for some odd reason. To change the bank, you have to hold down the FUNC key and use the tuner to select the bank. Luckily, if you program the bank names appropriately, it's not quite as much of a nuisance as you would think.
When programming the bank or channel names, you use the ENT key to select the position of the character you wish to change. You then use the rotary tuner to scroll through all available character choices or you can use the keypad. Each key represents from one to four characters. There is a table in the manual which maps the characters onto their respective keys. The character set consists of both upper and lower case alphabetics, all numerals, and a set of 32 symbols. Most of the symbols are not assigned to a key so you'll have to use the rotary tuner to get to them.
The channel names are only seen when scrolling through memory. Even then they are only seen for about two seconds then disappear. The bank names are only seen when selecting a new bank to view from.
SET mode is used to configure certain settings to your liking. You can choose to turn the opening message on or off, enable or disable the keypad beeper, change the display contrast, change the backlight between off, locked on or timed when keys are pressed, enable or disable MEMORY and PROGRAM SKIP mode, set the power saver setting, set the scan delay and adjust three CI-V (computer interface) settings.
A memory search function allows you to search through the alpha-tag memory contents of every channel to find a matching string. The R10 will search the entire 1000 channels to find a match. Each time it will stop and display the match and you can press ENTer to accept the match or SCAN to try and find another. I suppose somebody somewhere will use this feature once, but I have yet to take advantage of it.
Scanning
First off, Icom refers to everything as scanning. Most other manufacturers make
a distinction between scanning and searching. Not Icom. Of course this does
have the benefit of having only one key (SCAN) instead of two (SCAN & SEARCH)
ya know?
For this section, I will discuss those scanning modes which actually "scan" memory contents. There are three such modes and Icom calls them Memory Scan, Bank Scan and Mode Select Scan.
Memory scan is used to scan ALL programmed channels, Bank Scan is used to scan the memory contents of a single bank, while Mode Select Scan scans all programmed channels containing a specified receive mode (AM, FM, etc.). As you can probably guess, Memory and Mode Select Scan modes really don't have much use in everyday monitoring.
A single bank scan is quite limiting. I normally program a single agency per bank which works well with most scanners. I can then selectively choose which agency or group of agencies I want to listen to by enabling or disabling scanning of their bank. With the Icom this method is not easily supported. To get around this, I used the multitude of empty channels and banks to code up a bank or two that was a combination of one or more other individual banks. You may wish to do the same.
Icom's SKIP mode is equivalent to the lockout functionality found in most other radios. You must edit the memory channel to enable its skip setting. To have the R10 skip this channel when scanning, you must also enable MEMORY SKIP mode discussed in the Programming section above.
If you want to use VSC or priority while scanning, you must enable these features before you start the scan. They can not be enabled or disabled while scanning. What's the problem Icom?
Another annoying feature is the scan hold delay. After a transmission there is a delay before scanning is resumed. Most radios allow either no delay or a 2-4 second delay. Not Icom. Your choices are 2, 5 or 10. Hello? Is anybody home? I guess the Japanese have never heard of monitoring trunked systems.
Searching
This section will describe "searching" as it applies to most modern receivers
(stepping through a frequency range looking for active transmissions). Icom
chooses to call this scanning and has three modes named Full Scan, Program Scan
and Auto-Memory Write Scan.
Full scan is simply a search which is started from the VFO. Simply pressing SCAN starts the search. To stop it, press CLR. To hold it temporarily, hold down the FUNC key. To switch search directions at any time, turn the rotary control in the appropriate direction.
Next is Program Scan. This is typically called a limit search. You program in start and end (or lower and upper) frequencies and continuously search between them looking for activity. And the R10 has no less than 30 search limit pairs to work with. All can be programmed with a name, start and end frequency, step size, modulation mode and scan delay. 20 of these pairs are regular limits. The other 10 are grouped under what Icom refers to as EASY mode. These 10 EASY mode limit pairs have been preprogrammed with names, frequencies, modulation modes and step sizes to help the new user in getting started into the exciting world of searching. But the EASY mode settings can be altered just like the other 20 pairs which means you have 30 search limits at your disposal.
Last is Auto-Memory Write Scan. This is typically referred to as auto store. You perform a Program Scan but any active frequencies are programmed into a bank. In this case it is bank Q which contains 100 channels. Every time you start this type of "scan", the contents of bank Q are erased.
Regardless of what type of search you perform, you have the option of using bank R as a search-skip or search-lockout bank of frequencies. If there are frequencies programmed into bank R and you have enabled PROGRAM SKIP mode, the R10 will not stop on (nor auto store) any of these frequencies.
Bank R can be programmed ahead of time with skip frequencies or they can be added during the search. If you stop on a frequency that you would like added to the skip memory, simply press and hold FUNC, then press and hold V/M until you hear a beep. This programs the displayed frequency into the next memory channel. Every time a write is done this way, the "next" channel gets incremented by one. I have not experimented with what happens when you write the 50th frequency in bank R. Three possible choices are that the "next" channel counter doesn't not increment, or that it wraps back to the first frequency in bank R or it starts at the first channel in bank A. Either way, you'll probably be overwriting previously written frequencies.
Like scanning, you must set priority mode, attenuator, VSC and AFC before you start a search. They can not be enabled or disabled while searching without stopping the search itself.
Icom has introduced a new feature for searching too. It's called SIGNAVI and is designed to look ahead (only in the direction of the search) for active frequencies while it is paused, listening to activity on another.
Theoretically, this is supposed to speed up the searching process because while you are listening to your hot new find, the scanner is looking for the next frequency "in the background". If it finds one, you will immediately "jump" to that frequency as soon as the activity on the current transmission ends.
All well and good but like most of the features using this active technology (bandscope, etc.) you are limited to a max of 100 kHz from the current frequency and it only enables itself in FM mode. And this 100 kHz is a max; the true limit is 5 steps ahead. If you are searching in 5 kHz steps, that's 25 kHz ahead (5 x 5 kHz). If you are searching in 50 kHz steps, that's 100 kHz (the max). So unless you are searching in a really crowded band, it's unlikely you will see much improvement in speed.
I tried using the AFC (Automatic Frequency Control) which is supposed to tune the receiver automatically when an off-frequency signal is received. It does so by stepping the signal 1 kHz at a time and comparing the signal for each step until it locks onto the center of the carrier frequency. In the real world, the circuitry used in the Uniden and Radio Shack models works much better.
The VSC worked much better than the Data Skip found on most models these days. VSC, coupled with AFC, did combine to form a formidable team that was able to tackle all trunked data channels and skip over them. I have not found another handheld that is as successful at this as the R10. It generally took two to five seconds to accomplish this feat but it did do the job.
The only down side to VSC is that it tends to mute the audio if people are slow talkers because it obviously thinks it is hearing an unmodulated carrier and therefore mutes the audio.
VHF/UHF Performance
And now the moment you've been waiting for! First, let's start, as usual with
the birdie listing. I found more than I figured I would and finding them was no
easy task with a radio that searches as "fast" as the R10. It took over two
hours to scan from 25 - 1300 MHz! All told there were about 40 of them. 5 were
found in the FM radio band, 1 in VHF aero, 6 in UHF aero, 2 in 400 Govt and 12
were above 900 MHz. The lowest was 62.60 MHz and the highest was 1276.6100 MHz.
As for sensitivity and selectivity, the R10 can hold its head high. I compared the R10 against the AR8000, BC3000 and R1. Testing frequencies covered the range from 35 MHz up to 931 MHz. For the testing I compared all radios using the same Uniden rubber duck found on the BC3000. Overall the R10 placed a solid second between the AR8000 and BC3000. There were many places the R10 tied with the AR8000. All three radios did excellent in the 800 and 900s.
The AR8000 and BC3000 proved better in the FM radio band while the AR8000 and R10 placed above the BC3000 in VHF hi band. Due to lack of dependable, weak UHF aero signals, I was unable to make a comparison for this range of frequencies. I see no reason for the R10 to perform as well here but hope to update this at a later date.
Against the R1, the R10 proved it lost little sensitivity in the upgrade. There were regions where the R1 was more sensitive (160s and 460s) but these were also its trouble spots where it was easily prone to imaging and intermod.
For instance, the R1 pulled in a NOAA weather station over 35 miles away no problem with the Uniden antenna, while the AR8000, BC3000 and R10 could not hear it with an extended whip! The R1 is similarly sensitive in the VHF aero band, right up there with the MVT-7100, but it so easily crumbles if brought outdoors or any closer than a mile or two of the airport.
With it's stock antenna, the R10 shined in VHF lo band and 800 MHz getting signals that the BC3000 could not hear with its stock antenna. The BC3000 had a big edge in VHF-hi band and they were roughly equivalent in VHF aero and 450/460s; again stock antennas used for both radios.
The R10 also proved its worth over the R1, and even the BC3000 for selectivity. And it vastly outclassed the R1 for image rejection. For instance, we have a strong pager in the area on 153.635 MHz and get lots of chatter on 153.620 MHz. The audio on 153.6200 was totally drown out by the pager on the R1 and BC3000; the R10 and AR8000 had not even a hint of trouble.
Similarly, the R1 likes to receive a strong 96.1 FM country station on 74.70 (and either side of it for that matter). The R10 didn't have a lick of trouble. Similar experiments scattered across the spectrum revealed the same thing time and again. Nice work Icom!
HF Performance
As for SW performance, well, don't expect a lot. I conducted some tests using a
Sangean 909, AR8000, MVT-7100 and R1. All tests used the whip that comes with
the 7100 (except for the 909 which used its own whip) which I left fully
extended at all times.
The 909 was obviously the winner every time. Second place went to the 7100 with a few ties here and there with the 8000 which was a not too distant, but firm third place. The R10's sensitivity varied quite a bit over the HF range. In certain spots it rivaled the AR8000 and in others was completely deaf. So overall it came in fourth.
Compared to the R1, it was probably equal; maybe a little bit worse. However, it is more usable since it does have SSB (that is pretty good) that the R1 did not. And forget about listening in crowded areas; the AM filter is just too wide to prevent even minimal adjacent interference.
If you do plan on using the R10 for strong HF listening, be sure to get a whip. It will easily give you a 3 to 6db gain over the stock antenna.
Priority
The good news is that Icom has allowed for the priority function to be used
during any scanning, searching or VFO operation. The bad news is that it's such
a pain in the backside that you probably won't use it period! I also wonder how
useful a priority function is when it only checks for activity every 5 seconds
(better than none at all I guess).
There is only one priority and it really is a separate channel so I guess you could say this radio has 1001 channels! You can tell the R10 to use the frequency in the VFO or any memory channel to be used as the priority frequency. Once memorized, you simply have to enable priority mode.
Once enabled, the priority mode frequency is displayed on the second line of the display. Do you remember what was there? Yes! The S-meter! Guess what you can't see when priority is enabled? You got it! Obviously someone else working on the firmware who never touched a radio in his/her life.
But wait, there's more! Let's say we want to scan our favorite bank of frequencies and enable priority to check for hot activity on it. You have to enable priority mode first, then select the desired bank, then start scanning. And how do we stop our scan? By pressing CLR. Guess what else CLR turns off? Bingo! No more priority checking. If you want to scan another bank you have to go through the process again. And searching is no different. And since you can't enable or disable priority checking while scanning or searching, you have to stop what you are doing, set the priority accordingly, then restart what you were just doing.
CI-V
The R10 is equipped with a CI-V port allowing it to be programmed or controlled
from your PC. It also allows one R10 to be "cloned" from another R10 where all
programmed contents are transferred from one to the other. I did not have the
hardware or software necessary to evaluate this particular aspect of the R10.
Should someone wish to purchase the required equipment you will need the OPC-479 Cloning Cable to be able to clone R10s (don't think you'll get in as much trouble as the scientists who have recently been cloning sheep and monkeys).
Should you desire computer control, the manual advises that you will need to purchase the CT-17 Level Converter (converts between RS-232 and Icom's CI protocol signal levels).
Ranking
| Category | Score | Out of |
|---|---|---|
| Sensitivity | 15 | 25 |
| Selectivity | 15 | 15 |
| Interference rejection | 15 | 20 |
| Coverage | 90 | 90 |
| Channels | 15 | 15 |
| Channels per bank | 5 | 15 |
| Ease of use | 5 | 20 |
| Scan/Search speed | 0 | 10 |
| Receive modes | 15 | 15 |
| Step sizes | 25 | 25 |
| Conversion | 10 | 10 |
| Audio | 10 | 20 |
| Antenna | 5 | 20 |
| Construction | 20 | 20 |
| Size | 10 | 15 |
| Search | 20 | 35 |
| Attenuator | 20 | 20 |
| Auto-store | 10 | 20 |
| Search frequency lockout | 10 | 15 |
| Backlight | 30 | 30 |
| Alpha-tagging | 20 | 20 |
| VFO | 15 | 10 |
| Squelch tail | 10 | 10 |
| Priority | 10 | 20 |
| Delay | 5 | 15 |
| Hold | 0 | 10 |
| Rotary Control | 10 | 10 |
| S-meter | 10 | 10 |
| Power-on resume | 10 | 10 |
| Computer Interface | 20 | 20 |
| Tone Decode | 0 | 15 |
| Battery indicator | 0 | 10 |
| Channel count | 0 | 5 |
| Tape record control | 0 | 5 |
| Clock | 0 | 5 |
| Timers | 5 | 5 |
| Weather programmed | 5 | 5 |
| Weather alert | 0 | 5 |
| Data skip | 5 | 5 |
| Bank delete | 0 | 5 |
| Bank sort | 0 | 5 |
| Total | 470 | 670 |
| Total | 70 | 100 |
Overall
Let's say that I am quite happy with the R10. It is a much better radio than
the R1 which it replaced. But this rig is definitely not for everyone. It has
its quirks which seem to come with the territory under which Icom chooses to
compete in.
Strong points include size, construction, battery flexibility, computer control, alpha-tagging, and large number of channels and search banks. Its weak points would be scan/search speed, fixed scan delay, single bank scan, difficult search-skip and inflexible firmware.
I did not pick this unit to replace anything except the model which Icom chose to replace it with. I do not expect this radio to compete directly with the high end offerings of AOR, Yupiteru, Radio Shack and Uniden. Nor should you. This radio is in its own niche and it's up to you, the user, to see if it will fill a need in your monitoring regimen.
What you do get is a VERY solid package that will hold up well to the test of time if past radios built by Icom are any indication. They make very tough radios that can take a lot of abuse and keep on performing. It's a GREAT size for travel and clandestine monitoring.
It has a robust and sensitive receiver with a good mix of features that are quite useful in everyday usage. That's not to say functionality couldn't be improved though.
I believe Icom could get more sales if it were to address its poor performance in scanning and searching. Similar gains could also be extracted from the firmware. It is too restrictive and sometimes even insulting to the type of users and professionals who will use this high end radio. I get the impression that Icom deliberately puts in such "roadblocks" in order to protect users from complexity. I believe they have achieved their goal in part but have sacrificed flexibility which I believe to be crucial in a radio of this type.
Since I'm preaching from on high, I offer up the following "To Do" list for Icom should they care to "enhance" their radio :
For another viewpoint on the R10, be sure to check out the March '97 issue of Monitoring Times for a review of this same radio written by Bob Parnass.
Update - June 26, 1997
Of all the handhelds I have or do own (about 25), this is the only one which
I've managed to break the belt clip on. I am very careful but even so, the clip
has managed to break after only a few months of use.
Contacted Icom Technical Support who were very generous in sending me another one while I shipped mine to them for examination.
Be sure to check my Scanning Tips page for details on available metal belt clips for this radio.
| Copyright © 2010 by Richard J. Wells |
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