ICOM IC-208H vs Yaesu FT-7800R
 

I'm trying to decide which radio I want to buy as my first ever radio. These two seem to be about the same in terms of features and ease of use. I know several people on here have the Yaesu and the people on E-Ham certianlly seem to like them however a guy in my local Jeep club says that he's had bad luck with thier pro-line equipment that he uses in his job with Emergency Services.

That got me looking at the ICOM. I like that ICOM is an American company and I've heard good things about thier reliability.

The features I need are these:

70cm support
2m support
modable to access FRS
narrowband support

I know the Yaesu will support it, but I'm not sure that the ICOM will. What do you guys recommend?

I have nothing but good too say about past Yaesu's I've owned, I'm on my first Icom now but its an HF rig so that doesn't appy here....

I really liked the Icom. If it had a built in TNC/APRS/Crossband Repeat, I'd still have it today. I've gotten used to the Kenwood but still like the Icom better. It sounded better, received better and was a lot cheaper but, it didn't do what I wanted.

Yes, the Icom supports those features. Mine had the extended RX/TX mod.

I have the 7800 in my jeep. Its as basic (my opinion) as it gets. Easy to program vs. other units.

Quick hijack::
Hey TXEMT do you mount the 897 then pull it to use as a base how do you deal with that? I have a 7000 but don't know about mounting dismounting everytime I want to move between home/jeep/camper and I surely can't afford to buy 2 more of them.

I actually took it out because I had a lot of issues with interference to the jeep computer, every time I'd key up at 100 watts my traction light and other lights would come on. This would only happen when the jeep was running. It now sits on my desk most of the time until I have time to troubleshoot it.

The Yaesu seems to be winning the poll so far. I like both radios and now that I know they can both do the job I need either will suffice. I like that the ICOM has the mic connected to the radio itself and not the display as I plan to mount the screen above the rearview mirror and it would be annoying to have the mic dangling there. On the other hand the Yaesu lets you mount the mic there which would allow me to store the mic in the glove box when not in use and reconnect it when I'm using the radio.

I've been hearing some horror stories on my local Jeep club's forum about the ICOM radios.

and

Right now the jury is still out which is fine as I'm first trying to tackle my electical problems.

I have the Icom IC-208H and love it. I use it for ARES and local repeaters. I have used Paclink/winlink to send email from my laptop through the radio to a remote node that put the email onto the internet. I also like the remote head unit. I mounted the radio under the drivers seat. You can extend the mic with standard CAT5 cable and a cupler.

http://my.project-jk.com/data/500/thumbs/Jeep_0141.jpg

http://my.project-jk.com/data/500/th..._007_sized.jpg

73,

KI4RQV

RFrogman that is the coolest mount! But, it reminds me of another thing to consider, how the remote head attaches. On the Icom head the remote cable is screwed into the back of the head. If you want to remove the head to hide it from wood be jack hole thieves it would need to be unscrewed. Not sure if the snap in force is sufficient to hold it in place w/o the screw. The Kenwood remote head used an RJ11 telephone type connection. Not sure about the Yaesu.

Well, you answered my question about fitting it under the seat. That looks very smooth and totally stealth.

I plan to mount the display above the rear view mirror so it won't likely be seen ouside the Jeep very easily. That is a nice mount on the dash, looks like a RAM Mount. The only problem with that is I use the DayStar upper.