Icom IC-2820 D-Star Ordered

Well I have ordered the above radio today and hope to have it tomorrow... Hee Hee I can't wait!

Dave

when are you getting a bed in your shack

I only have 8 more D-Star radios to buy until I get the free repeater!!! lol

I have wired it into the shack last night, played around with it for an hour and am very pleased with it. The D-Star version comes with the GPS antenna. The radio also comes with a Controller mic, Seperation cable and mounts for the head and body.

I have not had much time tonight to play with it as I have been at the club but should be in te shack most of tomorrow evening...

So, dish the dirt and tell us how it is then Dave? Now am back from holidays and Skint would like to know what am missing

Great to see you back Simon. How was the holiday?

Well the radio works very well, it's nice and easy to use. Even more so than the E92 which I wrote about in the review. The menu layout is very much the same but with more buttons and the Controller Mic that comes with it as standard saves a lot of Menu hopping and money as you don't have to buy one.

The main downside is when you buy the D-Star version it comes with a GPS antenna, (like the ones for TomTom) and if you don't put the separation kit on the radio you can't plug it in. You don't need it to operate D-Star so its not a big problem but I would be nice to be able to use all the features of D-Star.

Another big downside is you have to plug the mic into the main unit and not the head. Good in one sense as you don't need to keep unplugging the Mic when taking the face with you but if you were to put the main unit in the boot / under the seat you will need the mic extension cable which ain't cheep... Or make one yourself.

They are my only two negative points on the radio so far and am really happy with it. I got a great deal on this radio and it worked out alot cheaper than the IC-E92 as I bought alot of extras for it...

I will try and write a full review of it once I use D-Star a little more as I seem to have had a few problems keeping a good signal from the repeater. This may be why its off air but I am going to put a beam up to make sure I get a good signal from it...

73 for now Simon.

I was looking at one of these today and seems that the trouble here is that there are not many D star repeaters. And the cost of over 500euro makes it a little less possible for many to have them, saying that the sound quality was excellent and it is still on the dream list here

Hi Simon,

How is D-Star taking off in Germany?

I have found some repeaters for you to look into but not sure where about they are.

DA5SAT
DB0ADB

Dave

£479.95 in Waters & Stanton. It was £520.00 so good to see the price dropping.