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| Reviews Summary for ICOM IC-91AD |
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Reviews: 47
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Average rating: 4.5/5
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MSRP: $628
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Description: DSTAR Digital dual band transceiver from ICOM.
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Product is in production.
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More info: http://
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write your own review of the ICOM IC-91AD.
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WZ3O
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Rating: 5/5
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Oct 25, 2011 09:03
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Had it a day...Initial impressions...
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Got a Very Nice one in a swap deal....Wanted an HT with DStar since I have an ID-880H mobile & DSTAR is growing in our area....
Nice, Good Sized Dual Band - Dual receive HT, dual display easy to read, single diplay awesome (big LCD w/good contrast) great receive, good audio out, DStar, programming isn't all that complex & is relatively intuitive (of course I've had Icom rigs before)..I know I have way to much time on my hands if I "know" all this so soon, but this isn't my 1st Rodeo...
Not sure about battery life since I just put a full charge on it...
Not So Nice - speaker a tad tiny, AM local radio a little weak (hey it's a V/U/Dstar HT)..but no rig is "perfect"...but I still give it a 5 ...
If you want a metal case, waterproof HT w/expensive GPS speaker Mic.. go spend quite a bit more $$ on an IC-92AD but don't buy an HT you'll hardy, if ever use it's capabilities just to say I have a 92AD. Money difference sure buys a lot of Yuengling .... So for my uses & needs this is a Very Nice HT does it "all"....
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N2RRA
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 1, 2011 10:25
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Just an Awesome HT!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Bottom Line!
Audio: Superb! External Mic's excellant!
Recieve: Great!
Features: Excellant
Band Scope: Excellant and very useful feature!
compact: Excellant!
DURABILITY: Unbelievable military grade! Takes
a beaten and keeps on ticking!
Power: Only Hi/Lo, but it gets the job done
Satellite: Excellant!
Battery Life: Fair (Could be better)
AF Volume: Excellant!
D-Star: Excellant!
As far as anybody having problems I'm sure there are very few. If they did it's to be expected with any company during running it through a production line and typical electronic component failures to a minimum.
This HT kicks ass!
73'
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AC8JD
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Rating: 4/5
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Sep 16, 2010 10:57
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Great HT!!!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I have had this HT for a little under 2 months and have used it almost every day. First off, I noticed that even though the body is plastic, it is a dense hard plastic... I don't foresee it failing if it fell off of a table onto the floor, or even concrete for that matter. I have had it fall off my workbench in my basement a couple of times onto the concrete floor and it didn't even scratch the plastic let alone ding it. And it never missed a beat!
Other reviews talk about the heat. All I can say is that it does get warmer on TX than my previous HT which was a iCom IC-V8. The V8 put out 7 watts, this one only 5. I use it on low power most of the time anyway but it will still get warm on TX if I have a 10 minute conversation doing 2-3 minuet transmits with 2-3 minuets in between. It does get what I would call "really warm" when doing the same transmitting on 5 watts. I wouldn't call it "very warm" or "mildly hot", or even "hot". I have never felt like I wasn't man enough to hold it bare handed while using it when it gets warm.
The battery life is good. It lasts a entire day, and could go into the next day if I really limit my transmits. It does have the lithium battery and the battery indicator does not work well. It will show a full battery, for almost the entire life of the charge, then suddenly show almost nothing and it won't be very long before it dies. This is normal in Lithium batterys. They are made to give full power and drain at full power until they die, not gradually produce less and less power until they die.
I love the dual receive feature, and the memory channels it holds which is a ton! I like the memory banks as well! The screen has a high resolution so it packs a ton of info into the screen!
The entire construction from the knobs to the buttons are solid and feel very well built. I do not regret this purchase at all. I get great reports on the audio even using IRLP.
In my opinion you can't go wrong with this rig. I could not give it a 5 based on the fact I can't review its longevity. But I always buy iCom because I live fairly close to an iCom Repair facility and figure if I ever have an issue, I am not far from someone repairing it for me.
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VK3GMO
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 2, 2010 05:07
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great value broad band and digital radio
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Is it perfect? Well no, what is. Yes it gets warm transmitting. I don't talk long enough for it to get too hot to touch. I bought mine on ebay for 350 aud for that price the flexibility, ease of programming which I found intuitive (having learned on a wouxun) including even setting up for dstar. I am impressed that so much is bulit into such a small package. First ICOM I have owned but no complaints. I bought it after reading the reviews here and discounting the extreme ones. A great radio and no regrets.
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KB1QBZ
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Rating: 0/5
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Feb 12, 2010 09:58
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DON'T Buy It
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Apparently the same guy who designs gas pedals and brake systems for Toyota also designs power systems for Icom HTs.
The radio turns itself off after transmissions on 440 (70cm) -- analog or digital. I sent it to Icom to look at. Their answer was basically "tough luck" -- it's a problem with their voltage regulator circuitry and the Icom batteries at the relatively high current draw of 2.1 amps on 440 and it affects about 30% of IC-91s.
Since the radio's current draw was within factory spec, the only thing they could recommend was that I replace the radio with a newer IC-92.
I replaced it all right, but not with an Icom product.
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W8DEC
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Rating: 4/5
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Oct 26, 2009 12:37
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Nice Radio, but...
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I recently acquired the 91AD less than a month ago. I really like this radio. I use it all the time and seems to have better receive than some of my other HT's using the same antenna (Maldol AS20).
My reasoning for the 4. I do not like the radio case. I do not like the difficult belt clip. I do not like the stock rubber duck. I do not like the radio getting too warm while transmitting on 5 Watts. I routinely use the LOW power setting anyhow.
73 de Matt W8DEC@arrl.net
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N7MSD
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Rating: 4/5
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Oct 5, 2009 02:04
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Good Radio; other reviews missing some things
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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I bought this radio 2nd hand, and have been pretty satisfied with it. My previous radio is an IC-T81A quad-bander and, just prior to getting this, I got the ID-800H. If you know either of these radios, keep them in mind as you read this.
BTW, if you didn't hear yet, this radio is no longer made, superseded by the IC-92 and, later and cheaper, the IC-80.
The good:
1. Lots of memories. Everyone comments on this. I wish all my other radios had this many memories. I mean, come on, what's so hard about more memory locations, Icom? In particular, this radio has more memories than the ID-800H, a mobile rig! Just weird, but it turns out a lot of things Icom does under the hood are weird.
2. The last Icom D* radio with regular jacks: the IC-92 and IC-80 both have gone to that waterproof-albeit-hard-to-find Motorola connector.
3. Decent user interface: I don't know what some of the other reviewers were talking about because this radio is a breeze to program through the front once you work with it a little. I consider it about the same as my IC-T81A and other HT's I've had in the past. Keep in mind, this radio does a *LOT* more than your typical FM-only radio, so it's necessarily more complicated, but the menu system makes it easy, IMHO.
4. Dual-receive--but see the caveat below.
5. Battery Life: compared to HT's I've had in the past, this thing performs very well. Remember, this isn't a cell phone, and the DSP containing the AMBE codec has to fire up every time you hit a digital frequency, sucking more power. OTOH, I'm not about to say they couldn't optimize more.
The bad:
1. The HEAT: everyone talks about it, yeah. You have a choice now, though: get the IC-92 (for a LOT more money!) or the IC-80 (single-frequency only and the same display and form-factor as the IC-T81/90). Otherwise, well, radios get hot on transmit, just deal with it--my IC-32AT used to get this hot--or hotter--on transmit as well. Since this radio also gets warm sometimes just receiving (my ID-800H even more so), I'm going to guess the AMBE DSP has something to do with it as well. It sounds crazy, but if it's that big a deal and you want to keep this radio, wearing a glove or keeping it away and using a speaker/mic may do the trick. Just remember to allow air flow for heat-sinking. IMHO, this heat problem is probably the biggest reason why Icom pushed out the IC-92 so fast.
2. SMA connector: why the Japanese have standardized on this connector, I have no idea. SMA was never designed for repeated (dis-)connect cycles, major cable flexing, etc. TNC would have been a far better choice (and cheaper to boot).
3. Lithium battery: "What?" I hear you ask. Simple: while they have awesome energy density, they have a very finite life and number of cycles. In particular, a lithium-ion battery will only last around 3 years WHETHER YOU USE IT OR NOT. Cycling will shorten this quite a bit. The lithium is also dangerous when mis-handled, which is why any decent battery pack (including individual cells for cell phones) come with protection circuitry built-in. Knock nickel technology all you want, but we never had those problem with it. In particular, I miss my IC-32AT with my 10-cell AA-alkaline pack which I stuffed with Ni-Cd cells instead and got a pack I could use, charge, and maintain much cheaper than the equivalent "real" pack; those days are over with these newer radios unless you want to make a belt-pack. :)
The UGLY:
1. Dual-band scanning: what SHOULD be a great thing is tainted badly by the presence of massive birdies. I don't know if the IC-92 is affected the same way, but I imagine it is: there's only so much separation you can do in such a small package. In particular, some combinations of frequencies will cause the scan to stop, forcing you to block those frequencies and being unable to listen to that repeater.
2. Remote-control + programming: Remote control is a great idea. Unfortunately, Icom's idea of it requires their RS-91 software, which itself won't interface to anything else. Like most radio makers, they aren't exactly helpful about the wire protocol used to communicate. If this is broken, it would make things pretty kewl, though! Oh, and their software doesn't understand anything except their .ICF format. I haven't tried that other piece of software out there.
3. D-Star itself: not much more I can say about it. Even in English by those who seem to understand it it's confusing--and I work with computers!
Bottom line: as long as you're aware of the heat problem and you're not afraid of a computer and programming a radio a bit more complicated than normal, you shouldn't have much trouble with the radio. Used, this radio is still fetching around $300 on E-Bay and such, so it seems to be holding its value. Finally, you'll definitely want the programming software and cable if you can get it, though I hear that other software is better; in any case, this radio has so many memories that just being able to save the contents is worth it!
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N0VKG
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 28, 2009 10:41
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Good, when programmed via software
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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Fine radio. It functions as it should. D-STAR is good. Analog is good. 1300 memories is totally awesome. Thank you ICOM for making so many memories available. All radios should have a minimum of 1300 memories, my opinion. But the radio is aliite difficult to program via the keypad. So best bet is use the programming software/cable with PC. Makes it a breeze. D-STAR mode seems to do so much better under weak signal conditions then stanard analog FM. It is the way of the future. And lets keep AMBE as the vocoder, ok? It is superior to IMBE used in P25 Phase I used by public safety agencies. Phase II of P25 will use AMBE.
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W6DXK
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Rating: 3/5
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Jul 22, 2009 20:48
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Good radio, runs too hot
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Operationally a good radio, but it runs uncomfortably hot within a few minutes of operation at 5W. Inexcusable for a premium priced product. Looking to replace it with a radio I would actually want to use for more than a few minutes. Belt clip is difficult to use, and manual is poorly organized.
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KK9H
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Rating: 5/5
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Apr 9, 2009 07:08
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Good HT for D-Star and regular FM
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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A couple years ago my local ham club put up a new D-Star repeater system and I bought an IC-91AD to be able to use this new mode. There is an initial learning curve to understand how the HT gets programmed to utilize a local repeater system, but that aspect of operation is pretty straight forward. The HT works very well in both D-Star and regular FM modes. I found the HT's menu system to be logically laid out and easy to master. The receiver has excellent sensitivity and can operate on a frequency next to a strong adjacent signal with minimal interaction if you use the "B" band which is optimized for the ham bands. The "B" band experiences the least amount of intermod as well, There is a known "intermod alley" area in downtown Chicago where this HT exhibits only an occasional squelch break. The "A" band on the HT is the wide band receiver and as you'd expect, it is considerably more likely to exhibit intermod, but only in highly prone areas. Both receivers are just fine in normal use. The audio quality of the receivers is excellent in both D-Star and regular FM mode. The D-Star audio has a small characteristic that is unique to digital mode, but it is very close to normal sounding voice. When you have a weak signal condition, you can experience some break up of audio, but our repeater is well situated and that behavior is minimal. The transmitted audio on this HT is superb. I have had excellent audio comments in both D-Star and FM modes. The 91AD has lots of memories, with good reason. D-Star operational convenience requires this. There are only two weak areas and these have been mentioned by other reviewers. One is having only two transmit power levels, 5 watts and 1/2 watt. I would have liked something in between, say 1 watt or so. The other would be a desire to have just a little more audio output level for operating in noisy environments. Neither of these is a show stopper, though. Battery life when using the power saver function seems fine. I usually carry an extra battery with me anyway. All-in-all, the IC-91AD is a smooth operating HT and I think it would be the better economic choice for getting into D-Star if this was to be your only D-Star rig.
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