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Reviews For: Icom R-3

Category: Receivers: Scanners

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Review Summary For : Icom R-3
Reviews: 4MSRP: 500
Description:
Icom R-3 video display-wideband receiver-scanner.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.icomamerica.com/receivers/handheld/icr3main.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044
W1BKZ Rating: 2008-02-08
Pretty neat wide-band radio Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I had to have it before Icom stopped making it. I'm glad I did, as it has some really nice features. ATV, commercial analog TV (soon to go away in favor of digital),AM, FM, and scan functions, all with minimal clutter of the operational controls. On the minus side, these controls take some getting used to, but once you figure them out, the radio is quite easy to use.
Pick up a spare battery and a 1 amp wall-wart, and you'll have a ball. For serious receiving, I have an R-20, whose accessories are interchangeable.
KI4CRA Rating: 2007-08-01
Great little reeiver! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I do so like my toys! The Icom R-3 receiver was a birthday present from my wife 2 years ago. So far I ave really enjoyed this receiver. I take it with me almost every where. It has good general coverage receive, my only complaint is that it does not cover the 800 MHz area that I would like it to cover, guess thats why I hsve the Pro-95 scanner. I do like the fact that I can receive TV broadcast with it. sure wish I had had this when Hurricanes Frances and Jean came blowing through here in 04. Could have at least had some coverage on the storms progress. All said and done, would I get another one? You bet!!

73 de Mark
AI4HO
AF1952 Rating: 2006-09-14
Not up to expectations Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My main reason for adding the R3 to my arsenal of hand held scanners was the promise of video reception and increased frequency coverage.
I have the UK model having continous coverage ( no gaps ) and general performance is on a par with my Icom R5 , however I found the video modes somewhat dissapointing. Performance on the UK TV broadcast band was comparable with a Casio hand held TV so no complaints there. The biggest let down was using the 2.4GHz band. I have wireless home security cameras and video senders which use the same four channels in the 2.4GHz band and thought the R3 would be usefull domestically.

To begin with the upper frequency falls short of covering the above standard channels with only channels 1& 2 obtainable. Reception on these frequencies is to say the least poor. Whilst I realise that the scanner is operating on it's extreme upper limit, I would have expected decent reception at a distance of only 20 feet but alas it was not so. The picture quality was poor, extremely grainy and black and white most of the time , also no amount of tweaking with the subcarrier setting would produce any audio. I did manage to obtain reasonable results using a 1.2GHZ wireless camera , though strictly speaking I should not be using these domestically in the UK. I should mention that using a more suitable antenna for these frequencies did not produce any drastic improvement. A friends R3 returned the same results so I can't claim to have a faulty unit.

The multi function LCD is impressive but comes at a price, namely battery running time. If you want to use the scanner for more than 1 hour stick to the small LCD. The 500mA charger supplied will not allow you to operate the scanner whilst charging the battery. I found a regulated 1 amp AC/DC adaptor solved that little problem.

All-in-all as a wide band radio scanner the R3 is very good, but don't expect to be bowled over by it's video performance.
AF4KK Rating: 2002-10-02
Amazing package! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my Icom R-3 for quite a while now and I'm always impressed with its wide array of functions! It can not only receive ordinary TV signals but also ATV (AM and FM) and video monitor signals as well!
The controls take some getting used to as using the R-3 is not a "second nature" affair! I wish it was a bit bigger for a larger screen and more buttons. As it is now, the R-3's controls have multiple functions/menus.
I was so impressed with the R-3 and what it can do, I bought another 8 months later!
Oh yes, coverage goes down to approximately 150 kHz or so and it seems to perform quite well above 3 mHz or so. It's too bad that the LCD display shuts off below 30 mHz. It's nice to have that screen showing you all of the relevant data on it! It sort of reminds me of my Icom 2800H!