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Reviews For: Alinco DR-638 Part 90 Dual Band Mobile

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Base/Mobile (non hand-held)

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Review Summary For : Alinco DR-638 Part 90 Dual Band Mobile
Reviews: 7MSRP: 360-399 at various dealers
Description:
Part 90 Approved 136-174 and 400-480 TX/RX Good for LMR / Ham combination use.
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
1473.4
KA5HIA Rating: 2022-10-08
good radio / poor mic cord / fixable Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Have owned the DR-638 for several years….installed as a mobile rig in my truck. As K3HVG reviewed below…the mic cord disintegrated.
(the Tx heat may have contributed.) But…you cannot simply replace the cord……one end has the 8-pin plug & the other has a PC board plug.
So no easy fix…to replace the mic cord.

DX Eng did sell a complete mic / cord / plug assembly (EMS-77) for $50, but since the radio has been discontinued by Alinco, the EMS-77 is difficult to obtain.

So…..as K3HVG indicated below…….I purchased a knock off Alinco mic assembly (EMS-57)….bought on Ebay, from a U.S. vendor.
It works fine……it does not have the dedicated “M/S” key……which switches the main & sub bands.
But…you can program the four PA keys…..using menu #28, so you can set those to scan or switch the main & sub bands or reverse, etc.

Mine is used with a Comet CA-2X4SRNMO (140-160 / 435-465), which covers the VTAC, VFIRE frequencies…that are programmed into the rig.
(via RT Systems software.) The two volume knobs are very sensitive……!
K3HVG Rating: 2019-10-27
Good radio -poor mic Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My '638 has worked very well for amateur and CAP use (via NB). But, like others have observed, the EMS-77 mic cord has disintegrated. The rubber is pliable but is shredding up and down the cord. I've ordered a compatible EMS-57 mic for 1/3 the price. Let's see how that one goes.
WA2RUG Rating: 2019-04-25
poor mike cable construction Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I really like this all-in-one rig, but the mike sheath material falls apart in no time at all. A rig intended to work in a mobile environment should come e/w a mike that will last more than a few months. This could be a 4-5 star rig, but I’m giving it three due to the flaky mike. I bought the RT programming software so I did not attempt manual programming if that’s even possible. Still, it fills a niche and at a reasonable price compared to real commercial rigs that could do all this does.
K6NXI Rating: 2018-05-01
Audio died Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The audio died after about 20 minutes of use. The programming is really wacky and inconsistent with the manual which is printed in Chinglish. Settings don't get saved if tone for example is set through front panel buttons but does if set through menu. Just typical chinese crap.

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Earlier 2-star review posted by KD6NXI on 2018-04-30

The instructions are in Chinglish. The biggest problem I've had is that if you press function and then press vm to write the channel it will beep and say mem in but it won't actually do it unless you release the button and hold it in. It does not beep at this point. If you don't it won't save anything you did. Another infuriatingthing is that if you change the tone setting using the front panel button then press f and vm again it will not write it out to the channel you specified. It seems like it's got some of the same programming heartburn as the baofang variants.
W5GSR Rating: 2018-01-14
Great radio so far Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just put this radio in my truck, the rx audio sounds great I'm using a Motorola speaker on it. Transmit audio is good, so far no problems I will see how it goes.
N9JIG Rating: 2016-02-25
Decent dual band with Part 90 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
After the recent death of my trusty old Alinco DR-635 I had planned on getting another one. I liked the size of the remote head and how sensitive the radio is. It also had a great sounding TX audio according to those I communicated with.

While scouting prices on Universal’s website I came across the then-new Alinco DR-638. This looks very similar to the DR-635 but was reported as Part 90 accepted. Thus it was listed as full TX from 400-480 and 136-174 MHz. Receive range is wider, with AM Aircraft and 220 covered.

I know a lot of people would mod their dual band ham rigs so they could get full TX in these bands and that the 635 was popular in some areas since it would work on part of the T-Band when most rigs stopped at 470. The problem is that it was not legal and the radios did not always work well out of band.

Now here comes the Alinco 638, which is legal on these bands but still retains the ham functionality of a VFO and direct frequency entry. Alas, GMRS users, it is not Part 95 approved, so while it works just fine on GMRS it is not technically legal there.

Since the radio was so new there is not a lot to read about it. Google searches showed 2 of the first 3 links as my various inquiries recently. I wanted to know if the 638 would work with my old 635 remote kit (it won’t I found out later) and if it would support full access to frequency programming, at least in the ham bands and receive (it does, and then some…).

So, after approval from the head office (AKA wife) I ordered the radio, the remote kit and programming cable from Universal. All in it was under $450, the radio itself is only $360. The radio was ordered on a Wednesday and arrived at my office on that Friday. The programming cable and remote kit were back-ordered, they arrived a week or so later. I later bought the RT Systems software for the 638.

When I first took it out of the box I checked how the head was connected to the radio, turns out it uses standard RJ45 8-pin Ethernet style connections. The 635 had used a 6 pin phone style modular connector. This should make life easier for those wanting to do some custom installs.

I also noticed that the mic was larger and heavier. Later I discovered that there is a speaker in the mic to hear the radio traffic (very cool). This will come in handy when driving with the windows down or other high noise situations, just hold the mic up to your ear and voila!

I brought the radio home and connected it to a power supply and antenna. The radio came to life and I started playing. I popped in a local 2M repeater and it worked fine. I then popped in a few from further distances and realized that, like the 635, the 638 was very sensitive. I then tuned into the 162 MHz. weather channels and received stations on all 7. I realized that the sensitivity of this radio was better than the R8500 I borrowed the antenna from. I then tried things on the AM aircraft band and was similarly impressed.

Without the programming cable and software I can see that programming anything other than a few standard offset repeaters and simplex channels is going to be a challenge. It can be done without a computer but I haven’t really done much except for a few channels. With over 700 various memory channels one wouldn’t want to rely solely on panel programming anyway.

Programming is done via the mic jack instead of the speaker jack as the 635. This could account for the extra pins needed for the remote head. This also makes it simpler to connect to for installations in which the back of the radio is in a cabinet or otherwise difficult to access.

Some of the features that the radio has according to the brochure and manual include DTMF, 2-Tone and 5-Tone signaling, Ignition Sense wiring, 4 power levels (5-10-25-50 watts, 40 on UHF), VV and UU modes, Crossband repeat and a color-selectable display.

For me this radio will replace 3 in my car, the dead DR-635 and the VHF and UHF Motorola's used for work channels before I retired. I had VHF and UHF LMR radios as well as the 635, and on UHF I needed to be able to use 470-476 T-Band. Now I can do all of this in one radio. While it may not have the selectivity one comes to expect from a Motorola, nor MDC ANI it seems to be a worthy replacement for me.

If you need a low cost, analog only radio for VHF, UHF or both and want to be able to do LMR and ham in the same radio the DR-635 might well be an option for you. I would hesitate to recommend it to a city dweller do to the lack of selectivity, but in suburban and rural locales it works great.

I had purchased my old DR-635 because the head was pretty small and would fit well in my wife's car, the 638 is the same size and will work well in the CR-V I drove after downsizing from a van. I have since reinstalled it in my Pilot. With this I was still able access my work channels as needed and still play on 2M and 440. The VV/UU function allows me to customize my listening. I like to use my dual bander while railfanning to listen to 2M and the local road channel, this works great for that.

With the oodles of memory I can program in a ton of channels and set it up for various uses.

I bought mine from Universal in July 2014. I am very happy with the service and pricing from Universal and have bought from them several times before and will again many times in the future.

I have no business interest in Universal or Alinco and paid catalog price for this radio.

When this review was first written in August 2014 I had only used the radio briefly, I have since had it for over a year, and the last 10 months in my Honda Pilot, It has worked fine and as expected, has great sensitivity and mediocre selectivity. I live past the edge of suburbia but there is a mountain near me with several assorted towers for various services. I occasionally get some digital hash from a 166MHz. P25 VHF repeater and when I drive into the city the squelch needs to go up...

It has a hot receiver however and I hear VHF rail operations (my main use for it these days) much better than on my Uniden scanners. I occasionally work 2M or 440 repeaters with it and everyone says sit sounds fine. Before I retired I used it occasionally on some VHF and UHF public safety channels with no complaints.

I have the head mounted on my dashboard and the shelf unit in the rear cargo area. I use a regular Cat-5 cable between them that works just fine. The radio can be used as a one-piece rig or as a remote head unit.

For the price it is an excellent radio with lots of memories and a bunch of features, some of which you might actually use. You will want to get programming software unless you just want to use it on a couple channels. I use the radio mostly for railfanning but it is not bad for a secondary radio on business of PS freqs.
KT0DD Rating: 2015-05-10
Good so far... Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought mine at Christmas 2014 from Universal Radio but just got it out and programmed it on 5/10/2015. So far, no free software, so I bought RT Systems APK-638 Kit for $50.(The programming cable alone is $37.) Software is a bit more complex than the Chinese radios / Chirp or Miklor programs. I had to call RT systems to figure how to open the VFO function for ham use. In the Radio settings menu, Be sure to uncheck the channel lock box AND make sure the display box is set to frequency (the channel lock button will then un-highlight). Once you program the radio and unhook it from the computer you can then go back in and set the display to read freq, Name or Ch.as you like.

I've gotten so used to using my PC for programming that I don't manually program anymore but I don't think it would be too much different than the DR-635 ham version. Alinco's are a little better than the chicom radios as far as manual programming goes.

It's a bit more expensive than the AnyTone / Wouxun / HYS radios on the net but you have U.S. support thru Remtronix. I gave it a 4 because of the lack of free software. YMMV