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Reviews For: Alinco DR-735T

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

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Review Summary For : Alinco DR-735T
Reviews: 18MSRP: 349.95
Description:
Mobile/Base VHF+UHF Full-Duplex Transceiver, with a large multi color adjustable display.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.alinco.com/Products/ham/mbl/DR-735/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
14184.1
DL1ESZ Rating: 2023-01-19
Great Radio but... Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Hi,
the Alinco DR735 is a great radio for the shack, fine and big display, perfekt add ons, scan perfekt, good audio and a very good modulation, fine crossband repeater, and dupex handling.
But... no idea whats going wrong with the product managment..... big signal blocking, oh je rx1 438.925Mhz signal full and signal 2km awaw 439.200Mhz and your rx1 is going into noise, on same antenna no of my other radio (Yaesu FTM100, Icom 5100, Icom 7100, or any Handheld) will not notice a problem but alinco cuts the rx on 70cm if a big signal is also on 70cm active, attenuator will not solve the problem,
And there is no possibility for 9600Bd Packet Radio !! on 2023....all other will do that....It has the possibillity for the best FM Mobiles i know, but....
Anyway i like the radio its fine, but better rx and 9k6 would make it.
IZ1PON Rating: 2022-06-14
Nice ALINCO dual band Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I like this radio, it is easy to use with big display and good audio reports.
Great performance at a great value.
A very good ALINCO dual band.

N2HAM Rating: 2021-03-30
Great radio! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Nice big display! Love the colors and the easy programing! Very good receive and transmit! 50w on each band as stated.
Some noise from the fan but not to bad.
Has a mic gain which works well.
KI7MBR Rating: 2021-03-11
works good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Me, Technician since March 2017, General Dec 2019. Certainly no expert at any of this. Observations after using the radio for about 2 years as a base station, seems reliable with no issues that others have mentioned. The screen colors are a nice feature, easy programming with RT Systems. A good thing, I am all thumbs at field programming. The radio's speaker seems good. Reported Tx sound quality is 5/9 under good conditions. One minor (potentially) issue that popped up (could well be operator error...) is the tuning increment in VFO. Attempted monitoring an emergency comms exercise in simplex used by their various subnets, thus needed to tune up and down. Ooops, the steps were 12.5. Attempting to change to 10, followed instructions, p. 21 and pressing and holding the FUNC key would not make "01" appear on the display as was indicated to change the step. It did access TNC which might be handy down the road, but not for VFO tuning.

Followup. Problem solved. the manual appears to be lacking a step or two (no pun intended). Item 4 in tuning step selection should be followed by "repeatedly press each tuning knob until "01"" appears, then rotate the dial knob to select the "step." End of report. Hope useful. 73 ki7mbr

20210311 Addendum; cross band repeat has proven to be easy to set up and a handy feature. The unit does however then become warm. Because; as I heard somewhere, both internal radios are pulling power.
KZ4ZK Rating: 2020-08-15
Great Radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had this radio for a couple months and have come to really appreciate it. This is my first mobile dual band radio and I really appreciate the fact that it is actually 2 radios. After adjusting the Alinco desk mic gain and the mic gain in the radio I get great audio reports. I replaced my Alinco DR-B185 and put the 185 in my truck. I was afraid the drop from 85 watts to 50 watts would be an issue. It doesn't seem to be. I would recommend this radio 100%.

Update: after about a year and a half there is no audio. The signals are showing being received but no audio is coming from the speaker.
KG7HBQ Rating: 2019-10-19
OK except for one glaring flaw Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got this radio for the dual receive function, and I didn't need any of the digital features in the other dual receive radios from the Big Three. It's my first Alinco, all of my other serious radios are Yaesu. This radio has been pretty well reviewed, but none of the reviews mentions what I consider it's biggest flaw, that is, there is apparently no way to directly access memory channels from the microphone numerical keypad. To change channels you have to scroll through your list of channels either with the Up/Down buttons on the mike, or with the dials on the front panel. This for me is a huge pain and almost a deal breaker. I'm not going to send the radio back, but if I had known about this "feature" I would not have purchased it
N1HQU Rating: 2019-02-09
Love It! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I really like this radio. I rate it a 5/5 just by the colors alone. I looked at all in this price range and went with it. Does cross band which sounds good, don't use. I listen a lot more that Xmitting. I finally broke down for the usb cable to program it which makes it a lot easier to program all the memory's. So far works great and no problems that I see. 73's Rick
KM6WWY Rating: 2019-01-31
Great performance at a great value. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I chose the DR-735T for my first VHF/UHF mobile radio for a combination of features. LARGE display digits, easy for my ancient eyes to read in the vehicle, programmable display colors, dual receivers (w/individual channel select/VFO tune, volume, & squelch controls), control head separation capability (control head is mounted on the console with the Alinco separation kit & a Ram Mount), generous and easy to organize channel memory and attractive price. I have not been disappointed. It is easy to program from the front panel. I also purchased the RT-SYSTEMS APK-735 programming software and USB cable, making it even easier to program.
I get good range and excellent signal reports from repeaters here is the San Francisco Bay area. The audio could be a bit louder. I have it mounted under the back seat of my Tundra, so I have added a speaker for each receiver under the drivers seat. A previous reviewer complained that a remote speaker was needed for each VFO/Receiver. At first I also thought that to be true, but a quick look at the print revealed that the Speaker-2 jack provided audio for both & silenced the chassis mounted speaker.

I have recently been operating from my condo with it, using an Arrow GP146/440 Dual Band Ground Plane antenna mounted in my attic with very good results.

I would definitely recommend this radio.
KN4LIH Rating: 2018-08-03
Microphone Fix Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have been using this radio for over 6 months. I like the large, multicolor display, and the cross band repeater function. This is really two radios in one. When I started using this radio, other hams reported my audio was pinched and tinny because of the microphone as others have reported here. Changing the mic gain did not improve the audio quality. I disassembled the EMS-79 microphone that came with the radio and noticed that the 1/32 hole was not centered over the mic cartridge. I drilled a 1/16 hole in the front of the microphone (from the back of the cover) directly over the mic cartridge, which resulted in a 100% improvement in the audio quality of the microphone. Other hams report that my voice quality changed from pinched and tinny, to more natural. This is an easy, no cost mod.
KD2BOR Rating: 2018-02-12
NICE RADIO needs mic help Time Owned: more than 12 months.
In earlier post some said the audio was not good on this radio it wasn't bad but I had TO RUN RADIO AT MINUS 7 ON MIC GAIN CONTROL what did was get a earlier ems 57 mic from a dr-635t with a big yellow cap on the board alnico has changed the ems-57 with no cap on board I put a rj45 on the cord +now can run mic gain at factory default + you can go to +2 depending on your voice level ive gotten much better audio reports and by the way all functions work on the ems-57

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Earlier 5-star review posted by KD2BOR on 2017-04-03

I HAVE NO PROB WITH AUDIO ITS A ALINCO I FEEL ALL ALINCO RADIOS ARE HIGH PITCHED AND SECOND OF ALL WHO WOULD WORRY ABOUT AUDIO ON A REPEATER TRUE AUDIO IS ON SMPLEX