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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
W8STU Rating: 2018-02-11
Great radio for the price Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was looking to replace my older Kenwood TMV71A. The Kenwood is still working like a charm, but the display is small and I am getting older. So I saw the Alinco DR735T ad on the net and noticed it had a very large display. After watching YouTube videos and reading reviews I decided to give the radio a try.

I wasn't disappointed. After browsing through the manual I had the radio programmed in 5 minutes. I really love the large display and being able to program different colors. The audio coming through the speaker sounds great.I also get great transmit audio reports. I really like this radio and highly recommend it for beginners and elmers alike. 73,Stu W8STU
KG8CO Rating: 2017-11-25
Nice Dual Band Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have had the DR-735T for a few weeks, and it has
worked well.

Initially, I had an issue with the Crossband repeat function. It turned out that though the rig was new, it needed a firmware upgrade.

As of this posting, I updated to firmware version 1.12 and everything is working fine.
VE6BGM Rating: 2017-04-03
No longer use Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Well, I am not about to yell, but on repeaters there are differences in volume of users. I have had complaints with this radio so no longer use. Even on repeaters it doesn't help if the end user has to continually increase and decrease their volume to hear a low transmit audio and a much louder audio.
FORMER_K2OOL Rating: 2017-01-09
Bad audio! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This radio has the most Tinny -sounding transmit audio I ever heard on an Alinco,The DR-635T sounds alot better than the 735T.Maybe they are using different mic elements? Even on -4 its still sounds wrong to me.Is this even made by Alinco?
K8RFD Rating: 2016-12-31
Does all I need it to, and then some! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was looking for a good 2m/70cm base radio. I'm not getting any younger, and wanted one with a larger display. Yaesu doesn't make one that does true dual receive in their fusion rigs, Icom does but Dstar was making my head hurt... so I went simple.

This radio is very well built. The color display is really easy on the eyes, can set it for red/green if operating in a dim room at night... no eye fatigue.
You can program frequencies by banks, so you can scan all, or just by a bank. I like this when I'm scanning for simplex, I put all likely simplex freqs in and scan only that band. The other VFO can scan a different band or stay on a channel, whatever you wish. As you set your colors for standby, receive and transmit you can then tell from across the room which VFO is active on receive by which side of the display changes color. THAT is why I bought this... I often scan and hear activity that when I'd get to my TYT rig, I had to be upon it to see what channel went active. This display and color options make that MUCH easier to do.
8 fixed colors, with the free Alinco software you can add custom colors.
Receive on this radio is fantastic. I am able to carry on simplex conversations with people I could not even hear before with my tyt or btech rigs.
I get great reports on transmissions, and find the hand mic pretty intuitive.

My only 2 complaints, would be 1. It has two speaker jacks. If you use one, it's for the related VFO side only. So plug a speaker in to 1, the radio uses it's onboard speaker for VFO 2. WHile not a huge issue, I wanted to plug in a bluetooth transmitter so I could listen via headphones around the house... but I can only do one VFO like that.
My 2nd complaint is going to repeater input. While there is a button on the mic you can customize, you can only customize it to a menu item, not a panel option.
To get the reverse, you need to hit function, then another button, to reverse it. No one button dealio. Not a deal breaker, but I was sad to see this.
No regrets having Santa get me this radio. I love it, it works well, and has a TON of memories. Short learning curve on manual programming, and just now starting to use the software.
Nice...really nice.
AE4NR Rating: 2016-12-23
So far so good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
So I wanted to get into the world of 440 MHz,I did a lot of research as what to buy the 735 t has been getting rave reviews with the local hams in my area. I purchased this unit from HRO and got the Holiday 40 bucks off discount that certainly helped. All has worked just fine and as advertised but took a little bit of a learning curve to program. Just remember to set menu 33 to L/R operation. after that be sure to read your manual a couple of times it does help.
WB1AAL Rating: 2016-10-13
First Rate Dual Band Transceiver Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
It's been a long time since I bought a new rig--at least one that wasn't shipped from China. After all these Baofengs, Luitons, Leixens, etc. I feel like I've come home after 40-years in the desert.

Although the Alinco DR-735T VHF/UHF dual-band transceiver is feature rich, when you pay ten times more for a radio what you really get is quality. While this should have been obvoius to me, I had somehow forgotten this fact. But looking at the DR-735T I can see rugged construction instead of soft plastic, plus heft and weight. I haven't this tried yet, but I suspect that if used my spectrum analyzer and compared the outputs of the Chinese radio that I have to the DR-735, I'd see a much cleaner signal on the DR-735. Harmonics and Intermod will likely be much lower on the DR-735.

The DR-735T is now in the shack and giving me exceptional reports on the air. It is a fairly intuitive rig with just a few "huhs?" (One of them being that you have to select all the frequencies in the Alinco programming software before you upload them to the rig. Otherwise they won't be uploaded. As I said, "Huh?")

This is a terrific rig. I use it as my VHF/UHF base. The addition of the AM aircraft band is a plus, but the true dual receive function is the real advantage. I also like that the DTMF function of the EMS79 mic can be disabled making the mic a true remote for controlling the rig.

The fan is noisy but not obtrusively so and the multicolored LED is cool. Of more value is the large LCD display that works wonders with my tired, old eyes.

All together the Alinco DR-735T VHF/UHF dual-band transceiver is a keeper.
N7GWT Rating: 2016-08-13
Good rig with potential Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just received my DR-735T 2 days ago, and I do like it very much. Its somewhat of a departure from the front panel layout of previous dual band models, but does add some nice features like a quick memory write button, and features dual volume, and squelch dials. I very much like the large, color adjustable display. One word of advice, read the operations manual thoroughly, then read it again, especially the small print. Remtronix can supply a download link for Beta programming software. Overall, a good radio. Waiting for more refined programming software, and separation kit, then I may reevaluate my review.