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Reviews For: ICOM IC-2100H

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

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Review Summary For : ICOM IC-2100H
Reviews: 196MSRP: 140
Description:
Two meter mobile
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.icomamerica.com/amateur/2mmobile/ic2100hmain.asp
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
001964.5
KI4D Rating: 2003-04-23
Great Rig! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Awesome rig! I was one of the first kids on the block to buy this radio when it came out several years ago, my serial number was something like 00358. I pulled it out of the box the day I got it and installed it. It received beautifully, but had no transmit! AARRGG! My friends told me before I bought this radio that I should not buy an ICOM, because ICOM actually stood for "I Can Only Monitor". Boy they hit that on the head in this case and I still can't live it down! A quick call to HRO and they sent me another IC-2100H the next day that is still working today! This thing has been flawless through two car crashes that have totaled both vehicles, a cold snap of 17 below farenheit that made the display actually blank out (it came back when it warmed up), a searing heat wave where the inside of the truck got hot enough to warp my audio CD's sitting on the floor, and several milk shakes and drinks poured over them like icing on a cake! Never had a cooling fan and was only shut off only when moving from one totalled vehicle to another. Still works perfectly! I would definitely buy another! Virtually indestructable!

I do have a few comments about this radio that I wish were a little better and ICOM may or may not have addressed these in the newer units (I'd like to know if they have),

1) - The display can only be seen well if you are looking at it at a 90 degree angle, look at it from the side and it fades from view. At 45 degrees, it appears blank.
2) - It is kinda hard to screw the antenna connector on the back of the rig tightly because it is surrounded by heat sink, a pigtail would have been nice.
3) - The mic cable is a little short and the coil has never stretched, still coils up tight when mic is set down(that part is good). The tension is so good though that the clips that hold the mic cable in the radio and in the mic broke off after 3 years and only million hours. Being the cheap skate that I am, I replaced the broken mic cable with a regular $5 data cable from Radio Shack. Perfect fit and works fine!

P.S. - This radio has actually outlasted my friends Kenwood that he tried to get me to buy instead of this rig, both were new at the time. His Kenwood was sent to the factory for repair twice, the third time it made for great skeet practice! ....JohnnyT KI4D
KC7OOI Rating: 2003-03-30
solid radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have two IC-2100H. Both are 3 years old now. I have had no problems with either of them. I see in some of the reviews some people have had a WHINING NOISE PROBLEM with their 2100. I did have that problem when the antenna was mounted on the front fender and the coax was routed through the engine compartment and through the fire wall. I re-routed the coax through the door and the problem is gone now.
NO7OR Rating: 2003-03-17
Great Value! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
If you're in the market for a no-nonsense 2M radio that will not let you down, this is it.

I picked one up used and in pretty bad shape, and it still works like it's brand new. Great audio, plenty of power.

Icom went all the way and built the 2100H solid as a rock. I have absolutely no complaints.
KC8QNF Rating: 2003-03-15
Great Rig for the Money Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have 2 of these radios. On the first one the audio went completly dead after a week, but got it replaced and no problems since.

The only problems I have with the 2100 is the speaker jack is very flimsy (solderd to the board and not fastened to the case) and its hard to get to.
Second is the antenna lead is hard to screw on because its between two heat sink fins, makes it hard to move from one vehichle to another.

I heard a lot of complaints about the mike being flimsy, but one of mine is mobile in a work truck and the mike gets knocked around a lot, and I've had no problems after almost 2 years.

Not a bad radio, I love the mike controls.
KG4TAC Rating: 2003-02-15
Perfection at 2M Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I have now had this radio Since April of 2002. (Now Feb '03) I used it Mobile for about 4 months. Never a whine. The manual clearly state to hook up power directly to the battery to prevent getting the alternator whine and frying the cigarette lighter cabling!) With the engine off, my headlights would dim when keyed the microphone. I then moved it indoors after making the MARS mod, with an Antennae mounted in my Attic. The radio is simple to program via the microphone or from the radio itself. I made my own TNC cable for the RJ-45 connector. It's simple to work with, and dependable as can be. It definitely gets hot, but that never seems to have affected anything.
KC0IVY Rating: 2003-01-17
Truckers Radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Well folks, all I can tell you is that this is what I'd call a "bullet proof" radio. I have had this one in particular now for two years, and it's been mounted on the dash of a Peterbilt conventional, and running local work here in Denver. It's a short wheel base tractor, no sleeper, and I do BOUNCE around alot running over railroad tracks, in and out of the rail yards, and basically tearing the *&#@$ out of a truck in a rough duty environment, and this Icom has performed flawlessly. Despite the direct sunlight, freezing temps in the winter, and the covering of DUST that accumulates in the truck during the day. How good is it? I now have TWO MORE OF THEM. Dependable? You bet. Gene
HI8JSB Rating: 2002-12-12
It's so cute, exelente! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
After I picked up my radio from Store, I took it home, and immediately put it on a power supply to try it out, and press all the buttons. My first impression was a good one, with a very clear, easy to read display, good layout of buttons on the face of the radio, and delightfully button-filled microphone. The mic felt kind of cheezy and plastic compared to many hand mics I've held before, but that wasn't too surprising.

The physical makeup of the rig is good. The case is in two pieces as far as I can tell (haven't taken the cover off yet): the top is composed of a weighty heat-sink, and then there's a flat panel cover on the bottom with four machine screws in it -- I assume that's the service access. There is no fan on this radio, but Icom claims (from their web-site): "Usable Temperature Range: -10°C to +60°C; +14°F to +140°F". So, I assume it will survive quite nicely unless you live in a very hot area and transmit at high-power a lot.

The front-panel buttons (as you can see if you take a look at the picture Icom has on their web-site) are laid out differently from the IC-2000. In this new model, they're all directly under the LCD, and the labels are now *inside* the LCD, which allows you to read them when it's dark in your car or truck. The downside of this -- they're tiny labels! This radio may have large digits, but you'd better know which button does what by feel before you can do anything with them while driving. I have to get within a few inches to read them, and my mounting location is down near the base of the gearshift.

A note about the mic -- it has a plastic cover which snaps over the lower half of the unit, in order to cover up the DTMF keypad. It leaves the upper buttons (up, down, VFO, MR, "B" [more on that later], F-1 and F-2) exposed. I've discovered that this is actually my preferred operating position, since I rarely have any reason to adjust the radio much more than frequency or volume. However, that cover is not attached in any way, and would quickly get lost or broken if you take it off very much. But, on the plus side, you can operate almost all the functions of the radio from the mic, which is a real benefit since you can bring it right up to your face if you need to read the little labels.

A brief note on the "B" button. When I first got the radio, I was somewhat puzzled by it, since the manual just said "no function". I imagined it was probably for a function not enabled in this radio -- I was right as it turns out. This is the same microphone Icom uses for some dual-band mobiles, and that's the "band" button. There's something kind of neat about having a useless button that goes "beep" when you press it, though.

One interesting "bell" on this radio is the ability to change the backlighting color and intensity. The color can change from amber to green, and the intensity can be adjusted to any of four positions (from "bright" to "almost off"). I've found that level 2 (1-4 are available) works as an all-around level of brightness.

Once I finally got the radio into my car (it took a bit of engineering to fit it into the center console of my Toyota), and snaked the positive power lead out to the battery, I was set. I turned it on, and basically started operating. One thing I did which may be a new practice (I've never installed a mobile radio before, so I'm not sure) was to make the ground lead of the power connector as short as possible, and just run it to the first available chassis ground. According to Ray, KI7TN, at HRO, this reduces the amount of alternator noise drastically. As far as I can tell, it works fine. I've had no reports of alternator whine or popping. In my installation, "very short" means about 10 inches long, or about 3 inches past the inline fuse (there are fuses in both leads).

The controls, if you can remember what they do, are easy to locate without looking, and the large frequency/memory knob is quite good. It has detents so you can tell when you've moved one memory location or frequency step without staring at the display. The volume and squelch knobs are tiny, but easy enough to use. I would have preferred if they were a bit larger in diameter, for finer control, but their current setup seems adequate.

Using the microphone to control the radio seems pretty straightforward, as the most commonly used buttons (up, down, VFO, and MR) are quickly identifiable by feel. If you plan on using the DTMF or keypad controls very much, definitely take that little cover off, and leave it in the box. Although it'll keep you from bumping buttons accidentally, the chance of losing or breaking it is pretty great.

Receive audio is loud and clear, but some installations will suffer from the downward-firing speaker. The reports I've gotten about transmitted audio have been pretty good overall. The radio will put out 5, 10, or 55 watts of power, and I've been leaving it in the lowest setting for the most part (I do most of my driving in downtown, in easy 5W range of the repeaters I use).

Speaking of downtown, there's the intermod claim that Icom makes about these radios (IC-2000 and IC-2100). I don't have a lot of experience to draw upon, but this rig seems to do pretty well. I had previously been using my Yaesu FT-50 (with about 5 cables snaking from it) as a mobile, and it was paralyzed by intermod in about half the places I drive. This radio occasionally chirps the squelch in the worst parts of town, but seems otherwise unaffected. I wouldn't say it's the perfect radio against intermod from paging transmitters, but it's pretty darn good.

Since I bought this radio for mobile operations, there are a few things I haven't yet encountered. Notably, I haven't tried using this rig for packet. There is no mention of packet radio anywhere in the manual, and it looks to me (looking at the illustration of the RJ-45 mic connector in the manual) as though you'd have to construct a spider-web of a cable in order to get 1200 baud packet to work. Since there's no mention of packet, I assume the radio is entirely unsuited to 9600 baud, and I would recommend you find a more suitable radio for packet operations.

Finally, I wanted to mention this voltage problem I've been having. I first noticed it in the second radio I brought back from the store. When I plugged it into one power supply (neither of these are really "good" supplies for amateur radio, as I wasn't at home), it would work fine but not transmit (not enough power in the supply, only 2A or so). When I plugged it into another supply, with a bit more power, it wouldn't respond to the microphone controls at all! I eventually figured out that it was a voltage problem, and determined rather unscientifically that the cutoff voltage seemed to be 12.6 VDC. Above that point, it all worked fine. Below that point, the microphone stopped functioning, rendering it a "receiver only" radio. It also occasionally stuck in transmit mode if the voltage was too low.

I went back and tested the voltage again, after talking with Icom's tech support. I got some strange results: the cutoff voltage started at 12.38 VDC, and slowly crept up to 12.69 VDC as i repeated the test. I'll be bringing the radio in for tech support to look at on Monday (they claimed they've never seen one of these radios with this problem). I've received one other report of this problem from a list member, and the first radio I had suffered from it rather severely (since 12.7 volts wasn't enough for it).

Icom tech support says that the radio should be functional within +/- 15% of 13.8 VDC, which is about 11.75 to 15.85 volts. I'll be very interested to see what they have to say after they take a look at the radio.

Update: I've gotten the radio back from Icom, and they added a "factory update", which means, I believe, that they updated the control code for the CPU. If you have an early-serial number 2100, I strongly recommend that you send your radio to Icom for this modification, as the low voltage cutoff could prevent your radio from working in an emergency situation, such as when the engine of your car won't run, or when you are running low on battery power in any non-commercial-grid situation.

So, overall, I'd say the 2100 makes a fine mobile radio. If you want to have it available as an emergency radio for situations when you can't run the engine, check it with a variable-voltage supply or a fading battery before you count on it. I'm definitely happy with it, and will be happier if Icom can come up with a fix for the undervoltage problem, solidly built radio.

73 and play the game!
WA3KTZ Rating: 2002-12-07
Great Radio - Lousy ICOM Support Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am on my second radio, as the first one fried the finals out of warranty in September. The finals list at $56, but are 3-4 months backlogged. No one at ICOM could get me a part (despite the questionable wisdom on my part of wanting to replace a $60 part in a $140 radio). Th radio was useless without the part, and despite my anger at ICOM for failing to support the rig, I bought another on closeout for $140. I decided that I knew the rig well, really liked its design and features, and could use the broken radio as a spare parts bin should something go wrong with unit #2.

I travel all over, often in rental vehicles, and I use the 2100H in all these vehicles (with a cigar lighter adapter - and without any noise problems thus far) and a Radio Shack 2 M mag mount 5/8 wave antenna. Unit performs very well, with mobile performance in NJ/PA of 100 miles to repeater under select conditions.

Manual is too confusing often times, so patience is needed when learning to program (write your own cheat sheet once you figure it out and ignore the manual after that).

My frustration with ICOM will result in my purchase of a Yaesu FT-100D as opposed to ICOM's 706. Great product with poor support = lost customers!
KB1DFD Rating: 2002-11-18
Best radio yet! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I'm not gonna be wordy here because theres about 200 other reviews on this radio, but lets just say its the best piece of equipment I have come accross yet. This radio is simple to use, has a surprising amount of features, and is RUGGED. I have literally made smoke pour out of this radio (ok so maybe I wired that microphone wrong, we've all done it once) and the thing still works flawlessly. I could have sworn I would have had to buy a new radio after that experiance, nope. All in all a great rig.
K1ACK Rating: 2002-11-12
I bought 5! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was surfing thru the AES website and saw this for $129.95 closeout. We had some new hams on the island so I thought what the heck, and ordered 5. At that price you cant go wrong.
I've been more and more of an Icom fan in recent years because every Kenwood but one (TR-2500 HT, I sold it, it still works) had problems, and Yaesu has Horrible ZERO qualtiy control lately, just amazing the garbage they let out the door, then leave it to YOU to discover the bugs. Well I
had no problem in getting "rid" of 4 of the radios (kept one for myself, of course), and all are happy. Amazing what you can get for $150 in a radio these days, remember those $350 radios with NO memories, let alone 113? Anyway it runs great, scans great (with ctcss---listening yaesu?) I dont think you can get it for 129 anymore, maybe 150 (still worth it) or you can get the one with the new mic (whats the diff?). Absolutely rock solid, its like a brick! 5 out of 5.