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Reviews For: Azden PCS-4000

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

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Review Summary For : Azden PCS-4000
Reviews: 5MSRP:
Description:
25W 2m FM mobile transceiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0053.8
WA3LWR Rating: 2014-05-01
Decent radio Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
As others have noted, the radio is very similar to the Yaesu 8800' dual band. The audio is fine, receiver sensitivity is good. The only part I dislike is the filtering. Get a lot of interference and with the electronic squelch, it is hard to adjust. For the money it is not a bad deal.
LA2YUA Rating: 2013-06-16
Solid but quirky VHF Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this used for next to nothing, after doing a tiny bit of adjustment it's working pretty well as my mobile rig. The previous owner replaced the Ni-Cad battery with a Ni-Mh so no worries about losing the memories when turning it off. A 1F supercap would maintain memory for a few days, should the Ni-Mh battery fail in the future.

It has had some issues with the program memory being corrupted when I turn the ignition on that I've had to work around with no real solution, it's always the same pattern. The real problem is that it will then be stuck at 145.005 MHz and there's no way to remove that extra 5 kHz using the front panel buttons meaning I have to open the unit up and disconnect the battery.

I also don't care for the user interface wrt. how the buttons work in channel vs. VFO mode. In channel mode pushing up will increment the channel, but for some reason pushing down will put you into VFO mode and there's no easy way to get back using the hand-mic buttons. There's no lock for those buttons which are fairly easy to push by accident.

The low-power mode seems to be extremely temperature sensitive in my copy, varying from ~1W at the start of a transmission and climbing to about 5W after about a minute. I suspect the design is flawed here.

Receiver performs well, it works well enough as a 16 channel scanner, but the scan mode is only timeout based, no carrier-out like on modern radios.

Over all the user interface is slightly quirky but simple to use while driving, no complicated menus, just a button for each function. I modified mine to work with narrow-band channels, converting the scan-mode button to select wide/narrow deviation.
KD5KFL Rating: 2011-01-15
not for APRS Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
not a complaint, just a heads up: reverts to 145.00 when power removed. not useable as an APRS radio because you can't be sure it's on 144.39 when you power it up.
KD2JF Rating: 2004-05-25
Solid, reliable Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've owned this rig since I was first licensed in the mid-80's. It never failed, always worked. I remember seeing it for the first time in my friends car. I had to own one. That colorful display still blows people away. I added a tone board in the early 90's. I had in my 94 Honda civic glove compartment for 7 years, no problem. I replaced the memory battery twice. I've used it as a "Repeater link" set-up in the mid 90's from my house. I've used it on packet. Azden is underappriciated in general. Lets see, yup owned this puppy for 20 years now. Its a keeper!
G4IRX Rating: 2003-10-28
Reliable workhorse Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I picked mine up from a swap with a friend.

25W FM on 2m from early 1980's, 12.5kHz steps.

Better than other 2m rigs of that era.
Mainly used for a 2m access port for a packet radio mailbox for 2 years constant service, then good performance when used on voice. Stood up to harsh use as a mobile rig.

Only one minor problem - an intermittent loss of TX due to dry joint in the driver stages.
Still own and use occasionally.