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Reviews For: Azden PCS-4500

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

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Review Summary For : Azden PCS-4500
Reviews: 2MSRP:
Description:
10W 6m FM mobile transceiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0025
VR2XMQ Rating: 2003-10-02
Good Rig, one of the better 6M FM radios Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Nice compact design for a 6M FM mobile radio with 10 watts output.

The frequency adjustments take a bit of getting used to, the up/down microphone helps. Once you are accustomed to the keyboard entry controls, it is a delight to operate.

I like this one I like the most out of all my 6M FM mobiles.

Steve Sebastian Beesley - VR2XMQ
KU4QD Rating: 2003-04-29
Good, small 6m FM rig. Lots of fun. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I saw this show up on the list of reviews here on eHam and it brought back some very good memories. I used to have an Azden PCS-4500 in the car and I loved the little thing. The local 6m repeaters were mostly quiet, but during good Es openings I made some amazing contacts both simplex on 52.525 and through distant repeaters.

The rig was very small back then, and is still pretty small even today. Output is 10W on high power, 1W on low power. A tone encoder board was an optional item, and is probably a must in today's world. Both transmit and receive audio were quite good.

The PCS-4xxx series was a bit quirky in the way they tuned. There was no VFO knob--everything was done from the keyboard or the mic. It took some getting used to, particularly back then before that was more common. Another quirk was the fact that the rig uses a solder-in NiCad battery to retain memories, and those inevitably need to be replaced. It took a fair amount of disassembly to do that if memory serves.

Still, all in all, I am not sure newer monoband 6m FM mobile rigs are any better than this one. I traded mine (along with a PCS-4800 and PCS-4000) off for an Icom IC-730 which proved to be problematic. I regretted that trade very quickly. If you find one of these at a good price by all means buy it and have some fun. There isn't a lot of 6m FM activity anywhere I've lived, but during band openings you will have a blast.