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Reviews For: www.batteriesamerica.com

Category: Batteries & Chargers for Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : www.batteriesamerica.com
Reviews: 63MSRP:
Description:
Wide selection of HT batteries and accessories. Great service. I give them a 5/5
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.batteriesamerica.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00633.2
N6PSE Rating: 2008-02-02
Excellent to deal with. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've bought hard to find cell phone batteries as well as IC-T81 batteries from them.

Good fast service. No problems.
N6VQZ Rating: 2007-12-13
poor performance Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
no shipment, phone lady has poor manners, refused to allow me to talk with supervisor. batteries america isn't what america is about.
K6SDW Rating: 2007-09-18
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Most Excellent!
KD4ACG Rating: 2007-08-04
Good experience with Kenwood Products Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've made all of my purchases from their hamfest booths (Dayton twice, Orlando once). The purchases included two batteries for a Kenwood TH-D7A (one is 7.2v/1800mAh, the other is 9.6v/1450mAh), and the drop-in charger.

Both batteries are leaps and bounds better than the 9.6/600 NiCd battery that Kenwood packages with the HT--a very inadequate choice for such a robust radio. Battery life is easily 2-3 times that of the NiCd counterpart. My oldest purchase from them is the 7.2v pack, and after a year of active use, it still performs well. I purchased the 9.6 pack at Dayton to get the full 5 watts output, and it delivers that well. Both batteries were reasonably priced, with "hamfest pricing" in the 40-dollar range for each pack. As with other batteries reported here, they have the fit, feel and look of the original equipment.

The charger (model number not known at this time) is a no-nonsense drop-in charger with standard and rapid charge rates. Unlike the other aftermarket chargers I've seen, this is a "plug-in-and-go" device...no cumbersome adapter plates, no mods, no conversions needed. It charges both batteries in a reasonable time (no more than 5 hours for even the highest capacity battery from a full discharge). My only concern is the power adapter. There's nothing wrong now (and I don't expect one), but it's a 24-volt DC adapter, and should something go wrong, they may not be readily available locally to replace.

For my needs, the products are of good quality. The staff knew the products well, and answered all of my questions. I have not had any post-sale issues.

I would purchase from them again.
K2GT Rating: 2007-06-15
Good News and Bad News Time Owned: more than 12 months.
The bad news....The battery I bought for my TH-F6A at Dayton last year only worked about a day before it stopped holding a charge. Too much trouble and expense to send it back from Canada, so in the junk drawer it went.
The good news...Took it with me to Dayton this year, brought it to the booth (no receipt, just the story above) and was handed a replacement. The new one is great. Score 1 for decent customer service.
K8KET Rating: 2007-06-03
Good packs but overpriced shipping Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought three BP-173x batteries for my Icom radios. These are great batteries and at $56 each, they are better than twice the capacity and half the price of OEM packs. I purchased one with a quick-charger a few years ago and haven't used the stock Icom pack since. Fit and finish is virtually indistinguishable from the OEM packs, they have a slow-charge jack built in, and they last all day with reasonable use.

That said, be prepared to be brutalized for shipping...$20 to ship three packs via USPS Priority Mail. This is about double what it actually cost them to ship.

They were also very slow to hand off to the shipper. The package took seven days to get to me. Only two days was shipping time. Why offer expedited shipping options if you don't get around to shipping it for five days?

Maybe my expectations are out of whack but my expectation for in-stock items is that it will be shipped the same day or the next day at the latest. Not five days later.

I'd give BatteriesAmerica 5/5 for the outstanding pack quality/value (which is the most important part), but I have to ding them for the slow and overpriced shipping.

Playing games with low prices and then raping your customers on shipping is not good business. Just charge $3.00 more for each pack and ship for free.
KT0DD Rating: 2005-12-02
Cavaeat Emptor Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Bought the 3600 lithion Ion replacement battery for the Kenwood TF6A-- it's Junk. It does not charge properly. Batteries America does not inform you ahead of time about this. We're stuck with the " High Dollar" Kenwood Repllacement only. 73.
W9DML Rating: 2005-10-23
excellent company Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have been purchasing from this company for over 3 years, a few problems and they were corrected within minutes. Yes minutes. A POLITE phone call to the office resulted in instant response and service. Most of my orders were for brand new equipment or really old stuff. All were taken care of by Mr. Yost. don't know of a better company to do business with!

daVe

W9DML
KG0WX Rating: 2005-08-14
Problems? Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just bought a group package with a Yaesu FT-51R and 7 batteries. 2 W&W batteries, 2 Batteries America batteries and 3 Yaesu batteries. The Yaesu batteries were dead. The B.A. units worked but felt MUCH lighter than the other packs.

The FT-51R can detect which battery is hooked up and here is where I found a problem. All the batteries should detect as FNB-38 as they all are 9.6v.

The W&W packs were detected as FNB-38 which is correct. The B.A. packs were either FBA-14 (which is a dry cell case) or a FNB-31 (that's a 4.8v 600maH pack). I don't think the FT-51R detects based on voltage because all the working packs were +/- 5% of each other. Yaesu must be using a resistor in the 4 pin hookup to the radio to detect the pack type.

Either way, the B.A. packs don't register right plus one seems to lose a cell after it uses about 10% of it's capacity. The voltage will be stable for awhile, then drop about 1.2v and then remain there for hours until the pack runs empty.

I ran several checks on Yaesu's detection system and all the batteries read the same despite how full they were. Must be a diode or a cap or something in the pack that tells the HT which pack is in use.

Based on what others have wrote here, I'll keep the B.A. packs until they croak but I'll also keep a W&W pack within reach. It sounds like B.A. is the MFJ of batteries.....

On the plus side, I do have the B.A. BC-601 drop in quick charger and it seems to work FB otherwise this review would be a 0/5.

Next time I want a battery, I'll buy from W&W.

Ken KG0WX
KG4YJR Rating: 2005-07-16
Improved/Faster Internet Ordering Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I placed an internet order on a Sunday (my 4th or 5th www.batteriesamerica.com purchase) and it was at my door by Wednesday. One thing I've always liked about their factory replacement batteries is the color and the texture always matches the original equipment and the original battery. Not a smooth battery against a course radio case or a lighter or darker colored battery than the original. The fit has always been good too with several different models I've bought. None that had to be forced in or any that fitted loosely. I still have some batteries from them that I've had for two years now and they still hold a charge as good as when they were new. I've never had a defective or low quality battery sent to me from them either.
Note: The "more than 12 months" applies to all my purchases.