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Reviews For: Icom IC-2725E

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

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Review Summary For : Icom IC-2725E
Reviews: 14MSRP: £349.00
Description:
Dual Band FM Transceiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.icomuk.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00143.6
M1EAR Rating: 2019-10-25
Not great for an Icom Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Had mine for a few years, it developed a power output issue four years ago and I had it sorted at Castle Electronics and it's still working apart from its very noisy fan which has bothered me for five plus years. So today I replaced the original fan with the Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX premium fan which comes with a six year manufacturer's warranty. The difference is amazingly quiet to the original.
M6JBM Rating: 2012-04-21
NICE LITTLE RADIO Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This icom is a fantastic transeiver not great on the weaker signals but apart from that its great.
The audio is loud and punchy and the 50w you will poss never use i use the low 5w into derby from northwest leicester and i can talk to a good friend of mine and i am on full scale on his ft7900 this was on simplex 145.350 i alway get hold of him and if there is any local qrm/b then i got to the 25w level and yes i am a 2e0 so i can run this power m6jbm is my old callsign just thought i would add this!
I have not had any problems with the radio is great well worth the money i paid and would buy another.
yaesu may have the edge on power on some radio's but on audio well that for the taste of the operator using it.
All i can say is every op that has heard me on has stated woow man that loud but good!!!!
IW2CKM Rating: 2011-03-17
Why not alphanumeric memory ? Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought this radio used and are very happy.
I like:
- true dual-band, simple, no gadgets
- cross band very useful in emergency conditions
- receiver sensitivity on amateur radio frequencies (VHF-UHF) and air band
- simple and clear LCD display
- clear audio
- very strong aluminum box
- good distribution on the front panel controls

Unfortunately, the memory is short and not alphanumeric.
The texts of the buttons are too small and also the microphone (too many controls on it).
I recommend this radio for your car.
G0NIG Rating: 2010-07-06
Some Breakthrough, not enought to concern me. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've had this radio for about a month. It was bought used but in as near new condition as anyone could wish for. The purchase was for the car, up until now I'd been using a dualband handheld.

Things I really like:

The very clear and easy to read display.
Received Audio.
Transmit audio reports.
Sensitivity.
Ease of use.
Ease of installation.

Things I don't like:

Occassional breakthrough
No alpha tagging of memories
No ability to assign different memories to the two individual VFO's.

The receiver coverage is quite good and easily
resolve the pirate activity on the Fleetsatcom
downlinks on P-Band. The separation cable that
is supplied is a joke, being only 15cm or so in lenght. I made my own 10m cable for a couple of pence so the radio is mounted in the boot and the control head is within easy reach.

For a simple to use true dualband / dual receive radio I think mine was excellent value for money

Regards

GW0JLX Rating: 2009-05-04
Excellent Radio ! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Well, I have 3 of these rigs in a variety of vehicles and until 23rd April 2009, they have behaved flawlessly, real workhorses, used and abused. In and out of hire cars, trucks, landrovers, etc, and not so much as a twitch.

The different configurations offered by the head position are very useful, and the biggest problem was getting hold of the right bits to make a couple of long separation cables !

The only other problem I've had is a problem with the RF output which manifested itself very quickly one day on the way home - suddenly no Tx output, although all the indications were normal on the control unit, which made me think it was probably a PA or driver fault.

Getting the rig on the bench and stripping it was a feat (glad I had the service manual as a .pdf to refer to) and after a few moments with a soldering iron removing RF shielding to extract the main unit PCB from the casting, found Q25 (2SK3075 - PA driver) blown. Q25 is a surface mount power FET that provides a few watts of RF to the main PA, so can be replaced with the right tools without having to go make a trip to a dealer. I was a tad disturbed by the apparent lack of much (if any) heatsink compound between the very well built chassis and the two power devices' heatsinks, but that can be fixed now it's open.

Not a task for the fainthearted - open one of these babys only if you have the tools and experience (incl all the ESD kit) to do the job. Most of the components are surface mount types.

Supply sources are also becoming an issue as this particular radio is becoming obsolete !

Does beg the question about life of these types of rig. But, for sheer performance to date, and lack of hassle, I rate this radio 5/5.

73 de Andy, GØJLX
M0ZOL Rating: 2008-12-29
fantastic Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Just one more about the pager noise :
Well i have experienced it once or twice in the mobile covering from London-Cardiff-Bournemouth-Lands end ,So over the whole south west i have enjoyed this radio,Now it lives in the shack and the IC-E208 lives in the mobile, i used to be a Yaesu fan but i had more problems with intermods and pagers games stations etc etc with a FT-7800 i had to delite several memories such as one in particular 145.712.5 that the yaesu always stopped on anywhere with any houses.
To summarise The Icom stays cool ,works well with no interference ,and i'm in a built up area.

----------------------
Earlier 5-star review posted by M0ZOL on 2008-12-29

A well thoght out radio , operation is by far the best i have used,compaired to say a similar Yaesu FT-8800 i found that now with this radio iv'e been spoilt with seperate knobs each for volume and squelch on both sides of the radio not like any other radio that has the fiddly inner and outer knobs.the radio has been split down the middle with control of each side seperatly.No hyper memories like all the stupid features that are used to sell radios as in the Yaesu's.
The HM-133 now this is such a clever microphone and all radio control is on the keypad ,seems too much for some that have not even put the radio thru its paces . I also use the IC-E208 with the same mic in the mobile and its fantastic for operation when your vehicle is in motion.
Put it this way i would never now buy any Yaesu over the well made Icom.Would love to try out the new 2820 one day
G0DOQ Rating: 2008-06-23
poor front end transmit good Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Pity about the recieve because I'm really pleased with the transmit. Heavy chassis and heatsink, powerful fan. It puts out 50 watts of good audio and does not overheat with a long waffle. so239 socket so no fiddly n connectors is another thing I like, wich I think is good for 70cms. Worth getting if you live far enough away from an antenna mast.
G1YRV Rating: 2006-08-14
Another dud from Icom Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Oh dear Icom have done it again!.Sadly my findings with this set echoe everybody else's.This set suffers cronic intermod and blocking from any in or out of band strong signals where other manufactures radio's will take it in their stride.Unless you live on a island miles from anywhere, don't consider this set at all. Sadly this is not an new problem with Icom radios, having only owned a few over the years and have been bitterly dissapointed. Designed to look good but no thought to recieve performance what so ever. I took the plunge thinking (wrongly) that Icom may have got their act together...oh dear!
You have been warned.
G4KPB Rating: 2004-11-16
Not too good unfortunately. Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
There have been many reviews of this radio, check the USA version (IC-2720) for more of the same. The radio suffers tragically from the intermod/pager problems and I still find this completely unacceptable from ICOM to produce and supply such a poor shed of a radio. I will never buy another ICOM and will stick to KENWOOD from now on. I could go on and on...but there is no point when everything has already been said (IC-2720) elsewhere. The bottom line is to leave well alone.....pay the extra and own a Kenwood V7E....I will continue to use the ICOM because I have got used to its problems, but if I get the chance to replace with either a FT8900, Kenwood V7E...etc...I WILL:-)...lol. HTH?..Bye for now. Darren G4KPB.
2E0DNP Rating: 2003-11-07
ic-2725 Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The radio is a nice looking .... easy to use but Does suffer pager problems ON RX....band pass Filter solved that ....