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Reviews For: Icom IC-208H

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

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Review Summary For : Icom IC-208H
Reviews: 137MSRP: 319.95
Description:
2M / 70cm mobile with 55 watt VHF and 50 watt UHF xmtr. CTCSS/DCS encode and decode, tone scan, detachable and remotable control head, 500 ALPHA-NUMERIC memories, etc
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
151374.4
KI6BIG Rating: 2007-04-19
First radio - Great choice! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is the first radio I used and have to say I love it so far! I've had it for just about a year and finally got it instll in my Jeep about a month ago. I've had nothing but praise on the sound quality from other hams.

Pros are the remote head and that it COMES WITH the separation cable
Con would be that there should be a remote mount with a quick release feature for the faceplate.
VE3QJ Rating: 2007-04-13
compact and user friendly Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Easy to program IF you follow the directions.
Compact.
Included seperation cable is nice.
A bargain at $369.00 Canadian.
Purchased based (in part) on the merits given on this website, which i have found to be very reliable.
Great first vhf/uhf rig.
W4AMP Rating: 2007-03-11
Thumbs up! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had it over a year and no problems at all. Run as a base the 50 watts on UHF is a big plus. No audio problems, easy menu, and good receiver. Best dual band out there for 240$
former_N8PB Rating: 2007-03-05
Crossband? No! However.... Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased the IC-208H because of its price and features. It would have been nice if Crossband operation were possible as I would have liked to try some Satellite FM repeaters.

Then the thought struck me.

I decided to program the Downlink and Uplink frequencies of AO-51 into adjacent memory channels. When the bird came over the horizon, I simply toggled memory channel frequecies with the microphone; the uplink channel when transmitting, then the downlink channel when receiving. I was pleasantly surprized at the success of my first attempt!

Maybe the IC-208H doesn't include the duplex crossband feature, but there's no reason why we cannot enjoy satellite access.

WD0FIA Rating: 2007-01-11
Great price and value! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Bought mine for $259 from R and L BEFORE the $20 mail in rebate. A dual band 500 channel radio, WITH a separation cable, for only $239! Receive audio is great. Transmit audio is average at best with stock mic. A Heil headset mic from my 706 changed that!

Skip the programming software unless you plan to clone. CS-208 software is time consuming, manual entry is just as fast.
KC4YLV Rating: 2007-01-05
Not a shabby rig! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Picked my 208H up off ebay for 175 - a good deal. No sep cable in the deal, but the seller found it and mailed it to me later, anyways.

My previous 2m rigs have been a Kenwood TR-7800 (a tank) and an Alinco DR-119 (a piece). I wanted dual band as 440 is active in my area, and extended receive so I can listen in to 800 MHz.

208H handles all these duties quite nicely. The memory banks are nice, I have my local trunked system in a group (with control channel locked out), local sheriff/EMS/fire, air freqs and business all in a second group, and all my ham stuff in the third. It lets me just scan/tune what I want to listen to.

TX audio out of the box is crap. I was having to holler to match up with other guys' HT's. Took the mic apart and opened the mic aperture to about 3/16" and cut the plastic shield out from behind it. It's better, but I'm still going to hook up an external mic and a preamp circuit.

Radio gets out well, receives well. Attenuator is NICE. Really helps cut down overload.

I wish the 'amber' and 'yellow' LCD colors were more different, but it's no big deal in the end. The green backlight matches my IC-735 nicely.

G0RRL Rating: 2006-12-19
so far so good Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
My AT-600 was getting on .. so i decided to try & replace it with another dualband handheld. i opted on one of the new wideband transcievers. well on hooking it up to my outside dipole & trying a quick contact to my mate about 6 miles away i was very dissapointed in the reception.
ENTER THE IC-E208!! i returned the radio to the shop & the guy was really good about it. He let me change it for this ICOM E208. i really wanted a handheld .. but i decided that most these days had wideband rx. the 208 still covers a fair bit of the band. i like listening to the airband mostly .. but am a little dissapointed that the rx only goes down to 118mhz!! strange. I wish it just covered 108 - 600mhz & not the 900mhz band.
so far in programming the memories on air fqys ive found this front end to be about the best ive ever had.
ive had dedicated airband rxs here & not heard the sigs as clear!! the 208 really is the best ive heard. the capture is very good & the noise level on all sigs is extremely quiet. the ham bands here are quite dead compared to a few years ago but still some simplex activity. i would estimate im hearing a good 60+miles using a very basic dipole at 35ft. i cant vouch for the uhf bands .. ive scanned on the uhf air & 446pmr band & heard nothing !??
70cms seems ok but to be fair i cant compare it.
VERDICT: All in all i really only wanted 2mtrs 70cms .. & a good airband so i would recommend this. i cant hear any crossmod across air like i
ive heard on past rx/transcievers.
our local BBC transmitter seems to be a good test .. it creeps in everywhere. my R5 scanner suffers really bad with strong signals.
Ive only owned the radio a short while but found it easy to use .. in fact in the shop it was almost second nature to use this. as with all menus theres always something confussing. the alfa-tag im not sure about as unlike my at-600 u cant switch the name func on-off for ALL with one button! .. & the scan settings can get confussing.
The Squelch & RF att in one is brilliant.
I think radios can be ruined by too many gadgets. this one is pretty simple but my one has a great front end .. i would buy it again just for that.
well done icom.
VE3JXF Rating: 2006-11-11
Great Rig, Reliable, Powerful... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've owned and operated this rig from my sailboat for 2 seasons (May-Oct) and it stays aboard for the cold Canadian winters! I have only good things to say about it! I have a J-pole mounted about 10ft above the water off the stern and regularly talk with inland mobiles on the other side of Lake Ontario about 50 miles away from the dock, or while underway. It's a simple radio to operate, but I do have a cheat sheet for which buttons to push to add tones etc. It's not intuitive (to me), but it's not difficult either. The marine band mod (mods.dk) is really great to back-up my marine VHF too. I mounted the unit under my nav table and use the built in speaker - great sound & I've not been bothered by fan noise like some have reported. It's a great radio & has an easily mounted remote head! The multi-band receive is great too. Receiving ATIS weather from the Island Airport is a real bonus - I have a lot of visitors to the boat on race nights to hear about the wind! - I'd rate this a 6 if it had tapped holes in the remote head for mounting... I'm very pleased. It's really a well priced great rig.
KE4IOK Rating: 2006-08-19
Great value! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Great radio with a great microphone. I would prefer the tuning dial on the right side, but no problem otherwise. Setting a priority channel does cause clipping of some transmissions (discussed here by others), so turn it off. Forget the fan noise - that's how I know it is working! I'm a big Yaesu fan, but this ICOM is a winner!
N1RIK Rating: 2006-08-17
Best Bang 4 The Buck!! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This has so far been the best mobile rig I've ever owned. I love the Beefy 50-watts on UHF. The rig turns my Lumina and my Larsen 2/70C into a mobile base station. Receive is very hot. So far I've had nothing but good audio reports, and I haven't gone into the settings to change my audio. The one thing I have done was made the hole a bit wider on the mic opening, and removed the rubber there. I was going to go with a mobile with crossband repeater, however after experiencing this rig, I'll take the 55/50watts over that feature. The $299.95 price tag was tolerable, and the $20 Icom rebate was a bonus. I like having the seperation cable, because it allows me to keep my radio under my seat with the control head velcroed to my dash. For simplicity to keep it hidden, at night I unplug my remote head and microphone. Having the radio under the seat causes the speaker audio to be muffled, so I use a Radio Shack external speaker which gives plenty of audio. The fan noise is not a problem at all. Great rig, I recommend it to everyone. $299.95 doesn't break the bank!