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Reviews For: Alinco DR-605TQ

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

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Review Summary For : Alinco DR-605TQ
Reviews: 62MSRP: 339.99
Description:
2 Meter/440 FM Mobile/Base Radio
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.alinco.com/usa.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00624.1
KA2UUP Rating: 2004-08-30
3 years and no problems Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Use it mainly for packet and ISS work with a Diamond vertical antenna. No heat issues apparent since unit is not mounted where circulation may be a problem.
W9GDH Rating: 2004-08-30
SIMPLE Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Have two. One at home and one in SUV.
Have had both over 7 years. Both have worked fine.
Only gripe is that some times while mobile I will
be monitoring my repeaters. One on 2 meters and the other on 70 cm. I will tx on the wrong band because the indicator (MAIN) is the same size and color as all of the other indicators and I will not see that I'am in the wrong band.
Very good intermod reject.
KF4NZV Rating: 2004-07-28
Excellent radio for money Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Great out of the box and get talking radio. I love the seperate tone control for rx and tx!! GREAT feature.(would like to see more mfgs.doing the same) Would like to see more controls from mic. Direct frequency input would be great. The radio does tend to get a little warm with long QSO's but I haven't had any problems. I recommend this radio to anyone who is looking for a simple to operate, affordable and dependable rig.
KB3JNR Rating: 2004-07-12
Decent Little Rig Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Bought mine used from a friend. Programs easily, even if you can't do direct entry from the mic.

The thing that troubled me about this rig was how very hot it gets. More than enough heatsink, but just not enough circulation to get the desired cooling. Fixed it with a 12v brushless case fan wired to a switch.

The display does dim on TX, which makes it less than optimal unless in a running mobile or on a powersupply.

Truth be told, I'd buy another just to have a spare.
WO4C Rating: 2004-04-27
Not bad for the price Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A five because I have had and run the rig mobile for over two years with no problems whatsoever. Seems to weather the cold and heat quite well. Most radios go screwy when starting the engine with the radio on (like the FT100 mounted above it) but not this one. Mine's a little hot on the audio - a problem that's easily eliminated by trimming the pot a little - if one desires... I just hold the mic about ten inches away and it works ok. Never thought too highly of Alinco (for no reason) but this one has changed my mind. Would recommend the radio.
KG4YJR Rating: 2003-11-04
Good radio for the price. Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
What I like the most about this radio is that it doesn't come with hundreds of useless features all hidden in sub-menus that are in sub-menus. Pretty much a turn on, push to talk radio. I've gotten good audio reports and the radio seems to be built with high quality components. I would have given the radio a 5 but it doesn't have auto-offsets, a simple and helpful feature that to me seems like a must have for a mobile rig and this is the first radio I've owned that didn't have that option.
I still like the radio a lot and I'm getting a second one to use as a base station.
K7LTC Rating: 2003-09-03
Fair Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had the radio for over a year and it is now on its way to the repair facility in Ohio. I use it primarily in dual band operation in order to talk to a local repeater as I work in my garage or around the house. To hit the repeater, I have to use high power on the 2M side. This means I have to use high power on the UHF side as well and that is not what I originally wanted to do. Had I known about the linked power setting, I would have purchased another radio. As it is, the heat has damaged the final amp on the 2M side, even with dual fans running on top of the radio. Hopefully, it won't cost too much to repair.
N3NDW Rating: 2003-08-07
Not too bad Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This was the first dual bander I had and liked the cross-band feature. I got good reports from everyone I had a contact with. My radio had 3 problems that I didn't like.
1.The speaker world vibrate if I had the volume turned up while driving.
2. If I left the radio on when I got out of my truck, when I came back to the truck I would find the squelch open and the radio was locked up. I would have to power it down to free it up.
3. I was running 10 guage wire directly to the battery from the radio, and would notice that the display light would dim on xmit when the truck was not running. If I started the truck, it did not do that. I have my current DX70th wired on the same line and don't have a problem.
Did the radio get hot when transmitting? Yes, all of the radios I have had get hot, even my HTX202. I guess those little transistors get hot when excited.

Other than that, its a good radio. I sold mine, because I was trying to do cross band repeat at the extreme limit of the radio, and it didn't have much output at 469Mhz. It wasn't designed to do that and I realise that, but it was worth the try.
VE3UUM Rating: 2003-05-17
It works as advertised but... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A very good functioning radio. Does work as advertised and as a day to day rig is relatively simple unit to use. This is a great plus in EmComm as the rig may be used by many hams at a location and if it's simple to use, it's used by everyone.

Minor annoyances:

- Needs a chassis RF connector instead of a pigtail. Manufacturers shoud ditch the vulnerable pigtail.

- Squelch should be on a seperate pot for each band. Digital squelch controls are a pain.

- Should have seperate power settings for each band for crossband repeat.
N9ADR Rating: 2003-05-17
Horrible Rig Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently bought a DR-605TQ. Horrible rig. I got it because I needed a dual band rig that could do cross band repeat.

You can't do direct frequnecy entry from the mic, which a lot of FM rigs give you the capability to do so. There is no automatic repeater shift, and you can't adjust the shift from the microphone. There are only two power settings, 5 and 50/35, high and low, what a selection.

You can not set individual power settings for each band, so you're either running low or high power while you're cross banding. Just running 5 watts while cross banding, the rig gets so hot you can't touch it. Even havging a couple of fans blowing across the heat sink does not aid this problem. After cross banding for a while the audio starts to cut in and out and it is impossible to use.

Don't waste your money.