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Reviews For: Kenwood TM-201B

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

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Review Summary For : Kenwood TM-201B
Reviews: 5MSRP:
Description:
144.000 to 147.995Mhz FM Transceiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
1554.8
WD0DQN Rating: 2023-02-28
Functioning great after 30 years ! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I used the 201B regularly for about 10 years. In 2002 I moved from the City to Rural Missouri. In building my home I set it up with a 10 ft. Tripod on the roof. In the mean time my 201B was in storage. I finally (after 20 years) got around to putting up my antenna and unpacked my 201B. It worked just fine. I didn't have to replace the memory battery which was suggested. That's when I found I needed tones to access most repeaters. Tones were not prevalent 20 years ago. I contacted Kenwood and their TU-3 tone board was no longer available. Fortunately, PIEXX had their replacement board available. I ordered one and installed it. Everything worked just fine. I am happy with my 201B Kenwood.
KC4YLV Rating: 2015-11-14
Neat old mini-rig! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I actually have the TM-201A but there's not enough material difference, so I'll roll it in here.

Picked one of these up at a hamfest for a couple bucks as i'm addicted to mobile rigs. What a classy little radio! The UI is goofy as far as the dual-function buttons, but it's easily enough figured out - and I suspect most of them are living out their days as packet rigs so who cares about that?

Good audio in and out (no speaker on the 201s, but that's fine in so many siuations), very good RX and great old school LED display. Really visible at night!

Solid power output - 6 watts on low, looks like about a surprising 33 on high.

PL tones are hackable - if you can make an oscillator, you can put an encoder in it. However, i probably wouldn't run this as a main rig but if you need a little packet or APRS radio that will run forever, you could do worse than by throwing $25 at one of these at a hamfest.
AE5J Rating: 2011-10-27
Great older rigs Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I own the 201B and the 401A (matching UHF) rigs. I bought these when they were new. The 401 came with two brackets, one for each side, to join to the 201 giving VHF/UHF in a convenient package.

These are both solid radios. The major problem today is tone access requiring installation of a board. I put a board in the 201 shortly after purchasing it and it is accessible from the outside of the case via a carefully cut hole. The 401 has an internal board making changing the tones more difficult. This isn't a problem for me as almost all the UHF repeaters use 162.2 access.

These are great old radios, albeit only 6 channels. You don't need a lengthy manual to program them and there are NO menus! Just solid equipment. The biggest drawback is needing two external speakers. (I have been too lazy to build a mixer box.) If you can find one at a good price, they are well worth a second look.
73
Pete
W2FDH Rating: 2007-11-16
Great Radio! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is a really great radio. I purchased mine to use specifically for APRS and the radio has worked flawlessly.

73 de Frank/KB2VYZ
N1UMJ Rating: 2006-04-12
Good radio still Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got a great deal on this radio and decided to pick it up. I was looking for a backup/skywarn use radio. While I chose not to use it for that due to the PL tone board only allowing for 1 tone at a time, 2 if I can find the optional second board, I played with it for a few days, loved it and it has a very hot receiver so I put it on packet. It's a keeper. My backup voice radio was on packet so now I have that back and this kenwood 201B is on packet and doing the job as good as anything I've used. It hears great and I had great reports on it while using it on voice where I could. It's very simple to use, I didn't even need to look at the manual and I set it up how I wanted. It's nice and solid too. It doesn't have a built in speaker but it will take almost any standard communications speaker and where I have this on packet, I didn't need a speaker anyway.