| N7ANL |
Rating:     |
2007-12-31 | |
| Intermod, DV & APRS comments |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
This comment string began with a complaint from a new user of the DR635T, who had some troubles getting his Packet/APRS option board to work right for him. Another comment, 3rd down the list, claims to have bought the digital voice module by the same number as the first commenter, and was mistakenly disappointed his DV module won't decode the "commercial" APCO-25 format, even calling it "APCO28". C'mon folks, wake up.
My response here is not a review of the radio, but instead is a review of a few of the comments.
First, there are TWO optional modules for this and the other Alinco mobiles, ONE is a packet/APRS TNC board, and the SECOND is a DV or Digital Voice module. I can not speak for either unit, but am simply pointing out the comments are mixed up here.
As an alternative, hams should know there is an aftermarket (not Alinco's) TNC board that can dropped into the Alinco radios for the packet/APRS TNC feature, which may be a better choice, I don't know. Look for it on QRZ as they have a banner ad at the top of the QRZ page. Maybe it's a better choice for packet/APRS than the stock Alinco board.
The other Alinco option is an Alinco Digital Voice module, which uses a "ham specific" digitized voice decoding format, and it does NOT do the APCO-25 commercial DV format. Would be nice if it did, but these are two different formats in the industry, so that's just how it is. This is not Alinco's fault. Icom & Kenwood's new "DV" radios are also on the ham specific DV format and do not do APCO-25 either.
A point many may not know, is EVERY radio & scanner made which has an APCO-25 DV module in it, pays a high price, a licensed user fee if you will, for the use of this module. This is why all APCO-25 2-way radios, and scanner receivers, are much higher priced.
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Further, there a lot of comments in this thread, both pro & con about the how the Alinco handles "intermod". Intermod is a a tenacious problem in all larger and most small cities & towns. Intermod gets into almost every amateur VHF/UHF radio made, though some are better than others. There are several design issues which cause this problem.
I would not be too hard on Alinco if their radio picks up severe cases of intermod, since most all other brands & models do as well. Think about what is happening here.
You have a TWO band radio, with both receiver sections also being the widest design bandwidth possible, all so you can use the radio to receive ALL the ham & commercial & aircraft freqs you desire.
Further, most you are probably using a dual band antenna on the car or at home, and some of these designed antennas are also as broad-banded as the mfgrs can make them.
Thus what you are doing is INVITING intermod issues. If you substituted a wideband Icom or Kenwood or Yaesu radio and various antennas, you would find pretty much the same problems, slightly more or less.
Fortunately, there are several ways to resolve these intermod issues. If you really have bad intermod issues, get intermod-resistant radios & antennas!
~ Get a narrow bandwidth designed ham-only transceiver. Good examples are the much older mobiles like the Kenwood TW-4000 or 4100 series, the Icom IC-3200A or 3210A, or the Yaesu FT-2700 or 2710H. These are all dual band mobiles which WON'T allow you to modify your radio to monitor much of the adjacent commercial or aircraft spectrum. They were designed to have narrow receivers, as intermod in that era was just beginning to show up big-time in the cities. These older radios won't give you a zillion programmable features, but they will limit intermod to the absolute minimum. A tight receiver is your best bet against intermod invasion in the terrible "intermod alley" areas of the country.
~ The second step is go with two SEPARATE single-band AND narrow bandwidth antennas. If your primary operating area is inside the 2m and 440 ham bands, get a 5/8 wave 2m antenna, and a phased 440 ham band antenna, thus running separate antennas with your dual band radio. Tune each antenna to the center of band portion you actually use. So many of those modern wide-banded & dual-band antennas, whether base or mobile versions, are rather broad by design, again, so you can receive "everything" on them. You asked for that, and so you got it. If you want to eliminate intermod, go with narrower bandwidth antenna designs.
~ The third thing you can do is acquire a narrow bandwidth filter for each of your "problem" bands. Several mfgrs offer single-band (either 2m or 220 or 440) inline filters which will keep your desired working freqs peaked, while knocking down those freqs outside the ham bands. These filters are single band units, so you will need to run one with each band and each separate antenna.
When I read all these complaints against a radio that was "market-desired" and designed to be wide banded, I see a lot of amateurs who haven't thought through the problem yet. When you run into a problem, solve it -- by using equipment that was made to solve it. When you leave the chicken coop gate open overnite, the chickens will get out and the coyotes will get in !
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| WD5FBS |
Rating:    |
2007-11-13 | |
| Not all it could be! |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| Just got the dr635 a few days ago, along with the EJ47U digital module. I mainly got the unit because I saw it was capable of digital voice decode, and needed it to monitor the local sheriff office digital frequency for civil defense. Little did I know it does not decode APCO 28 digital, nor is it able to tune the new ultra narrow band VHF Fm. i.e. 158.7975 that the new commercial and homeland security communications network is using. Does anyone know of any other digital decode module, or other mod to enable this to decode police and state police digital Apco 28? Also would really prefer the old squelch knob rather than the software setting. |
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| KE5JQN |
Rating:     |
2007-09-21 | |
| Simple to operate Dual bander with Xband REPEAT |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| The unit is easy to program and has sensitive reception. I would prefer a true squelch knob. The scaning programing does not have banks and the speed of scan is MUCH slower than my Icom 208H. I live in country and intermode is not an issue. The unit will not tune freq lower than 136.000, but may be my problem. Crossband repeat is GREAT feature. |
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| W5SSC |
Rating:      |
2007-09-18 | |
| Excellent Dual Band Full Duplextransceiver |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| This is the most user friendly 2meter-70cm transceiver I have ever had in my hamshack.Controls are user intuitive without getting out the owners manual. I've had no problems with intermod as some users have stated.I guess that I live in a good location! I love this radio! W5SSC Scott. |
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| PD0AC |
Rating:  |
2007-07-16 | |
| Bad intermod, really bad |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
THE problem with this tranceiver is intermod. It's bad, really bad. It's impossible to use this thing at home, as not even a reasonable signal can be heard on 70 cm due to all kind of out-of-band signals it should ignore. On 2 meters the Alinco performs reasonable.
I gave it one point, because it's very user friendly and complete. I would kill for a trx with the quality of a Yaesu 7800 and the user interface of this Alinco... |
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| W5GSR |
Rating:      |
2007-07-04 | |
| Great Radio,no problems |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have this radio in the truck and it works great,I have used the cross band repeater and it also works great,so no problems yet.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by W5GSR on 2006-04-17
I just installed this radio in my 2002 Toyota Tundra truck and it works great.I have had no problems getting into repeaters several miles away.The cross band repeat works fine and it is easy to program. |
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| VK6FVEW |
Rating:   |
2007-06-23 | |
| bad intermod |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| I couldn't use it at my QTH due to pagers breaking through. Replaced it with a Yaesu 7800R and had no problems. |
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| N8ERM |
Rating:  |
2007-05-08 | |
| Intermod is terrible. |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I guess it you put this rig out in the country, far far away from any public service it would be better. This is exactly what I did and it just was OK, not much better. I had a DR-600 that I completely wore out in my work van and it never missed a beat. It looked much better on the test gear than the 635. I thought Alinco was trying to improve??? The 600 was beat up, abused and it still is working for its present owner. I did have to replace some caps in the memory circuit. I gave it away to a new ham in the 11th grade. He just completed collage and it still is working. |
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| N5PJY |
Rating:      |
2006-12-11 | |
| Great Dual Bander |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I have had this rig for over 6 months now. It has been a great rig for me. I travel from a "Radio Friendly" area to a "not very friendly Radio" area, and cross a highly populated airport area. It works great for me. I do hit one spot of high intermod, but I have owned various other rigs, and this rig is right on top of the others in all cases. It receives great, it transmits great (by on the air comments) and is just a great all the way around rig. I love all of the memory channels, and the fact that it receives outside of the normal HAM band freqs including Aircraft. I love the seperate transmit and receive colors of the display, so that you automatically know when you are transmitting. This has been a great rig for me and plan on putting it in as a base station here at the home QTH very soon to see if there is a very big difference, but I feel that it will only improve. I have tried the "Crossband repeat" and it works like a charm. "I hope that it never happens" but if there is an emergency situation that comes up where an emergency situation comes up, and hams are needed with the capabilities, it will get a real good test. Otherwise KUDOS to Alinco and their design team on making a great "All the way around rig", and hope that they continue to do so. With all of the new ideas, bells, and whistles they came up with on this rig, it shouldn't be long before they come up with another rig that "out performs them all", by a land slide. For someone just getting into the hobby, and looking for a first rig or a reasonably priced "Dual Bander", here it is. I hope you have as much fun with it as I have.
Tommy
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Earlier 5-star review posted by N5PJY on 2006-08-12
I have had this radio for almost a month now. It has performed flawlessly for me so far. One of the biggest advantages is the ease of operation, and programming.
Alinco has taken a step forward in the area of programming. It is as easy as, if not easier than the IC 2100h which I have had three of. But this is a dual bander, and a true dual bander at that. You can have both bands going at the same time, you have the option to also listen outside of the amateur bands, including aircraft, public safety, and so on. Another way that they took a step further is the three different options for the color display, and get this, three different colors for each, the TX and the RX. If you accidently sat on your mike, you have a visual besides silence. I have seen some of the negative feed back concerning inter-mod. I have had very little to speak of. I live in a suburb of the Houston area, and I work in a very "business" area of North Houston, which also takes me alongside Bush Intercontinental Airport, and I have had very little if any inter-mod. I have noticed on the receive side, (no matter what band your listening to) it does get a little noisy, but it isn't nothing that would keep me from operating this great little rig. If you get a chance, go take a look at all of the great options you get with it right out of the box, and there are other options you can add if needed. One option that it does have that I have not tried yet, is the Dual Band repeat, which would be great for emergency operations for a field repeater out of your mobile, talk about a plus. I would highly reccomend this rig to anyone and especially the new hams that want a radio with the ease of operation, and all of the other great functions this radio performs, you cannot beat it, and especially for the price. |
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| K1CRA |
Rating:     |
2006-11-03 | |
| Be fair! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| In fairness, the DR-635 is a great radio with an expected few problems. No radio is perfect or flawless and packing so many features into a one small box (cuz that's what we ask for) means some compromise. Intermod is a likely problem given the high gain and very broadbanded front end. I've noted this problem only on one or two frequencies, certainly not all. Thus it is only a problem for me when passing through metropolitan or high RF areas. On the unmodulated carrier front, when you build two radios into one box basic RF design principles dictate you will have birdies and carriers on some frequencies. If you do the math, the frequencies mentioned as problems are divisions or multiplications of 3. Thus it is not an Alinco problem, it is a frequency/basic electronics problem. You can only do so much filtering and shielding to take care of that problem and to have only a handful of frequencies at issue is not bad. Other radios have similar issues but to say the DR-635 is a bad radio when it has so many great features is unfair. Just think of the older single band rigs of the past. They had virtually no other features but lots of quirks! I had one Genave crystal controlled 2m FM mobile rig that received German shortwave radio (in Maine) just fine! Talk about intermod! To fix the PL unlock problem when scanning 70cm and transmitting on 2m, do a full CPU reset. This is a quick fix but does require reprogramming memories. Just like your PC, the 635 has a CPU with a program. Periodically, it needs to be rebooted! |
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