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Reviews For: Belcom LS-702

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Hand-held

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Review Summary For : Belcom LS-702
Reviews: 1MSRP:
Description:
430MHz (70cm) SSB/FM 3.5W handheld transceiver
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0015
AD7C Rating: 2020-11-13
Great Radio for what it does Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I purchased this at a Hamfest on a whim. Looks fairly new. I paid < $30 for it. What interested me was that I've never seen SSB on an HT for 70CM. It's a very quirky radio.

It covers 430-439.990 Mhz FM and U/L SSB. You utilize thumb wheel switches to move through the band. There is a VXO and RIT adjustment. 5Khz or so on both. I get 3W on FM and about 2W on peak on SSB. For a 40+ year old radio I'm suprised at how great of condition it is in. I suspect it sat on a shelf for a long time. I did have to replace the battery pack and went with a DIY conversion to LiPo cells. It was easy and I'm able to operate it for a fairly long time on SSB now.

Although it does FM you are not going to rag chew on the local repeaters. It doesn't cover the typical FM repeater band. But I did have a local FM simplex conversation and the rig sounds nice. There is a duplex switch on the side but I've yet to discover how it works. It does have a TONE switch and does output a standard tone. It has an external mic port and I found one of my mic's fit. It improved the TX audio a little. RX audio is plenty lout already. There is a button for a light on the display but the light is worthless for night operation.

On SSB it does a decent job. The audio is a little low and at about 2W on an HT you're not going to contact a lot of people on UHF SSB. But I found a few friends with 70CM SSB and had a local rag chew. Watching it on an analyzer is does drift a bit if you talk for a while but not enough to cause much re-tuning. And it almost instantly cools back down. You have RIT and VXO when on U or L sideband. The knobs are small and sensitive but they work as expected.

What absolutely puzzles me is there is a switch on top that says CLL | DIA and I have yet to figure out exactly what it does. When on CLL the output is locked at 430MHZ. When on DIA you can tune around as expected. Or at least I think. Email me if you know what this button does.

Everybody who sees's it wants to buy it. It's just that weird of an HT. I'll keep it for a while but I'm sure it will find a home with someone who uses SSB on UHF more than I do.