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Reviews For: AZDEN AZ-61

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

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Review Summary For : AZDEN AZ-61
Reviews: 2MSRP:
Description:
6m hand-held
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0023.5
N2MDV Rating: 2018-05-26
Was a must for 1990's 6M repeater ops! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Looking for a 6M HT for mobile and HT repeater operations didn't leave me much choice in 1995, so the AZ-61 fit the bill. Solid build, great TX / RX audio, and good ears on RX. Biggest complaint? That wacky Azden memory programming. When I had my 53.090/-R repeater, this HT was a must. Sure, poor range with the duck antenna on 6M FM, but the 6M Hamstick worked well with this HT in a vehicle. Done some great simplex 52.525MHz QSO's as well with this HT, and added a 50W brick to it. Now, to rebuild the NiCad battery pack to it, which I plan to do someday. Other signals to be heard with this HT are existing EMS, fire, gas companies, forestry, and state police, low band VHF 40MHz FREQ's as well as 49MHz walkie-talkies. So, still a usable HT today, since there are very few HT's that cover VHF low band that are non-commercial. A keeper.
VE3ES Rating: 2006-12-17
Early 6m hand-held Time Owned: more than 12 months.
While AZDEN is no longer in the Amateur Radio market (at least here in North America as far as I know) they had quite the line up of FM transceivers back in the 80s and into the 90s. The AZ-61 was their 6m mono-band HT. In it's era it was one of the very few of such radios. Unfortunately it was and remains a complicated radio to program. Very well built and rather large compared to today's HTs that are capable of 6m operation. But in it's day it was quite the rig to have. I rate it as a 3 when compared to what's out there today. Back in it's day it might've been worth a 4 but by no means a 5. If you're looking for a cheap 6m HT and can find a good used one go for it!