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Reviews For: Kenwood TM-251A

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

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Review Summary For : Kenwood TM-251A
Reviews: 3MSRP: 530
Description:
The Kenwood TM-251A was a full featured 2 meter mobile with dual band receive. 118-174MHz/300-470MHz receive, packet compatibility for 1200 or 9600 bps accessible from the rear panel, 40 memory channels, built-in digital recording system enables automatic storing of a signal picked up by the radio for later playback (for two 8 second messages), three output power levels: 5/10/50 watts, CTCSS, 10 DTMF Memories, fixed direction cross band repeat.
Product is not in production
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# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0034.3
EX_AA5JG Rating: 2011-03-29
Good on the satellites Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I wanted a FM radio that would hear the satellites very well, so went looking thru QST for dualband radios I could afford, that covered the 430-440 portion of the band for receive, noting the measured sensitivity of reach one. The TM-251A came in with the best sensitivity. Right after that one appeared for sale on QTH.COM and $99 later I had it headed to my QTH.

Overall, the programming of this radio was a little unique. It took me a while to figure out how to change the step size for the subband. 25khz steps (which it defaulted to) wouldn't work on the satellites. I did get the step size changed to 5khz, but to be honest, I am still not sure what I did to change it. Storing memories is easy, but if you store a split frequency (like receive on 70cm and transmit on 2m) you have to have the tone encode turned on for receive as well or it won't store the transmit tone.

I had to reseat the ribbon cable when mine arrived as well, but since then it works fine. It hears the FM birds very well-much better than the FT8900 it replaced, and only cost 1/3 as much. It would be great if it transmitted on 70cm as well, but then I probably wouldn't have gotten it for $99. I haven't tried out the voice storage feature yet, but the scan feature seems to work just fine.

So far this radio has been a blast to use on the FM satellites with an Arrow Antennas dualband J pole.
EC4ALB Rating: 2009-09-27
Nice Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Got mine since 95 from 2nd hand, solid tx and good rx on two bands.
The only issue is the vfo, sometimes gets goofy, just open and clean it and will be work for months.
Not a bad transceiver for the year that it is
WD8AQS Rating: 2007-12-01
Full featured rig even by todays standards Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my radio new back in 95, great transmit and receive, the digital recorder was great, anyone could leave you a message with the right tone to turn on your record. Cross-band operation was nice. I would have given it a 5 but had a problem with it that must have shown up on other 251's. It started when I lost my transmit audio, then the display would go crazy now and then. The cause was the flat ribbon cable connection between the controls and main circuit board. Just reseating it was the fix. Overall, a great mobile with lots of options to play with.