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Reviews For: ADI AR-247

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

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Review Summary For : ADI AR-247
Reviews: 34MSRP: 209.99
Description:
AR-247 1.35 Meter (222 MHz) Mobile
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.adi-radio.com/amateurradio/mobiles/Default.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00343.3
W9MT Rating: 2020-10-02
Good 220 radio... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I own 2 of these.

One was purchased new from AES years ago. He is a stock radio and has never caused me a lick of trouble. I run him at full RF output power and keep the LCD backlighting turned down. He runs warm, but has never failed me.

The 2nd unit was a hamfest special. I cleaned the mod's out of him, and keep the backlighting for the LCD turned down one notch like on my other ADI-247. His audio is good and transmit power stable. This unit, however, has the pc board to conductive elastomer to LCD glass contact finger intermittentcy issue. This shows up as missing segments in the LCD display. Giving the radio's front end a sharp rap fixes the problem temporarily, but one of these days, I'm going to have to take the radio apart and clean things with isopropyl alcohol and a q-tip and then tighten down the display holder much better than the factory did. That's the only way to get a permanent fix.

The other problem that most of these rigs have is loss of the rubber coating on the mike's coil cord where it comes out of the strain relief at the bottom of the mike.

This can be fixed by shortening the coil cord or by replacing the coil cord. Either way, you'll have to splice and insulate about 10 different wires and stuff these back into the mike housing.

Sometimes it's just easier to purchase an aftermarket mike !!!
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10/01/2020 update:

I sold my hamfest procured AR-247 nearly a year ago. Its original mike developed the coil cord crumbling problem, so that mike, plus a compatible Kenwood up/down hand mike went with it to its new owner.

Just a few days ago, the AR-247 I bought new from AES in 2004 also developed the crumbling coil cord problem. The cord was never over-stretched, was never used mobile and spent all of its life in my basement shack. No matter...I temporarily fixed it with about a dozen ty-wraps to hold the crumbled pieces in place.

Today I tried a supposedly Kenwood compatible mike w/o a DTMF pad. I was surprised to hear horrible hum on my transmit audio when using this Chinese copy of a Kenwood mike which was purchased as a spare about 10 years ago.

So, I stripped the coil cord from the mike for transplantation to the ADI mike housing. During this process, I was surprised to find that the Chinese factory worker had swapped the mic-gnd and mic-audio leads at both ends of the coil cord (connector and mike pcb ends). So that was what caused the hum !!! (The mic-audio lead has a ground shield spiraled around it. This factory miswire thwarted that, using the unshielded mic-gnd lead, instead, to carry the audio. The other lead was a useless double-shielded ground wire.) So be careful when you buy cheap ripoff mikes off of eBay. Test what you get before squirreling it away as a spare !!!

I swapped around the 8 pin barrel connector's black and white leads between pins 1 and 7 and completed the graft to the plug in white connector inside of the ADI hand mike housing. Testing out the final product was successful. The patient is healthy again !!!

It works great and without hum on the transmit audio of the AR-247. The different coil cord insulation material should never dry rot and crumble, either.

I did a secondary repair on the compressible rubber piece used as the device that pushes the PTT microswitch down. It just wasn't reliably holding down the microswitch's button. So, I removed it and replaced it with a short piece of clicker ballpoint pen spring topped with a thin adhesive foot material piece. PTT action has been much improved by doing this.

Hopefully, I'll now be good for another 20 years !!!
W7FDF Rating: 2013-03-10
Crazy 220 Radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought this ADI 220 mobile rig three years ago and it worked fine as a used radio but developed a problem about a year ago. The display began to get "scrambled" where I could no longer read the frequency and other information. I also noticed that the rig felt very warm to the touch on the entire chassis while in the receive mode. I did some research and learned that this scrambled display issue is a long time standing issue. I am at the point to sell the rig on eBAY "For Parts" and "As Is". I love the 220 mhz band, a buddy and I keep in touch daily on simplex and I'd hate to get rid of this 30 watt radio. Anyone have a solution knowing about this radio? I also learned that this display issue is happening in the AR-147 2-meter radios as well.....FYI.
KI4GTJ Rating: 2011-11-01
works great Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Love it works great s9 599 on 224.520 with the comet sbb-224
KA3NXN Rating: 2011-10-03
Finally bought the farm Time Owned: more than 12 months.
After keeping it on life support since I bought it new, it finally died. The final went out. When I keyed the radio it would trip the power supply like I had put a dead short across the terminals. Even on low power setting it would trip the supply. I can see why adi went out of business. This last one had the display issue, horrible transmit audio. way too low. even after it was turned up as far as it would go, I still had to use an amplified CB mic so I could get acceptable audio. And finally the issue with the output finals. It's now dead and buried! Good ridden!
KA8GKT Rating: 2010-03-11
I REPAIR AR-247 Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
PRETTY GOOD RADIO FOR IT'S CHEAPINESS !

LOOKS LIKE AN OLD KENWOOD DESIGN INSIDE.

SO FAR GENERALLY I'VE FOUND IN REPAIRING THESE
WHEN RE-ASSEMBLING THE DISPLAY,
SQUEEZE THE METAL CAN HOLDING THE DISPLAY DOWN PRETTY GOOD WHILE TWISTING THE TABS BACK INTO PLACE. THAT SEEMS ELIMINATE THE DISPLAY PROBLEMS I'VE SEEN ON THESE PAGES.

PRETTY GOOD RADIO.
NOT TOO BAD TO REPAIR.
LITTLE TIME CONSUMING, BUT NOT A BAD RADIO.
KD8BIW Rating: 2009-10-19
Not to bad... Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've had this rig now for 3 years, got it used. Had to send it back to Pryme for no audio from speaker. Audio amp was bad, no replacement available. This only affected the internal speaker, not the external jack on back. Using it in mobile so have an external speaker on it, works good. Pryme tuned it up while they had it, a nice touch. It is working great now! Have an intermittent problem with display, I just turn it off/on again and it is good for awhile. All-in-all, not to bad.
N6HBJ Rating: 2009-06-19
Display Going wacko - still a good radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
It's been 3 years since my last review. I've had this radio for 6 years now and it seems it's developing the same intermittant display issues that others have complained about.

Overall I've been happy with this radio. If you can find one super cheap I say buy it. I'm not sure how much longer mine will last but so far 6 years of solid service (up until now) without issue other than replacing the microphone (cord problem) is a success to me.

Looking at Jetsream's new 220 rig to replace this when it goes...

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Earlier 4-star review posted by N6HBJ on 2006-01-06

I really like this radio. I would have given it a 5 but the microphone cord went bad after a few months and it appears this is not an uncommon problem.

But other than that it has been a reliable performer for about 3 years now in a base installation. Easy to program.

I recommend it.

~Mike
N6HBJ
AB4D Rating: 2007-12-05
Not too good, easy to see why ADI left the amateur market Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A friend gave me one of these transceivers a while ago because it had the well known intermittent problem with the display and he did not want to bother with it. I was going to repair the rig, but it appears that Pryme/ADI no longer makes any transceivers for the amateur market, thus lack of support. Some have commented that this radio and it's brothern the ADI-147 are identical to FM monobanders made by Kenwood, in this case the TM221a. However, although it appears that the chassis are identical, the control boards behind the display do not appear to be identical. Because of the noted problems with this line of transcievers and now that ADI/PRYME appears to have left the amateur business, I would not recommend purchasing any of these rigs.
N8WWM Rating: 2006-11-07
TX Audio noise problems-HELP!!! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
ON TX can hear a scratching and crackling noise from internal speaker. This happened immediately after purchase. (used at a hamfest, silly me!)Other people say the noise is audible on transmitted signal. I have tried everything I know of...touching up solder joints, checking into a dummy load to see if something was wrong with antenna, replace speaker, using external speaker, all kinds of things besides these. Talked to ADI and they tried to sell me a 30 dollar service manual that they admitted was inadequate to fully troubleshoot the rig. They also said that this was the first they ever heard of such a problem happening. Anybody else had this happen and discovered a fix? ADI is useless as far as getting help is concerned. Don't buy this rig unless it is in kit form...that way you can be sure it is assembled right!
N6TZ Rating: 2006-05-20
Many Years of Great Service Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I guess I have had mine for 6 or more years now. I will rate it a full 5 as it is still working away with no breakdowns and I am happy.

Once or twice I have had the read-out scramble on me. I thumped it and turned it off and on and it was fine for another year or more.

I guess I could take it apart and do the "tighten and reseat" procedure to cure the problem, but it has not been enough of a problem.

I use it as a base unit on simplex mostly, but also for repeaters, with a copper pipe J pole at 25 feet. The receive sensitivity is very good, and yes, the S-meter is a bit generous, but what do S-meters mean anyway - - ho-hum - - "your 599 good buddy"!!

- - - For a signal report, just tell them what percent of quieting they are.....does anyone remember this valuable report anymore?

So I recommend the rig, easy to program and use.

Hal, N6TZ