First, I'd like to start off with a small disclaimer:
1. The two previous mobile rigs I've owned that are still offered by Icom as new are the IC-208H and IC-2820 (with D-Star board installed), so that's what I'm comparing the 880 to. And
2. I will be very nit picky about things in this review so everyone that reads it will know what to look for and expect. Only then, can you decide if that is acceptable in a radio or not.
I have had the radio now for over 24 hours, and have used it for almost 11 hours today alone so I will share my first impressions with you.
Upon first seeing it powered up at the store, I thought it didn't look that bad for a smallish radio. The display and digits were crisp and the amber screen color option seemed the brightest when compared to yellow and green. Yellow was the second brightest and green was the least luminous. Green wasn't a bright, almost florescent hue like the 2820, it was more like an army green. The digits and other LCD indicators on-screen were nice and sharp, with excellent contrast, unlike the dot matrix LCD on the 2820 which seemed not as black or near as sharp. The screen had more real estate than the 208/800 and seemed more usable without as much scrolling and cryptic abbreviations with the settings and such like the 208/800. The buttons below the screen have small green bars that light up, but the text printed on them aren't back lit, so you might need to memorize what they are or turn on a light when using this radio in the dark. The 2820's buttons were back lit. On the bottom of the screen were a row of soft-key functions that had a secondary function, if held down. The 880 seems to have the same "problem" as the 208/800 with the channel changing, volume, and squelch knobs having kind of a wobbly feel to them and not as solid as the 2820's. They seem as if they would be fine as long as you weren't rough with them. When I was at the Orlando hamfest 2009, I noticed that one of the 800's knobs, in the icebox display, would keep turning and not stop. I suspect that someone was too rough with it and broke the pot. My thought is that under normal circumstances, the volume and squelch pots should be okay as long as you don't man-handle them.
The faceplate is nice. It uses the dual magnet system, along with the contact pins and a faceplate lock to hold the face to the radio. The little RJ jumper, like the 2820 uses, isn't necessary when the face is connected to the main unit and the plugs on the face and radio, for remote mounting, are covered with little rubber caps to keep it nice and tidy inside.
Around the back of the main unit, there are four plugs. One is obviously for the antenna, then you have three 1/8" jacks, which are for speaker, data and GPS, and packet. No more small DIN jack for packet on this radio. Another big plus is that all the jacks are on the back of the radio and NOT behind the faceplate, like the 2820. I think that's where they should be anyways.
If you want to use a third party GPS, then you need to research if it can accept a RS-232 connection because that's what this radio needs in order to hook up a GPS. Icom sells a RS-232 to 1/8" jack adapter. I haven't looked at the pinouts of it but I would guess that one could be easily made if you have decent soldering skills. I think the AV Map GPS might work with the 880 but I'm not 100% sure about it.
Okay, enough about cosmetics, now more about how the radio programs! I felt that with both the software and manual programming, that I still had to jump through some hoops in order to get D-Star repeaters programmed and lesser so for analog ones. The software is slightly different with programming D-Star frequencies and functions than the 2820 was. The only problem I encountered with it was getting the gateway into the RPT2 section with the software. When I would click on the field(s), a dialog choice box would pop up and some fields that I wanted to edit were greyed out. This was without reading the directions, of course, because I wanted to see if I could do it from what I knew already. I ended up, after finding out that I wasn't on the gateway, opening the manual and finding how to enter RPT2 manually. I did and it was fixed. I think this radio was different to program manually, that the other ones I was familiar with, but it's learning curve wasn't as bad as the 208/800/92/2820.
When D-Star is running and you are listening to people key up, the screen's limited readability and different sized digits make it kind of strange to read at first when the info is scrolling across the screen. I guess that with time, you might get used to it and actually begin to learn how to read it.
Okay, finally with how this thing actually performs! I was very surprized how well it receives signals and the transmit is very good too. The TX audio quality with a stock mike is decent (just remember to change the mic sensitivity to high in the settings) and on D-Star it is the best sounding radio I've heard yet on the air! It appears to perform better than the 2820 in analog and digital, in my opinion. I was able to get into analog and digital repeaters seemingly farther away than previously with my trusty 2820. I was very pleasantly surprised in those areas! It did seem to get intermod, but not nearly as bad as the 208/800 and 2820 did. I haven't heard any leaky cable channels on UHF like I used to on the 2820.
Some people previously would complain about the fan on the 2820 and other radios. The 880's doesn't seem as noticeable as previous models did. It will still kick on when you transmit, but I can't seem to hear anything when it's been receiving only for a long time, unlike the 2820. Maybe if the fan is coming on during RX, it's much quieter.
The 880 seemed to pick up more engine compartment noise than the 2820 did. I'm hearing a alternator whine that I didn't notice before. Also, when the AC compressor & cooling fans turn on, I can hear them on signals that aren't full quieting. The alternator whine isn't loud, it's barely noticeable. I guess I have to chase down the RFI sometime!
Overall, I like this radio VERY much, even better than my 2820. Granted, the 2820's large screen is more useful and easier to read all the info on it, the 880 is acceptable. The 880 has some shortcomings and things I wished were done a little different, but the radio's pluses outweighed the minuses in my book. I didn't have to look at the manual very much to find out how to do something. This radio is a keeper and I just might keep it as my main rig because I like it so much! I will keep the 2820 as a backup/secondary radio for D-Star. I think that others out there might like this radio too. I would recommend this radio to anyone interested in D-Star mobile/base (even sometimes over the 2820)! Now Icom, what will be the replacement radio for the 2820 D-Star? I can hardly wait because the radios seem to be getting better with each generation release! Third time's a charm! |
