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Reviews For: Kenwood TM-631A

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

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Review Summary For : Kenwood TM-631A
Reviews: 3MSRP: 500.00 +
Description:
2 meters/220 MHz
50 watts out on 2 meters / 25 watts on 220 MHz
Receive is 136-174 and 215-230 MHz
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
1334.3
KF6IIU Rating: 2023-05-25
One of the few 144/220 dual band radios ever made Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
You might come across one of these for sale, and if it's less than $100 and works OK, might find it of interest. It's one of the few 144/220 dual banders ever made, if you have an interest in those bands. A couple things to watch out for (in common with other vintage Kenwood VHF radios):

- The backlight is provided by 4 grain of wheat incandescent bulbs and they burn out. These bulbs are somewhat difficult to replace. I replaced mine with micro automotive 12V LEDs with builtin resistors and the display looks great again.
- The memory backup battery is soldered in place and eventually dies. It is not as difficult to replace as the backlights, but disassembly of the front panel is still required.
- There are only 10 station memories plus call on each band.
- Like most vintage Kenwoods, the buttons are small and hard to use while mobile; I would not feel comfortable operating the controls while driving.
- The Kenwood mics of this vintage have a flimsy PTT button that eventually gets sticky or breaks completely.
- You cannot directly enter a frequency with the mic DTMF buttons, but there is a "MHZ" up/down button so you don't have to spin the knob endlessly. It helps that receive coverage is only 136 to 174 and 215 to 230 on each respective band.
- No tone squelch without an additional accessory board.

I just finished replacing the burned-out backlights with LEDs in one. It's kind of a neat and affordable radio if everything works.
N2MDV Rating: 2017-01-11
A great impulse buy for me! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I still love the 222MHz band and a friend of mine seen a TM-631A for sale about $200.00. I actually really didn't need it, but thought it to maybe be a good 222MHz back-up rig. Glad that I did! The only thing I had to do, (Like I did with a lot of older Kenwood rigs.), was to get rid of that darn teardrop mic for the newer Kenwood MC-57DM DTMF mic and replace the rig's 3VDC Li battery. Wow!!! Great ears on both bands. TX audio good and it does about 45W on 2M and I was able to tweak 222MHz to 30W. Limited memories, but that's to be expected for a rig of the late 1980's. However, it does have the repeater functions needed, like CTCSS tones. I haven't done the white LED's in the display yet, but thus far I don't need to. This rig is a keeper, even if it is a spare. The antenna used with it was the Comet CX-224 Triband mobile antenna.
W3TWG Rating: 2011-03-02
Great mobile or base rig - even 17 years later! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I like Kenwood radios and I like Standards, so, I may be a little biased.
I bought my 631A from a good friend sometime in 1994, it was lightly used and it went right into the car for the next two years or so. Due to how I had it mounted, the one coax pigtail developed a separation from the ouput and 220 went dead. In my rush to get back on the air, I bought an Azden 220 rig to replace it in the car (you see, I am a 220MHz FREAK). After troubleshooting and finding the problem and correcting it, the 631A was back in service, but I decided to make it the base radio, where for the next ten plus years it has served perfectly mounted on a power supply. Last year, I decided to put it back in the car, after a hiatus of 5 years from ham radio alltogether, and it is playing like it never quit. Same Diamond dual band ant I had 15 years ago, signal reports through the roof and has the ears of a bat. There is no way I could be any less pleased with my radio.
Aside from the ant connection, the only other failure was the memory battery, that was taken care of easily, and now, after over 17 years of ownership, there is one LCD giving up in the sub band memory channel indicator.
When this radio gives up the ghost, it will owe me nothing, and I will surely lament my loss, it's a great rig, even in 2011 it does all most folks need it to do.
Oh, yeah, the cross band repeat works great, just takes some getting used to, and really, who needs it?