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Permalink Reply by Brandon Guttery on February 5, 2011 at 9:45pm

Icom was originally set up for amateur radio operators with the intention of making commercially available some of the fixes and amateur radio innovations. they do have some good innovations and here in New Zealand they are about half the price of Tait or Motorola radios including the ability to take dry cell batteries which make them inviting for some of our rural departments.

We have some Icom's as incident ground radios and they do the job, I have just taken over the administration of our radios including the icom's. I have no firm data on reliability but I will say that Tait and Motorola have a proven track record, Icom's are the new kids on the block.

The only other point I will make is to ensure you do some testing in your own area, most companies will allow you to do some trials, Terrain and environment can effect the radios so do your own testing. Remember it may be you on the other end of that radio calling for water when the radio fails ..............

I am interested to find out what others have found with them and what you finally decide.

Stay safe out there

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Permalink Reply by Mark Klaene on February 5, 2011 at 10:21pm

we have had issues with the handhelds working as pagers -- they can be made to work but it took a lot of tweaking. One that I have the audio was not clear at all. I bought it as a test and went no further. This was about 5 years ago.

I have a mobile and it is fine.

my opinion; the handhelds would not be my first choice for fire service

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Permalink Reply by phillip hice on February 6, 2011 at 10:34am

Chief has bought 4 handheld to try & 2 mobile's for trucks. One of the other dept's here ,have been using them for a year now , said he has not had any problems.HE likes the fact that you can get them wet. We use minitor v pagers now & thay charge $100 to do any thing to them if they brake.
May have to stay with them if Icom don't work out. Thank's Stay safe

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Permalink Reply by Lucas on March 28, 2011 at 1:29am

I have an Icom IC-f33g, US Military decided it was the best choice for their soldiers. Mine will transmit and receive farther than our motorola ht-1250.
Only complaint is I wish it was bigger(personal preference), other than that I'm happy with it.
I hear alot of good things about the IC-F50s and the F3161s.
If I bought another radio it would probably be the F3161, you can get them for about $200 cheaper than an ht1250 and about the same price as a Minitor V

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