Any opinions on the Kenwood TM-V71A?

[Materdaddy]

Any opinions on the Kenwood TM-V71A?

[Deepwater]

Any opinions on the Kenwood TM-V71A?

Hi,
I have no information, but I have used this review site to help me make decisions on gear: http://www.eham.net/reviews/

Mike

[Roger]

Hi,
I have no information, but I have used this review site to help me make decisions on gear: http://www.eham.net/reviews/

Mike

Mat - he's right, it's a great site

[Materdaddy]

Thought I posted a follow-up here, but guess not. The original reason I posted this question was because I saw a TM-V71A on qrz.com's classifieds.

My uncle has the TM-V71A radio and so with the eham.net reviews calling it a 4.4/5 I picked it up. It was a steal considering (a) the price of the radio new; and (b) how ham equipment seems to hold it's value. He was selling it because all of his other equipment had blue as a backlight color option, and the TM-V71A only has green/amber.

Unfortunately I haven't done too much with it. I installed in the Jeep with a Comet B-10 tiny 12" antenna, I can hit Catalina, Palomar (of course), and Keller Peak all very easily. Another perk of the used equipment was that the MARS/CAP mod was already done, and while at work I can listen to CLD (Palomar Airport's tower = 118.60 AM).

I have used the cross-band repeat feature, which is awesome. One of the things this has the capability of doing that I haven't exercised yet is controlling the cross-band repeat functions via DTMF codes on the HT (I have a Yaesu VX-7R).

I have a friend who is interested in amateur radio who even learned morse code 10 years ago or so whom I did some demoing of the features to. I turned xband repeat on after returning from lunch to use simplex on 70cm and on the VHF side pointed at Keller Peak (KE6TZG 146.385 + PL. 146.2) and used the HT inside our building to announce that I was monitoring. Low and behold, I get a CQ from none-other than MJR's very own Russ Chung. He was on I-10 near Palm Springs and was monitoring on his way to AZ for a wheeling trip. We chatted for a few minutes and my buddy was impressed. So was I! Ham radio, and gadgets are cool.

The radio does have a fan that turns on after transmission, but is generally quiet. The remote mounting options are decent. Might not want to buy the $50 kit... It comes with a "mount" to hold the face and an extension cable for the face only. The mic plugs into the base, so to extend it you will need to have an ethernet cable and coupler also which doesn't come with the kit. Instead of buying the kit, find parts like the sub-panel (via the service manual and order them here), and make your own patch cables and remote kit for far cheaper.

[troyboy162]

does this radio have a noise blanker? im getting engine noise through it.

edit...spoke too soon i think it was a clicky repeter or something. anyhow its not detectable while driving around today.

Matter have you bought an external speaker? the onboard one is just borderline loud enough for me

[Materdaddy]

does this radio have a noise blanker? im getting engine noise through it.

edit...spoke too soon i think it was a clicky repeter or something. anyhow its not detectable while driving around today.

Matter have you bought an external speaker? the onboard one is just borderline loud enough for me

Yes. I have external speakers for both my CB and the Ham. The radio is mounted under my seat (not much room in a Jeep) and both speakers are mounted to the cage just above my head. I cannot hear the radio while on the radio most of the time still (Topless & Doorless). Depending on mounting, I would definitely recommend the external speaker.

I bought two of these: http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-UNIDEN-BEARC...item3360bc5b9f

Make sure you get 8 ohm speakers (Page 7 of the owner's manual), not 4 ohm. Running 4 ohm speakers will cause the hardware to run hot, potentially drying out capacitors sooner and shortening the life of your radio. You can also run two 4 ohm impedance speakers in series to achieve 8 ohm impedance successfully.

[troyboy162]

thank you. these things sure can reach out there. ive got the programing down now and can "work" the radio, but i think ive only scratched the surface as far as features. im very happy to have the 70cm(440) band. half the repeaters available from the driveway are 70cm. also barley caught some talk on the MJR primary freq today around 2-3pm while on the 15. who was out playing?