Yaesu is great. I have had one for years.
Stay as far away as possible from Sporty's. Build quality is terrible. I know at least four people that have had theirs just stop working. One let the smoke out, which is kind of terrifying for an aviation product.
I had an icon but sold it. It was just to complicated for me.
I have a Yaesu Pro-X, which is a great radio (with VOR/LOC nav built in as well). You can use it with its own built-in rechargeable battery or alkaline batteries, and it comes with a headset adapter at no extra charge.Looking at getting a new handheld transceiver. I'm trying to decide if I should go for the Icom A-16, Yaesu FTA-550, or Sporty's PJ2.
Anyone have any experience with any of these?
Thanks.
I have a Yaesu Pro-X, which is a great radio (with VOR/LOC nav built in as well). You can use it with its own built-in rechargeable battery or alkaline batteries, and it comes with a headset adapter at no extra charge.
The only negative point is that if you want to plug in the headset adapter, you have to unscrew a little plate to do so, which would be an annoyance in an emergency.
Thread drift: Looks like they also covered the Trig TY96 vs Garmin GTR200B. Do you know what they had to say about them?I still have an ancient Sporty's SPA-400. Aviation Consumer just did a review of portable COMs, for those who are interested.
I have the iCom A-25N. It has some pluses like the screen and NAV that works, and it's nice and useful to have a ground radio.
The A-16 has nice specs and good price but I wouldn't recommend an iCom based on the difficulty of programming the A-25N, unless don't care about that. The iPhone app for it is totally useless and abandonware. And must buy special cables and software to program it (none of that is really documented), or else do it manually.
The rechargeable battery (a $125 replacement item) gave up in less than 2 years. I think to just use the AA battery tray from now on. I always carry lots of AA batteries in the airplane. Maybe it's because I didn't use it enough that the battery went dead. I definitely agree with above comments about AA batteries.