Icom A6 or A24
 

Oh great skygods.......some advice please.

I'm a newbie PPL student wanting to buy a handheld to gain some familiarisation with RT.
I thought at first, I would buy a scanner to listen in, and upgrade to a handheld transceiver later as a backup.
Looking at the price of decent scanners, I now think I might as well put the money into a good handheld transceiver from the get-go.
Looking at the options, it seems that the ICOM is the pick of the crop.
Now to decide between the A6 and A24.

Main difference appears to be VOR on the A24.
Sooooo..... Has anyone thanked their lucky stars they had VOR on their handheld or is it a big fat waste of money?

Thanks

If you’re just getting it to familiarize yourself with RT then it’s probably just worth getting a basic scanner. Have a look on ebay and you should be able to find one. No point in going all out and spending all that money when you could save it to spend on a couple of lessons. I've only flown with a handheld once and that was because the a/c radio hadn't functioned properly on the previous flight so I took one as a back-up.

If you only want something with which to listen to RT, get a basic scanner.

I have an Icom A6E, never needed the VOR bit. However I made the mistake of buying mine a few years back - the older units are not 8.33MHz compliant, the newer ones are so if you're buying one off of eBay, be aware that more likely than not, unless it's brand new, it won't support the new frequencies as and when they are introduced.....

PS: If you're just listening in, get a scanner. Ask yourself why you'd need a full R/T to begin with? I doubt you'll use it that often. I only use mine maybe three or four times a month - usually for requesting clearance to start up at some airfields or other who specifically request clearance to start up - oh, and to ensure my flight plan was closed last week ;-)

Consider the Vertex radios made by Yaesu. Far better in my opinion and usable with headsets. The A6 and A24 have problems with some headsets.

I wouldn't worry about getting the VOR version. I have never used mine, and they don't work that well without an external aerial.

They both come up fairly frequently on ebay so save yourself some money by buying second hand.

Wouldn't pay to much...8.33khz spacing is supposed to be coming in in a few years...don't think any are available at the moment...so what we have now possibly could be junk then,

I bought a cheap scanner on ebay years ago...still going strong...it was second hand and less than £20.

Yes, the handhelds that say they are 8.33Mhz are only receive on 8.33.

Tx is not 8.33Mhz.

So I suggest either buying cheap on ebay or waiting.

Hi, I have an IC24 and can say, with two VORs in the plane, I have never needed the VOR part.

Any scanner will be able to scan over 40 channels, so you can listen to hundreds of calls. By using an external aerial, you will cut out a lot of TV and computer interference, and receive stations many more miles away.

If you want to make your own aerial, a quarter wave vertical is 62cm long. (but not really critical to +-10cm.). Mag-mounts are useful as well for car or indoor use.

ZA
Good point.
Bit of sharp practice for some of the manufacturers advertising their kit as being good for 8.33 channel separation - closer inspection shows that it is indeed receive only........

AA
Could you point me to where you did the closer inspection please?

Patowalker

I was looking at the Yaesu Airband handhelds.....

Welcome to Yaesu.com

The webpage says
"The FTA-230 boasts 700 mW of clean audio output and it also provides 8.33 kHz synthesizer steps for the new narrow-band channel plan."

But when you look in the actual manual, buried away on page such-and-such, it says that 8.33 spacing is receive only.

No mention of "receive only", on the web page......

Thanks AA. I wonder if the ICOM A6 has the same receive only limitation.

The TX frequency coverage on the 8.33 model is shown as 118.000 - 136.9917, which seems to suggest that it does work in transmit.

Have had a good rake through the ICOM manuals and can't see mention of any such limitation. The 6E and 24E models do indeed seem to have true 8.33 spacing both Tx and Rx.....unless somebody knows differently ?

I went for the A24 so I could get weather and ATIS info off VOR stations.