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− | ==T-90 User Reviews==
| + | {{Text_TalkInForumsPlease|amateur-radio-equipment|Amateur Radio Equipment}} |
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− | Added: February 19th 2005<br>
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− | Reviewer: jp<br>
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− | Score: 5 stars<br>
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− | Hits: 400<br>
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− | Purchase Date: 2/15/05<br>
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− | Review Date: 2/19/05<br>
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− | I have only had this radio for a few day's so this will be a short review.
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− | I'm still learning things about the radio and will update (if I can) this review as time goes on.
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− | The last HT I had was a yaesu FT-50. To run that thing you had to use the book.
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− | As I started reading the book for the Icom IC-T90A I kept saying to myself, Wow, that was smart
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− | of them to do it that way. The way they use the button for programming the IC-T90A is very well thought out. It makes
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− | the radio very easy to use without the book.
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− | I went through the book from front to back, page by page and tried everything in the book.
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− | This not only help me get familiar with the operation of the radio, but it also lets me check to make sure my new
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− | radio is working correctly.
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− | After only going through the book one time I was able to run about 95% of everything on this radio without referring
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− | back to the book.
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− | Buy the second day of owning the radio I found myself going back to the book to look up one or two items I forgot how
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− | to change.
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− | When reading the specs on the IC-T90A before buying it I seen the Lithium-Ion battery only provides up to 5-6 hours of
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− | operating time. This is with TX on Hight (5 watts) and RX: Stand-by duty ratio=1: 1:8.I was a little concerned about
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− | battery life after reading that. Then I read it came with a wall charger that took 15 hours to fully charge the
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− | battery. The IC-T90A also has a quick charger (2.5 hr charge time) but after doing some price searching on BC-139
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− | charger I found out it was not cheap!
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− | I had read other good things about Lithium-Ion batteries so I decided to go ahead and give it a try.
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− | I plugged the IC-T90A in and let it charge for the full 15 hours. The full charge indicator came on the LCD to let me
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− | know if was charged up and ready to go.
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− | I used the IC-T90A for a day and half (wed/thurs)before the battery died. I did not TX much on it, but did a lot of
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− | programming and other playing around. It was on a lot of time that first day.
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− | I was really happy with how long the battery lasted.
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− | I plugged the IC-T90A back into the charger Thrusday night and let it charge over night. It was not a full 15 hour
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− | charge this time so I did not expect it to last as long.
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− | I had the IC-T90A on from about 7:00AM friday morning until 8:00PM friday night before it died on me. I did not think
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− | it would last that long, but it did.
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− | I plugged the wall charge (15 hr charge time) back into the radio. It had only been charging for two hours when I
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− | wanted to use the radio to make a call on the local 2m repeater.
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− | I did not think the battery would last any time at all once I started TX on it, but it did. I talked on the radio
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− | for almost a full 45 min on high power (5 watts) before the battery died. This was after it was only on the charger
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− | for 2 hours!
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− | So far I'm very happy with how the Lithium-Ion battery is doing.
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− | A couple other things I really like about the radio:
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− | Feels very rugged<br>
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− | Small size<br>
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− | 13 scanning modes!<br>
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− | DMS (Dynamic Memory Scan) bank scanning, awesome!<br>
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− | Wide band receive from 495kHz to 999.999MHz<br>
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− | I will be picking up the CP-19 cigarette lighter cable with noise filter ($40 ouch!) today and I have a BP-216
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− | (2xAA battery pack) on order. I also hope to give the programming software a try someday.
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− | Guess that is about all I have to say about the IC-T90A as I have only owned it for a few days.
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− | So far I'm very impressed with this HT.
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