Hi Ivan,

The rigs of choice at this time for the HF Bands seem to be, The Icom 718,
the Kenwood 570, or 2000.

For mobile, dual band VHF/UHF,  are, the Kenwood TM-G707a and the Kenwood
TM-V7A.  The information for these rigs are among some of the most
downloaded files from,
www.icanworkthisthing.com

I hope that this has been of some help to you.

73 Keith-WA9DRO

At 10:17 AM 5/12/03 -0600, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>    I'm thinking about my next ham purchase and wanted to pose a few
>questions to this list regarding rig accessability.  I'm still in search
>of "the rig that does it all" for me, and a good factor for consideration
>is the accessability of that rig.
>
>    Initially I was looking at the Yaesu 8900r (available by the way, for
>$389 in most places).  Does anyone have experience with this radio?  It
>appears to be tunable by only a dial (no keypad), although you appear to
>be able to reach a preprogrammed frequency with the "hoem frequency" key.
>I'd also be curious to hear (generally speaking) how accessable people
>feel Yaesu mobile rigs are.  I'm pondering a mobile rig just because I can
>use it as a base with a power supply, but take it in the car when desired
>(i.e. camping trips).
>
>    I'm also looking into an all mode, all band rig like the Icom 706 - I
>might be able to get hooked on HF if I have the opertunity to listen to
>some, and I'd probably spend the 700-800 dollars anyhow by the time I buy
>2-3 more separate radios and eventially get into HF.  From what I have
>read in list archives (I've unsubscribed from this list for a while) the
>706 seems to be pretty accessable, is this true even without the voice
>chip?
>
>Thanks as always for the practical experiences and feedback (you guys know
>who you are),
>Ivan Fetch.

Keith-WA9DRO
God gives His best to those who leave the choice with Him.
Hudson Taylor