Hi.

I always wanted one of those with the VC20 VHF converter, the VS1 voice 
synth, and all the filters installed.  I think that would be a pretty good 
radio, or at least it would have been in its day.  It's probably aged 
enough now that I would worry about obsolete components, especially since I 
know that the TS440S has some obsolete comoponents.  That's the bad part 
about radios that are microprocessor controlled--much of the time there are 
proprietary chips that can't be replaced.  The Icom R71A is kind of the 
exception because their microprocessor design was so bad that there are a 
number of after-market replacements that make the radio better than it ever 
was when Icom sold it new.

I bought my IC-R71A used, and figured that I had a limited amout of time 
before the litium battery failed and I lost the firmware, so I bought one 
of the aftermarket replacement "brains" for it, and when a sighted friend 
came over to change it, he looked at the pictorals in the instructions and 
then looked at the radio, and scratched his head because the radio didn't 
look like the pictures.  Then, he looked closer, and realized that the guy 
I bought the radio from had already scrapped the Icom brain.  He actually 
replaced it with one that doesn't use a lithium battery at all, so I don't 
really have to worry about that radio anymore.  Assuming I don't lose a 
discrete component somewhere, that radio should just keep cooking.

73, de Lou K2LKK



At 08:35 AM 8/3/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>What I always thought was funny was the receiver that Kenwood had out about
>the time of the 440 wasn't that much cheaper, only a hundred bucks or so.
>I'd bet it was basically the same as the 440 without transmitting section.
>
>73s
>Butch Bussen
>wa0vjr
>
>
>
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>2:42 PM

Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
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