A fellow I knew well, Ron Gammel, n5WX was pretty much in charge of
maintenance on the Broken Arrow OK repeater and an engineer for Tulsa's
Channel6 when I was living in that area/1982-1986. One day while doing
something maintenance related, about 600 feet up on channel 6's tower with
concrete around its' base, somehow had his ic2at get flipped off his belt!
Well by by HT! right? I mean 600foot freefall to concreete? Come
On!!!!Surprisingly Not_
Almost unbelievably, although the case was a little dented and he had to
replace either the + or Minus crystal in the rig, it survived and still
worked well! and I never knew this guy to prevaricate/lie, about anything
else, so have good reason to believe this account to be true!
Meanwhile, I know that one of the 2ats I had was on my belt when I fell
into a pretty deep hole,/not quite related, but somehow somewhat similar to
the starland vocal band's "falling in a deep hole song." Anyhow this
particular deep hole into which I fell, around six feet or so, was probably
four and a half feet or so filled with muddy water. At any rate, the Rig
was totally submurged, until I could clamber out of the hole. Then, after a
friend, ka5fkn Dave, opened the rig up, got the crud out of it, dried it
with pressurized air, then spray tuner cleaned it up, it worked well, as if
it'd never been "wattered.
Overall, Other than having to use the DC1, power converter pack, or a
"different from the stock supplied bp3 battery pack" in order to get
external power into the thing, the only other real negative for todays
technology about the 2at series is the lack of a standard stock PL tone
board. I believe that Icom did include a dip switch tunable, tone board in
some of the 2at series radios, I know some folks have installed or had
installed one of the little comspec dipswitchable boards as well. But I
wonder if any of you guys have tried, or know of someone who's tried using
one of the external "tone boards in a box," IE the Comspeck te32 or te64 I
think the nomenclatures are...maybe patching the tunable tone output into
the external mic input on the 2at series radios, since that mic input
___does not mute the inside the HT mic, if the output level of the tone were
sufficiently padded down so as not to override the output level of the mic,
you could have your HT Cake and eat it too. Of course you'd also have a
second box to carry around, but if you wanted to use that old HT for a base
unit with an outboard tone box, you'd have a pretty good little/big rig.
Anyway, all things considdered, the old 2at series radios were and still are
a far far far_ cry better built than most anything else out there, IMHO, and
that oppinion plus fifty cents to a buck fifty, will get you a cup of
coffee. Sincerely, Danny.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Buddy Brannan" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 8:37 PM
Subject: Re: Accessibility of the Icom ac2at?
> They don't get much more accessible than the IC-2AT. ... Nor do they
> come better built. You could probably drop one of those off a 100-
> foot tower and expect it to still work!
>
> The only modification you might need to make would be to put a knotch
> at some known point on the three thumbwheel controls used to set the
> frequency.
>
> If it doesn't have the CTCSS board, it might be a problem depending
> on repeaters in the local area.
> On Sep 25, 2006, at 11:38 AM, Dan wrote:
>
> > Hey all,
> > A local ham here in town who is now a silent key, had an Icom AC2AT
> > in his
> > radio equipment, and I'm wondering how accessible of a radio that
> > would be
> > to us? Just trying to help Holly Alonzo who is now on this list to
> > get some
> > sort of radio, and it's always good to have more than one ht
> > 73 de Dan VA3ETS
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV : Executive In Training! Watkins Manager #361534
> Shop our catalog of timeless Watkins products at www.tastyshop.net
> And see how becoming a Watkins associate will improve your family's
> quality of life at www.tastybiz.com
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