I got my Kenwood THF-6A to replace the FT-51 as my primary HT,   a million
times better for all the reasons you said, I actually enjoy walking around
with an HT almost everywhere I go again.
John Miller N1UMJ
Owner: J E M Racing need sponsors and crew help
to chat with me  AOL instant messenger JEMracing3
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Bishop" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: FT51R


> Hi Jim,
>
> I have a ft51RH here.  If you reset the unit to the factory settings,
> it comes up without the auto repeater offset turned on.  You have to go
> into the menus to change this.  Fortunately, I haven't had to do this
> for quite a log time now, but unfortunately, I can't remember how to do
> it without looking it up.  Personally, I find it a difficult radio to
> use as there are so many bells and whistles that it's much to easy to
> turn on some function that you don't want and thus making the radio
> difficult to operate.  Also, as I mentioned, if you do a reset, you
> need to set the repeater offset again.
>
> A blind person can do this, but it really is a pain and you can really
> benefit from sighted assistance in setting up the radio if you do have
> that assistance.
>
> I do have the computer software around here which you can use to set
> the options in the radio and I've found it to be pretty accessible,
> with window eyes anyway.  But, that doesn't help you much if you're out
> somewhere and accidently get the radio into some strange mode you don't
> want.
>
> It has all kinds of pager and telephone related functions which when
> enabled make it difficult to use as a standard transceiver.
>
> All this is why I'm seriously thinking of getting the Kenwood THF6a as
> it seems to be much more user friendly, at least from the reports I've
> heard.
>
> If you don't have a sighted friend to help you get the thing up and
> running, and if no one else on list can help you out, I'll dig it out
> and try to refresh my memory on setting up the radio.
>
> Don W6SMB