Message-Id: <20030711144716.EVKN9137.imf24aec.bellsouth.net@[68.212.98.71]> I think I recall having one of those radios. YEs if you have the stock microphone you can control many functions from the front panel such as moving from vfo to call channel to memory, move through memories or qsy in vfo mode. NO direct keypad entry of frequencies. NO speech board but it's usable. Memory no. 1 gies you a little beep sound when you first tune to it, and you can enhance that by putting something like a noaa wx broadcast in one of your memories so you always have a guide as to where you are. It's fairly easy to get around even without speech once you know where things are at. Much easier imho than the tm-261a I bought for my xyl. To access such things as ctcss tones for xmit you have to go into the menus from hell. I wish the speech synth board would work in the 261. 73 de nf5b Richard Webb Electric Spider Productions If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow enobled and none dare criticize it.