GAR

I just bought two Icom T90a HT's (only one here now). These are 6m, 2m, and 70cm transmit, with wide receive from .5Mhz to 999MHz with cell frequencies blocked.

It literally just arrived 3 days ago so I cannot give much of a report on it. I was running a 2m Icom 2GAT for the last 12 years and was more than satisfied with that, but my new radio with spare battery is smaller and lighter than one of my batteries for the old one!

I will give some sort of report later on about this radio, but like all new things it is vastly more complex than my old one. Audio of TV, AM, FM commercial radio is very good in such a small package, programming is fairly intuitive after a couple of tricks and the software for programming on the computer is decent, and I would recommend it.

I have ordered but not yet received 2 additional antennas for these, one a gain antenna the other a decent stubby. The supplied one seems much better than I expected.

I also took the opportunity to buy a decent car antenna and Mirage amplifier, both still in their boxes.

Around here both my emergency groups use 70cm and 2m frequencies for all work with some 6m, so this looked ideal to replace my 2m only radio.

If you are thinking of serving in a local group, you may want to check with them about their common use frequencies before you buy anything, but 2m served me very well around here and I am only moving my old HT to the car not retiring it.

I would definately consider a dual bander with wide receive instead of 2m only. The price differential is not too bad.

BTW I do not consider a no-code HAM a low skill HAM. I just barely passed the 5WPM and instantly forgot it. Now 5WPM is all that is needed all the way to Extra class. I considered upgrading to General while my wife was working on Tech, but did not do it. Some of my Seattle ACS work uses 80m where I do not have rights.