Icom A210 Misunderstanding??

Was I the only one at Oshkosh that misunderstooded the Icom claim that the A210 would listen/monitor two freqs at once? After installing /using it and talking with their tech support, the real story is in the semantics. It can monitor two freqs at once but you can only listen to one freq at a time. It has one receiver, not two. Example: Primary freq set to tower. Stby is on ATIS. Dual selected (button pushed). All you hesr is ATIS. Not tower. Its still a nice radio but its not an SL40/60 product that really can "hear" 2 freqs at once. Anyone else find this disappointing?

hm.. SL-40 doesn't pipe both freqs into headphones at same time either... but I may be missing something?

The other thing the Icom does is turns off dual watch once you transmit. That was one thing that turned me off the Icom. XCOM had a booth at OSH and was running a nice show special. The XCOM dual watch stays on until you turn it off. On the XCOM if you have atis on standby and tower on active, if tower transmits it blocks out atis until tower is complete. There are intermittent clicks inserted into atis to let you know you are listening to the standby freq. I put it in my rocket panel and am not flying yet but on the ground it seems to work very well.

Radomir said:

hm.. SL-40 doesn't pipe both freqs into headphones at same time either... but I may be missing something?

Click to expand...

From Garmin's website:
"The SL40's frequency-monitoring function gives you the ability to monitor ATIS or the 121.5 emergency frequency without leaving your assigned ATC channel. This allows you to listen to standby frequencies while giving priority to the active channel, meaning you'll never miss a transmission."

I take this to mean that you can listen to the standby freq, but if a transmission comes in on the first selected freq the standby will cut off. So, in essence I would think that you can listen to the standby frequency. I thought the same was true for iCom's A210.

I think someone previously posted about this issue and the A210. If I remember correctly they were stating that if you had a continuous carrier (like an atis) on the standby freq, it would lock onto the standby and never come back.

If this is true, it pretty much makes this feature useless.

The SL-40/SL-30 'ticks' aren't really there for the user (although it is handy for users). There's only one receiver in the unit. The radio is quickly switching back to the primary frequency to make sure that no radio transmission is taking place. If there is a transmission taking place it will give priority to the primary frequency. But functionally yes, it's like having two radios and I really can't imagine a scenario (except a failed radio and only two places to put frequencies as opposed to 4 in the case of two flip-flop radios) where two radios would be better. I really enjoy using my SL-40 and when I build my next airplane it will have the same radio.

Clicks actual reason

Brantel said:

I think someone previously posted about this issue and the A210. If I remember correctly they were stating that if you had a continuous carrier (like an atis) on the standby freq, it would lock onto the standby and never come back.

If this is true, it pretty much makes this feature useless.

Click to expand...

I bought the A210 but am a long way from installation. I am disappointed that it does not work the STBY feature as we thought. The XCOM discussion stated you hear a click to let you know you are listening to STBY Freq, I am just guessing, but maybe the click is used to break the steady transmission so that the primary freq can override the stby. Seems this design would work to break up the steady reception of something like and ATIS and give the primary a chance to take over. I am hoping if enough complain there might be some type of patch ICOM can make to the 210 so the feature works the same. I am not sure if there is a way to field up date the software in the radio or if this would mean sending them back to the factory. No big deal to me though, I would be on ATIS for a short period then back to monitor 121.5.

If anyone knows or finds the real answer to the click in the stby freq of the XCOM I would be curious to know.

Cheers

Brantel said:

I think someone previously posted about this issue and the A210. If I remember correctly they were stating that if you had a continuous carrier (like an atis) on the standby freq, it would lock onto the standby and never come back.

Click to expand...

Yes, can someone find this thread? I remeber seeing it but just now searched and didn't find it. The original poster of the that thread had the same concern as the original poster of this thread, but I seem to remember others posting that the concern was either unfounded or not a big deal in real practice.

I haven't really noticed this to be a problem yet in flying with my 210. Not saying that I have really studied how it is working, but I rarely listen to an ATIS or AWOS more than one to two cycles - I usually have a CTAF and an approach control frequency up at the same time, and the dual watch sure seems to let me hear them both. Since it is my #2 Comm, I really haven't taken the time to explore it much, so don't take these as authoritative comments...and I sure do love the display!

Paul

Paul-

Just for clarification... Do you hear both frequencies at the same time or is that if someone is talking on the primary frequency, the primary frequence overrides completely whatever you were listening to on the secondary frequency?

Steve

Updated: (Thanks Brian for the link with the original thread on this issue)....

I'm especially curious about Paul's experience because Michael XCOM on the thread below suggests that you can't hear two frequencies at once or that the primary will not over-ride the secondary:
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?p=170302#post170302

alpinelakespilot2000 said:

Yes, can someone find this thread?

Click to expand...

About the middel of page 2 of this thread:

http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?p=170302#post170302

alpinelakespilot2000 said:

Paul-

Just for clarification... Do you hear both frequencies at the same time or is that if someone is talking on the primary frequency, the primary frequence overrides completely whatever you were listening to on the secondary frequency?

Steve

Click to expand...

I think all will agree that it does not give you both at the same time but will constantly check (at some poll rate) for a transmition on the standby and if it hears something, it switches to the standby until the transmition is over then it flips back to the active and starts polling the standby again.

Problem is if there is a constant transmition on the standby or active, once it flips to that, it stays there and does not move on or at least that is what I think everyone is saying.

So from what I gather it goes like this:

Say you have approach on active and atis on standby and you enable dual watch, the unit will start out on active and then go to standby and spit out the atis but will never go back to the active channel as long as the atis is transmitting. In this case you could miss a call from approach.

If you have non constant transmitting freqs on both active and standby, this would not be a problem and would seem like you are getting both at once unless they both are transmitting at the same time and in this case, the first one to transmit would win.

Brantel said:

I think all will agree that it does not give you both at the same time but will constantly check (at some poll rate) for a transmition on the standby and if it hears something, it switches to the standby until the transmition is over then it flips back to the active and starts polling the standby again.

Problem is if there is a constant transmition on the standby or active, once it flips to that, it stays there and does not move on or at least that is what I think everyone is saying.

Click to expand...

Brian-Thanks for the link to that old thread. In that older thread, however, Paul seems to imply in Post #20 that he CAN hear both frequencies at once, hence my confusion.

alpinelakespilot2000 said:

Brian-Thanks for the link to that old thread. In that older thread, however, Paul seems to imply in Post #20 that he CAN hear both frequencies at once, hence my confusion.

Click to expand...

If that is true, I am confused as well. Someone with this thing installed needs to go out and clarify this.

I really like this radio other than this issue if it truly is an issue. If not, my plane will have one....(Depending on how the MGL radio works out)

I may have confused the issue with my ATIS example in the Stby position. Bottom line: It "listens" to two freqs. Whichever freq it "hears" something on first is what it listens to until the transmission is complete. So if it hears something on stby thats what you hear till its complete. In the meantime if someone transmitted to you on the Primary: YOU MISSED IT! It has ONE receiver. But the freqs look cool when they dance across the screen!!

Greg Reese
Unhappy A210 owner.

The frequencies might look cool dancing around but that is sure uncool way to design a dual watch radio. Without a second receiver in the radio it is almost impossible to monitor two frequencies at the same time.

Most scanners have priority on one channel . They switch back and
forth and stop on any active channel. They keep checking
on the priority channel. When traffic comes on the priority
channel, they leave the active channel and switch to the
priority channel. They do this with one receiver.
Tom

Hmmm....much discussion since lunchtime!

I'll play with it more the next time I'm up....until then, I've told you all that I know...

Paul

A210

I Think the 210 is still a good choice. I LOVE mine. The only issue is a constant carrier override on the standby if you tune ATIS/ASOS as your standby freq. It is the only way I see a single receiver monitoring 2 freqs can work. Think of it operating as a 2 channel scanner with the selected freq as the priority channel.
The trade is, you can't really use dual watch with the standby tuned to a constant carrier signal such as AWOS/ASOS/ATIS. So...Listen to ATIS, and tune UNICOM or other selected freq as your DW standby. It works real good in my situation, as I am in the Wilmington NC TRSA ring, and the little field we all use out here is UNICOM (60J), but inside that ring. So, I use 122.8 as a primary at my field, when airborne, I contact ILM for flight following, Squawk ILM code, and monitor 122.8 for local traffic. In this case it is just as good as having 2 radios. That being said, if you are based at Delta airspace, it may be better to use 2 discrete receivers. You will be exposed to more constant carrier situations at bigger fields.
Hope this helps clarify your choice of radio...
Regards....Chris

The XCOM Click

Hi Guys the XCOM really can monitor 2 frequencies at once. The click is put into the standby channel so you can easliy know what channel you are listening to. We tested the 210 recently and i posted the info on how in monitors. It's not Dual Watch as we have in the XCOM, it wont go back to the primary channel unless the secondary stops transmitting, i will find the old post and put in this thread. Thanks Michael

Well Bummer

From Icoms sales brochure: "The dualwatch function allows you to monitor two channels simultaneously." Well that's not true. What is VFO scan?

If what you guys are saying is true, than they screwed up. They just did not understand how we want to use the radio. May be they just threw in this "scanner" to fill up their sales brochure with a "feature" on the cheap.** However the misunderstanding seems to be on Icoms side. The english is clear, a SCANNER is not simultaneous.

The two freq scanner? That's not really how we need to use it. I don't want to go off listening watch of #1 Freq EVER, at least without my control. #1 Freq priority is usually needed regardless of what's on standby. It should never override the main freq's audio. Two receivers are needed to get the job done. It has it or it does not.

If you have to maintain listening watch on #1 freq, you don't want to monitor standby and have it flip off all of sudden. If it locks onto any standby call, what ever it is, it could keep you from hearing a #1 call coming in just after. I can't believe the FAA would like this. Your primary radio should not be a SCANNER.

ATIS on standby locks out #1 Freq? The usefulness is not much more than a one receiver radio and manually flipping back and forth to the other freq.

If enough customers complain or word gets out and sales drop off, than they might consider a redesign. I do think many customers will change their mind about buying the Icom A210, if this is how dual watch works. That's the main reason I wanted to trade-up my Icom A200, but not now. The Icom A210 cost what $1225 verses a SL40 for $1575. Not much difference. I paid $600 new for my A200, so I'll stick with that. I can connect my handheld up to the intercom if I have a burning desire to monitor two freqs together.

** It's was the same thing with the so-called Icom A200 intercom; it's a joke really, a non VOX intercom that requires funky wiring and an external switch; plus it doesn't work well. They can advertise it but its almost worthless. I can see why they did it, because it did not cost them much money to add the "feature". However the feature is lousy. Other wise its a great radio. Icom says the A210 has a VOX intercom? Wounder now how cheap they made that feature.

Heres what ICOM told me

When I asked if it could be changed/upgraded to monitor and give the primary channel priority when it is on the standby channel.

Thanks for your e-mail.
Dual watch does indeed swap frequencies and it is not a priority scan mode. This feature must be manually turned on and manually turned off, but there isn't any way to change the radio's firmware or programming to something different.

rvator51 said:

When I asked if it could be changed/upgraded to monitor and give the primary channel priority when it is on the standby channel.

Thanks for your e-mail.
Dual watch does indeed swap frequencies and it is not a priority scan mode. This feature must be manually turned on and manually turned off, but there isn't any way to change the radio's firmware or programming to something different.

Click to expand...

So my question now, is how is the new A210 any better than the much less expensive A200. If you can't monitor ATIS/ASOS/AWOS and be sure you are not missing something from the primary frequency, it seems like the dual watch feature is really pretty pointless. Even worse, it cost me $600 more just to get it. Boy do I feel stupid now!

I think a ton of people are feeling duped. If enough people complain, maybe at a minimum it will make them come clean on their marketing literature so others do not get taken by this misleading, sales generating information.

Does everything else work as advertised

Brantel said:

I think a ton of people are feeling duped. If enough people complain, maybe at a minimum it will make them come clean on their marketing literature so others do not get taken by this misleading, sales generating information.

Click to expand...

The question is, does there advertisement constituted some kind of fraud or was it just lost in translation (from japanese to english). Their brochure says:

"The dualwatch function allows you to monitor two channels simultaneously", which is not true when one freq locks in. Well in fact its never true. It polls the two freq one at a time, in series. Their advertisement is misleading to say it nicely.

Does A210 does have the freq data transfer? Does that work as advertised?

The best use for the scanner I imagine is VFR en-route and having stby on 121.5 and the main freq, say flight following or air-to-air on main. IFR I would turn the scanner off.

No doubt they lost sales to the SL40 and tried to copy the two main features, data link and dual channel watch. Clearly its cheaper to put a scanner circuit on a single receiver verses a true dual receiver. I wounder if they really thought the scanner was useful (out of ignorance) or they just put some feature in to sound like the SL40's true dual watch capability, knowing it was not? They do need change their brochure and advertisements wording and add a footnote. [1]

[1] "Dualwatch" is a non-priority scanner. You only listen to one freq at a time (as it switches back-N-forth between the two freq). Use of "dualwatch" scan mode is not recommended if listening watch on main frequency is critical or mandatory. Once an incoming transmission is detected on either freq, the receiver locks onto that transmission, while the other freq is locked out indefinitely (not being monitored). When the transmission ends the scanner resumes "dualwatch" scanning. This is a cheap little feature we added to make it seem like we where like the better SL40. We appreciate your business and glad you spent the money on our less capable product, when you could have easily spent another few $100 and got real dual watch capability.

I guess I will not be asked to write manuals for Icom.

Freq data transfer

My understanding of the frequency data transfer after reading the manual is that the frequencies from the gps go into a GPS 10 channel memory area. To use them, you press the RCL button to go into memory mode then rotate the outer dial to scroll through the memory types to get to the GPS memory, then rotate the inner dial to select a frequency you want to use which goes to the standby frequency then push the RCL button to exit out of GPS memory mode.
I will try it out this weekend. I am not sure if you have to go to the GPS memory to add a frequency first from the GPS first or if just pushing the button on the GPS will send it automatically to one of the ten GPS memory freqs or if the gps automattically send the close frequencies to the gps memory channels.
My initial understanding (hope?) was that when you selected the gps freq on the gps, it would program the gps freq into the standby freq in the A-210. If I read the manual correctly, it takes several steps to get from the GPS to where you can use it. If this is true, not sure how useful it will be for me, unless I do the programming well in advance of when I need it.
Easier just to manually enter the number into the standby freq.

On the plus side, the screen is great.

Economics - buy two A-200's

If you don't want the flashier display and extra features, then it sounds like using two A-200 radios would be a better deal...

Same $$$ cost, and you get the added benefit of actual redundancy. It does require more radio stack height though...

So... will you ever use (or do you really need) the extra "stuff" on the A-210?

gil A - even VFR, I like two comms... and I use one to listen to ATIS...

az_gila said:

If you don't want the flashier display and extra features, then it sounds like using two A-200 radios would be a better deal...

Same $$$ cost, and you get the added benefit of actual redundancy. It does require more radio stack height though...

So... will you ever use (or do you really need) the extra "stuff" on the A-210?

gil A - even VFR, I like two comms... and I use one to listen to ATIS...

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing.

How much weight does a second radio/antenna/coax add? Considering true dual freq. capability and system redundancy (even VFR), for the same cost, I'm thinking a pair of A-200 radio's are a much better deal.

DJ

not happy

After reading here about how this unit works you can count me as another unhappy customer. Mine's still in the box, what do you suppose the chances are of them taking it back and giving a refund? Probably not very good.

Mark Erickson
Minnetonka, MN.
RV9A fuselage

panheadmark said:

After reading here about how this unit works you can count me as another unhappy customer. Mine's still in the box, what do you suppose the chances are of them taking it back and giving a refund? Probably not very good.

Mark Erickson
Minnetonka, MN.
RV9A fuselage

Click to expand...

Probably not very good, to be sure, but I'm wondering if we could start working up a list of people who felt the advertising was misleading and are now very disappointed with having purchased one. Since many of us purchased through the ACS group buy, we can't return them to ACS (if I remember correctly) but maybe Tom Glaze at ACS can at least make our complaint formally with Icom. I'm not expecting Icom to take our radios back (although they should) or give us a partial refund (which they also should probably do), but at least it might, as George said above, force Icom to stop their misleading advertising, thus helping the next guy. Everything I have ever heard about Icom has been great up to this point (which is why I went against my better judgement and for the first time purchased something that hadn't been tested in the marketplace first). I can't imagine they'd want to tarnish that reputation over the A210. Maybe they'd take such a complaint seriously. Anyone want to add their name to such a list or have a better suggestion?

Unhappy customer list

Probably not very good, to be sure, but I'm wondering if we could start working up a list of people who felt the advertising was misleading and are now very disappointed with having purchased one. Since many of us purchased through the ACS group buy, we can't return them to ACS (if I remember correctly) but maybe Tom Glaze at ACS can at least make our complaint formally with Icom. I'm not expecting Icom to take our radios back (although they should) or give us a partial refund (which they also should probably do), but at least it might, as George said above, force Icom to stop their misleading advertising, thus helping the next guy. Everything I have ever heard about Icom has been great up to this point (which is why I went against my better judgement and for the first time purchased something that hadn't been tested in the marketplace first). I can't imagine they'd want to tarnish that reputation over the A210. Maybe they'd take such a complaint seriously. Anyone want to add their name to such a list or have a better suggestion?

Click to expand...

Yep. I'm on the unhappy list.

Can add me to the list.

Just how many teeth are in that horses mouth?

panheadmark said:

After reading here about how this unit works you can count me as another unhappy customer. Mine's still in the box, what do you suppose the chances are of them taking it back and giving a refund? Probably not very good.

Mark Erickson
Minnetonka, MN.
RV9A fuselage

Click to expand...

It is so much more fun to try to use a debate to determine how many teeth are in the mouth of the horse on the other side of the field than to actually go over there and count them.

OK, so who has actually flown behind an A-210 and verified that the dual freq monitoring works one way or the other? I see three pages of speculation and after about two pages of speculation a conclusion has been drawn.

I would like to know if Icom is using Digital Signal Processing (DSP) like they use in many of their other receivers. If it is actually a DSP receiver than a dual watch capability is simply implemented in software. Even radio control receivers are being engineered today with DSP so it isn't a very big stretch to assume that the new Icom probably is using it.

I am completely happy with my purchase. I will be able to load frequencies directly from my GPS and select between them with switches on my control stick. How cool is that? Your only other option for that is an SL-30 or 40.

Lets get some feedback from Paul Dye or anyone else that is flying. I will be hooking mine up in my panel sometime this week and will try to get some REAL DATA before I trash what I think is going to turn out to be a great little radio.

Flight Test of A-210

I didn't buy an A-210 yet, not because of
the scan feature, but the intercom feature.
If someone does an actual flight test, I would
like to also know how well the , (I hope voice
activated), intercom feature works.
Thanks,
Tom

tomwebster said:

I didn't buy an A-210 yet, not because of
the scan feature, but the intercom feature.
If someone does an actual flight test, I would
like to also know how well the , (I hope voice
activated), intercom feature works.
Thanks,
Tom

Click to expand...

I will also be checking this out next week. I laid out my panel today and will be cutting it tomorrow. No audio panel or intercom. Relying on the A-210 for that. I don't expect it to let me down.

Steve Eberhart
RV-7A, O-360-A1A, Catto 3 blade, GRT Sport/HC EFIS and EIS, Icom A-210

newtech said:

Lets get some feedback from Paul Dye or anyone else that is flying. I will be hooking mine up in my panel sometime this week and will try to get some REAL DATA before I trash what I think is going to turn out to be a great little radio.

Click to expand...

I'm still happy with mine, and I know that I said that I'd do a definitive examination of this feature, but I've been busy trying to get a Shuttle off the ground (and re-paneling a -6), so when I've been flying the past couple weeks it's been quick flights to relax....it's my #2 Comm, so I don't pay it much attention, but really like the screen and as I have said before, I have not been annoyed by it in any way.

I'm sorry I can't give you any more specifics than that - but I can tell you that in the same rack, with the same antenna as my A200 (a really fine radio!) used I get better range and a clearer reception - and that coupled with the new display makes me happy I switched - but that's just me.

Paul

Yes, I have flown behind the Icom A210

Hello there I have flown behind the Icom A210 as part of our evaluation of a newly released product about 2 1/2 months ago and can give you first hand comments.

The intercom works really well, you will be happy with it.

The display is fantastic in low light situations but in a low wing aircraft with a bubble canopy and the sun behind you is extremely difficult to read. In high-wing applications the display will be more than adequate and you should be happy 99.9% of the time.

The radio does not have dual watch feature like in the XCOM, if it receives a transmission on the secondary frequency that is where it will stay... it won't come back to the primary frequency unless the secondary frequency stops transmission.

The Icom draws quite a bit of power on standby so is only really suitable to fit into aircraft with a decent power supply, it cannot be used in say a glider or other aircraft running on batteries.

Overall I believe the majority of you will be happy with your purchase with the exception of the dual watch feature. The radio design and the way it is manufactured will make it very difficult to implement this feature in the current design.

Many thanks Michael

Lost in translation

tomwebster said:

I didn't buy an A-210 yet, not because of
the scan feature, but the intercom feature.
If someone does an actual flight test, I would
like to also know how well the , (I hope voice
activated), intercom feature works.
Thanks, Tom

Click to expand...

That would nice to find out how good the intercom is. The A210 specs/ad say VOX operated intercom. I'm sure its VOX, but the question is sound quality (volume) and squelch operations. Michael (above) gives it a thumbs up. Tom Velvick gives the GPS Freq to A210 transfer mixed reviews. Any other reports of Intercom or Freq transfer features?

I assure you the older A-200's intercom feature is really quite weak and marginal (useless and horrible), but to be fair they did not advertise it having VOX operations. Even if a button activated intercom suits you, the volume was very low. I was considering using it, but after I understood how it worked (radio or intercom but not both) and reading about sound quality from other customers, I installed a separate intercom. I'm still happy with the A200, especially since I got it new on sale for $600. I'd buy it again even at full price of $700. I noticed the sales brochure for the A200 does not play up the intercom and now says "Intercom function - With additional wiring aboard the aircraft...." I know they got lots of complaints about the A200 intecom.


I don't think people are bashing Icom or being unreasonable. We need to get the word out. The question is the A210 worth the extra $550 over the A200. Some say yes, some say no, especially after they know out how dualwatch really works. Clearly the A210 is not in the same league as the SL40 ($1575), but that is $325/$875 more than the A210/A200 respectively. It appears they decided to position their products price between the A200 and Garmin SL40.

Customer unhappiness is expected when features are much less than implied and expected. There is NO simultaneous listening. I felt this way about the intercom feature on the A200. I still love the Icom A200, glad to have it; I'd buy it again, but I add on a full meal deal intercom, which is really better (stereo). The truth should be out there. Bottom line their product description is lousy and misleading.

One negative thing about my Icom experience, which seems consistent, Icom's written communication's are ambiguous. An example is the A200 installation manual, which is ambiguous. Not to bash Icom, they make a good product at a fair price, no doubt, but Icom of America, is just distribution, basic customer support & sales. Icom's main technical brain, design, manufacturing and HQ's are in Japan. Sometimes Japanese companies have manuals written and illustrated in the USA, with english speaking employees. I suspect Icom writes all their literature in Japan. I would like to believe this misunderstanding was due to being lost in translation. They need to update their sales brochure.

If you have a NEW unit in the box untouched..............they should take it back. Heck even if you used it and don't want it they should take it back and refurbish it. I'm not a big fan of lawsuits but you can contact your state's Attorney General or the AG in the state the company is in. They send out some awesome threatening letters. I had a problem with aggressive misleading phone solicitation from outright crooks. It did not affect me, I smelled their scam, but I complain to possibly save some little old lady her pension. The State Attorney went after them and sent me a letter telling me what they did. I was impressed. I think if you ask them nice, explain to them why they're in the wrong, they'll cave if that is what you want. At minimum they should trade you for a A200 and rebate the difference. Icom is in Washington state. If you ever want to check a company out get on the state AG where that company. Many AG's have data bases you can check out complaints against companies.

I started this thread with real operational experience of the A210. Its as I stated in the begining. Call it whatever you want. Its semantics to a salesman, not to a pilot. You CAN'T listen to Two freqs at once ! It has ONE receiver !! You can "monitor" two freqs at once but when one is receiving you can not hear the other. How else can I say it??? I called the company to confirm my dissapointment. They CONFIRMED its limitations !!

newtech said:

I am completely happy with my purchase. I will be able to load frequencies directly from my GPS and select between them with switches on my control stick. How cool is that? Your only other option for that is an SL-30 or 40..

Click to expand...

From what I understand their version of this does not work anything like the SL30-40. Someone posted earlier about it. Not sure this has as much value as the way it is done on the SL30-40. If it works the way the poster mentioned, it would be easier to enter them by hand.

First flight with Icom A-210

I flew this morning with another RV from Deer Valley Airport, DVT Phoenix, AZ to Marana Regional near Tucson AZ and back. We did a flight of two through Phoenix Class B airspace. My initial impressions after about the flight.

The Good:
The unit just looks good compared to the King KY-97 that it replaced.
The displayed frequencies are larger than on the King and easier for me to read.
Subjectively, the receiver seems to be clearer than my old radio. Marc in his RV-7, said the radio sounded great when I transmitted.
Dual scan does monitor two frequencies. We did a flight of two through Phoenix Class Bravo airspace so I just had to listen. I set the radio to monitor PHX approach and then another air to air freq that Marc used to communicate to me.
The knobs turn easily and work good.

The not so good:
Dual scan does not switch back to the primary frequency when there is a transmisson on the primary frequency. This wasnt so bad when I was 2nd in a flight of two. If I had been by my self, I wouldnt have used the dual scan while in touch with Phx approach because I might miss a call on the primary frequency if someone was talking on the standby freq.

Whenever I pushed the PTT to talk to Marc, the ICOM would exit from dual scan mode. I checked the configuration settings and there wasnt a setting to change this behavior. This caused me to miss several calls from Marc because I though I was in dual scan mode and wasnt. So you have to remember to push the dual button after everytime you talk if you want to stay in dual scan mode. If you are flying in a group while in dual scan, this is a hassle.

I didnt get to test the gps selection because I need to redo the cable I made up. I did play with selecting a gps freq from memory. It is several steps to retrieve a gps frequency from gps memory and still looks like it would be easier to just select the frequency directly. The ICOM user guide seems to say that the 10 gps memory channels are programmed automatically by the gps as you get close but doesnt say how this works. I think you have to select the frequencies you want on the gps to get them to go to the GPS memory channels.
I will try to have my cable working soon so I can report on how this actually works on the Icom A-210.

The way the Icom works seems to be a lot different than the Garmin SL-40 which puts the gps freq directly into the standby freq.

Overall impression.
I liked the radio but disliked how the dual scan and gps frequency selection works. I wish they could have put a setting in the cofiguration file that would allow you to select whether the PTT disables dual scan or not and whether to allow priority freq monitoring or not. The only reason I bought the radio was because of the dual scan feature. Since I mostly fly in or around class B airspace, I wanted to be able to monitor the standby freq while never missing a transmission on the priority channel. The RV-4 panel doesnt have a lot of room and I didnt want to stick another radio in there. The Icom seemed to fullfill my needs at several hundred dollars less than the Garmin SL-40. I will continue to fly with the radio and see if I can get used to the limitations of the dual scan, but am now thinking about selling it and getting a SL-40 at some time in the near future.
If you dont need the dual scan mode because you have two radios, I think the Icom would work great.
If Icom could make a couple of software and configuration setting changes to alter the behavior of the dual scan, gps entry and PTT, it would be a winner. The email I received back from them didnt sound like that was an option, though.

Thanks Tom,

I hope Icom reads this and makes a B model of the A210 and fixes these gripes. Probably never get true dual listen capability unless they add a second receiver, which is probably unlikely, at least at current price point. I just can't believe a second VHF receiver is that much money, probably can put it all on chip. Good write up. From the Views and word of mouth, +2,500 know the score. If sales go in the can than may be Icom might make a change?

GPS interface on Icom working

I got the GPS interface to work on the Icom today. Heres how it works.

There are 10 gps memory channels assigned to gps frequencies. The Icom manual says to press the "RCL" button and rotate the outer knob to access them.
This only works if the GPS is turned on and has the correct settings and the ICOM is connected properly.
Once everything is connected properly and both the GPS and the Icom are turned on, then the gps memory will show on the Icom when you press the "RCL" button and rotate the outer knob to "GPS" memory.
The 10 channel gps memory is more like a temporary cache that is overwritten as needed by new gps data instead of permanent memory like the other channels.
When I first pressed the "RCL" button and rotated the knob to "GPS", all of the frequencies for KDVT (Deer Valley Airport where my hanger is) showed in the gps memory channels. The neat thing is that each freq had a label that told what it was used for, ie twr, grd, app, etc.

Based on the above, it looks like the Icom automatically downloads a list of the freqs used by an airport into the GPS memory.
I do not yet know how it decides to which airport frequencies to put in gps memory. Does it go off the flight plan and show only the closest airport freqs from the direct to or flight plan? Or does it show the closest airport to the plane no matter whether it is on the flight plan or not? I will do a flight soon and find out what the parameters are for how it shows the list of airport frequencies.
You can also press the "MEM" button and put the entire GPS list at one time into one of the 20 group (GRP) memories. I did this and now all of the freqs for KDVT show under the title "GRP20 KDVT" memory.
I have to say as much as I have complained about the advanced featuress of the radio so far, I found the GPS function very easy to understand and easy to use and I really like it. I think I will use the gps interface a lot.

Like the dual scan function, Icom seems to not have done the gps interface 100%. If you select a frequency on the GPS and press the Enter button, the GPS sends the freq on the data out line. The Garmin SL30 and SL40 and others then show the freq in the standby window. However, I couldn't get this to work on the Icom A-210. It looks likes it only downloads lists of freqs at airports and doesnt allow you to manually select a freq from the GPS to use.
As good as the rest of the GPS interface works, I can live with this limitation.

Bottom line for me at this point.
I love 95% of this radio and am unhappy with 5% of it.
I think people with two radios who dont need the dual scan feature are really going to like this radio.

Deal killer
If dual scan is monitoring the standby frequency and a transmission is made on the primary frequency, the Icom will not go back to the primary frequency but stay on standby until it is done, then start monitoring again for the first freq to transmit again. PTT cancelling the dual scan mode is irritating and easy to overlook until you realize dual scan is not working anymore.
If Icom comes up with a fix for this, I will become an vocal supporter of this radio and may buy another one for the other RV.
If Icom doesnt, I will sell it and replace it with a Garmin SL-40.

Although Icom doesnt advertize it in their installation manual other than to say 3rd party compatibility, it looks like the Icom A-210 can also be used as a slide in replacement for the SL-40 as well as the King KY-97A and the Icom A-200. I ordered a connector and a SL-40 tray that I am going to rewire and use instead of the supplied tray/molex connector. If I decide to go with a SL-40, it's just a matter of sliding the Icom A-210 out and sliding the SL-40 in. The pin outs for everything are exactly identical.

After you setup your gps to talk to the Icom, were you still able to use the gps with the autopilot and the Dynon?

Primary = stand by?

What I understand from all the above posts, is that the "Primary" and "Stand-by" frequencies are actually two scanned frequencies with the same value/status/importance? The one that catches the first communication wins?

I talked to ICOM

Pilottonny said:

What I understand from all the above posts, is that the "Primary" and "Stand-by" frequencies are actually two scanned frequencies with the same value/status/importance? The one that catches the first communication wins?

Click to expand...

Yes. Excellent way to put it. Icom says we know and we are not going to change it.

I was told they are aware of the complaints and there are no plans to ever update the existing unit. All ICOM America can do is send reports back to Japan. I'm sure if sales fall off they might discontinue the model and make a whole new model.

The also say their ad "monitors two freq simultaneously", is OK because it says. The word "monitor" is their excuse. Monitor? Listen? Please 100% of the first people who bought the A210 over the older A200 thought they could actually hear two freqs, at the same time, "simultaneously". There is nothing ambiguous about the word "simultaneously": happening, existing, or occuring at the same time or moment.

If you want true listen to two freq simultaneously than spend the extra $350 or so bucks on a Garmin SL40.

The only way ICOM will get the message is if sales are flat and existing customers try to return their units and/or complain. Of course returns are handled only by the retailer not Icom. If say ACS gets enough complaints at least they might warn people who order it about the possible misunderstanding about its features and capabilities.

If you are really mad you can file a complaint with the attorney general of Washington state on-line or the BBB for false advertising. Personally I don't think ICOM was doing something sneaky, just Japanese to English translation issues.

gmcjetpilot said:

I was told they are aware of the complaints and there are no plans to ever update the existing unit. All ICOM America can do is send reports back to Japan.

Click to expand...

This is exactly what they told me at OSH when I was comparing features with other radios. After a bit of thought the next day I bought an XCOM 760. It does everything the ICOM radio does and then some in a much smaller, lighter package. With the show special price it was cheaper than the ICOM. The Microair is at feature-parity with the XCOM radio however I think the XCOM radio seems to be a bit more user-friendly and has a couple of things I think are better design-wise, like no pots for mic gain. Some of my Aussie friends were there and spoke highly of XCOM and that pretty much sealed the deal for me.