ICOM A-210 First Look

[Ironflight]

Well, I finally got my new A-210 installed this morning after Louise took off on her way home to Virginia, and thought I'd post my first impressions after the trial flight:

1) Wow! This thing looks and sounds great! The display is big and bright - it would be very hard to miss the frequency numbers and this was in bright Texas sunshine with dark glasses on.

2) The dual frequency monitor function is quite nice. This is my #2 Comm, so this gives me three frequencies I can monitor at the same time. It worked at least as well as the dual function I have heard in the SL-30 in Louise's airplane.

3) 200 Memory Channels? You've gotta be kidding! How am I going to figure out how to use them all?! Well, actually, I am building a spreadsheet with different groups and stuff - should be fun.

4) The unit is very solid and well built. I am not sure how they arrived at the design solution of a removable front plate to get to the screw to put the unit in and out of the rack, but maybe they are thinking ahead to a remote unit that tunes through an EFIS. The little ribbon cable that connects the front o the unit looks a little wimpy, but that just makes me cautious.

5) The unit fits visually with Garmin radios - better than the A-200 it is replacing. The A-200 is an excellent radio - I just wanted the dual monitoring function and more memory slots. It fit and operated perfectly in the A-200 rack - they are truly interchangeable. In the future, I'll add an RS-232 lien to the EFIS for remote tuning, but that can wait until the next time the Val's panel is out.

Overall, this is a GREAT radio, and I am happy to have waited so long since i paid for it at Oshkosh. I think the folks that got in on Captain John's group buy are going to be very happy as well!

Now I have to finish that list of frequencies, and all the labels to go with them....

Paul

[Captain_John]

Paul, I am glad that you are so pleased with the radio. I am sure that this thread now has many people awaiting their newly purchased radios with much anxiety! I know I am!

Glad you are happy with it!

CJ

[n5lp]

Originally Posted by Ironflight

...3) 200 Memory Channels? You've gotta be kidding! How am I going to figure out how to use them all?!...

I've always thought more than about 10 memory channels is humorous. After all my SL30 has 760 memory channels, in a sense.