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From: wmartin@ALMSA-2.ALMSA (Will Martin -- AMXAL-RI)
Newsgroups: net.ham-radio
Subject: Re:  Scanner antennas
Message-ID: <3484@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 21-Nov-85 16:43:09 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.3484
Posted: Thu Nov 21 16:43:09 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Nov-85 10:48:00 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
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Not to beat a dead horse, but remember that the Icom R-7000 has the same
bad design as the R-71, and other current Icom products, with a "dynamic"
chip requiring continuous power to maintain the radio's basic operating
system parameters and allow it to work at all. This means mandatory 
maintenance (replacing the backup battery, either by expensive service
long after the warranty has expired, or by VERY CAREFUL self-maintenance)
every 7 or so years (fewer to be safe). I would treat that as enough
to disqualify the Icom from consideration either. It just doesn't strike
me that ANY of these new wide-band scanning/monitoring radios (Yaesu
FRG-9600, Icom R-7000, Regency M5000 or M7000, JIL SX-400, and whatever)
are worth buying now, especially for anything near their list prices.
In addition to the sort of design faults mentioned before, reviews
indicate that performance quality certainly doesn't seem to be good
enough to justify the prices.  I would give the technology a few more
years of development before putting my money on it...

(If everybody realized this, and nobody bought these boxes, those remaining
would be dumped and might be worth buying at under-$100 prices, realizing
that you have to figure long-term high-maintenance costs in addition to the
initial purchase price. Of course, the manufacturers would have to be
told that these were not selling because they just were not good enough,
not that there was no market for such devices. Then they'd have an
incentive to continue R&D and come up with something better to supply
the market. Otherwise they would just abandon the field.)

Will