Standard c510a; Thread Status. The system comes with operator manuals for both HT and Amp, product sales brochure, Amplifier Mounting Bracket, and original boxes.

Mini Handhelds, A Short Review Are you thinking of picking up one of the several mini dual band handhelds on the market? Here are some personal impressions of three currently available, the Icom IC-T8A, the Standard C510A and the Yaesu FT-50RD. This is not made to be a technical review of the units, but rather a like and dislike review based on personal experience. To begin with, all units met or exceeded the specifications stated in the owner's manual when put on the bench. Now, on to some overall likes and dislikes.

All the units are small. The smallest is the Standard C510A and the largest is the Yaesu FT-50RD (mainly in depth).

They are truly handheld units. All are multiband (the C510A and the FT-50RD being dual band and the IC-T8A being triband). All the units are broadbanded in nature (this may be a poor feature if you live in a high RF environment).

They all receive from about 50 MHz to 1 GHz unmodified (or at least with a keypad modification). On the downside, unlike their larger cousins, they do not have a dual band simultaneous receive capability (although the FT-50RD does have a 'dual watch' (priority) function.

All three have fairly poor intermod rejection (due to their broadbanded nature and their size (no room for any real filters)). They all suffer from poor receive audio at high volume levels (tinny and distorted). This is due to the small speakers in the units.

They also all suffer from a poor standard antenna. It seems that the manufacturers scaled the antennas to match the handhelds and the resultant 'rubber attenuator' is a cut below the rubber ducks that come with a standard HT.

All the units come with an SMA type connector. Although a good connector, it is rather fragile when one is trying to use it with an outside antenna.

Now to look at each unit individually. The Icom IC-T8A is a tribander (6, 2 meter and 70 centimeter). It has the widest bandwidth of any of the three. With a couple of keystrokes, it will receive from 50 MHz to 1 GHz continuous (with the cell phone areas blocked).

It, along with the FT-50RD will receive the FM broadcast band as well. It should be noted that the unit's receiver is 'numb as a post' when receiving out of its normal band range (for example 222 MHz). It is probably the simplest to program. I found that I had little trouble programming it without the manual. Mr perfect songs free download in tamil. Most everything is well labeled on the unit and it is indeed a joy to operate. The keypad is spaced well even for somewhat fat fingers.

As an option, the unit can be programmed from a PC. It takes a standard type of speaker/mic, which makes it easy to select either an Icom speaker/mic or a third party unit. The unit comes standard with the high power (5 watt) battery pack). The battery packs are Nickel Metal Hydride, very slim line and can easily be carried in a shirt pocket. It has, perhaps, the most efficient (and largest) rubber duck of the three (due to its triband coverage).

In the memory mode, a memory can be recalled by simply entering the memory number from the keypad. The unit may be plugged into a 12 VDC source for battery saving and mobile operation. The IC-T8A probably has the worst intermod rejection (on 2 meters) of the three (6 meters and 70 centimeters are good). To say the least, it hears everything (in the VHF region). Replacing the standard rubber duck with a less efficient one does help the cause, but it also makes it a dual band unit.

Alpha programming for the unit (an alpha display rather than an actual frequency display) can only be done with the PC programming software (an option). It is quite a simple unit and lacks some features of the others (mainly a cross band capability and a priority watch feature). One bad feature is the battery clip. It is rather fragile and once broken, the battery will not stay in place. Icom is aware of the problem (and is working on a solution), but for the moment it is replacing broken battery packs at no charge. Another poor feature is that the battery voltage is only displayed when the unit is turned on.