On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 00:55:26 GMT, "steelguitar"
wrote:

How does it stack up against modern scanners?

The R7100 is not a scanner. It is a communications receiver.

That particular model is a piece of junk. Two bad FETs,
underspecified, were installed at the factory and there is an ultimate
100% failure rate on them. Replacing them is fairly involved. We used
to service the things.

The R7000 is/was a winner. The R7100 was trash and not worth the
postage to ship them. Same with the R9000 in all versions.

The R8500 is a pretty nice little receiver for the price and is
reliable and reasonably rugged. We sold many hundreds of them before
we got religion and got divorced from ICOM.

The R100 (NOT PCR-100) was a nice mobile receiver also.

ICOM carries all receivers in its amateur line, not the commercial
line, so that tells you something about their own perception of the
product.

The R7100 also had a noisy IF, full of spurs. Other problems. We
documented them, ICOM engineers kept promising a fix, and finally gave
up and discontinued the thing from production relatively early in its
life cycle to avoid the hassles. There was a gap while the R8500 was
being designed, and it was and remains a friendly little receiver.

For hobby use I'd go with an R7000 which are inexpensive anymore, or
an 8500. Don't touch the 7100 or the 9000. We no longer will service
either of the latter, and never enjoyed servicing them when we were an
ICOM servicing dealer.

For professional use, consider a professional receiver, used if
necessary. W-J/CEI, Rhode & Swartz, Harris, Microtel, Cubic or one of
them. A completely different experience.

Steve


************************************************** *******************
Steve Uhrig, SWS Security, Maryland (USA)
Mfrs of electronic surveillance equip
website http://www.swssec.com
tel +1+410-879-4035, fax +1+410-836-1190
"In God we trust, all others we monitor"
************************************************** *******************