ICOM R3 with Video
 

I'd be interested in hearing any comments from y'all about this unit -
good or bad. I'm thinking of purchasing. And yes, the video is one of
the key reasons. Thanks in advance.

Alan Smithee

--

It's a battery-eating piece of junk. The RCVR totally misses the "Video"
portion of the band by stopping at 2.450Gigs.The overall performance is
rather poor. The control setup is hard to work with.
You would be MUCH better off with a Casio 3" portable AND a real RCVR than
the Icom R-3. I speak from experiance.....I have one....Eddie


"Alan Smithee" wrote in message
...
I'd be interested in hearing any comments from y'all about this unit -
good or bad. I'm thinking of purchasing. And yes, the video is one of
the key reasons. Thanks in advance.

Alan Smithee

--

I bought one of the R3s recently and sent it back that same day. It picked
up ZERO broadcast TV stations from my house, and with my $75 Sony Watchman
FDL-PT22 handheld TV I can get five stations.

IMHO, the R3 is overpriced and it underperforms.

Well, I guess I asked for it! Thanks for this. The Casio option (as
well as the Sont Watchman are obviously good options. Thanks again.

Alan

In article , Corbin Ray
wrote:

I bought one of the R3s recently and sent it back that same day. It picked
up ZERO broadcast TV stations from my house, and with my $75 Sony Watchman
FDL-PT22 handheld TV I can get five stations.

IMHO, the R3 is overpriced and it underperforms.

I bought one for the video. I couldn't see anything other than broadcast tv
until I bought my own wavecom video transmitter.

And even then, the R3 only picked it up whenI was in the same small room as the
transmitter. Couldn't even pick it up 3 feet away.

while the Wavecom reciever picked it up rooms away.

But I don't think the R3 is totally bad. It is bad for what it was marketed as.

But I think it was mis-marketed. It seems to be okay as a regular scanner on
the old frequencies, VHF-LO, VHF-hi, VHF-air, and UHF. and some others.

It does have a lot of birdies, though, unfortunately.

But the botttom line is that if you're getting it for just the video (like I
did), you're probably much better off buying a wavecom video transmitter and
wavecom video reciever.

While th wavecoms don't scan, and are limited to four channels, you're bound to
see something on that more than you would on the R3.

I haven't seen anything on the wavecom frequencies in my area other than my own
wavecom transmitter when I turned it on, but then again, I live in a
"semi-rural area".

You definitely get better reception with the wavecom video recievers than you
do with the IC-R3.

go for the wavecom instead, in my opinion.

at least for video.

It's a battery-eating piece of junk

I disagree. The batteries on all pocket tv's I ever had always ran down that
quick.

If you're comparing it to an audio-only scanner, then yes, it eats batteries,
but if you're comparing it to a pocket tv, it's comparable and not a battery
eating piece of junk.

The RCVR totally misses the "Video"
portion of the band by stopping at 2.450Gigs

that is true as far as I know since I read that bby a lot of people. So I was
wondering, exactly what are the frequencies of the video portion of the band
(including the frequencies that the R3 doesn't cover)???

I'm not familiar with the allocations. I only have a general allocation chart
here.

The overall performance is
rather poor

agreed. for the 2.4 GHZ range of the R3

The control setup is hard to work with.

It was real hard for me to learn, but once I learned it, it's pretty easy,
although I still have to occasionally look up things in the manual that I
forget because I don't use those functions much.

2.45 to 2.55Ghz are VERY popular with airborne and ENG people...this RX
misses that VERY important part of the band....Eddie

"Waterperson77" wrote in message
...
It's a battery-eating piece of junk

I disagree. The batteries on all pocket tv's I ever had always ran down
that
quick.

If you're comparing it to an audio-only scanner, then yes, it eats
batteries,
but if you're comparing it to a pocket tv, it's comparable and not a
battery
eating piece of junk.

The RCVR totally misses the "Video"
portion of the band by stopping at 2.450Gigs

that is true as far as I know since I read that bby a lot of people. So I
was
wondering, exactly what are the frequencies of the video portion of the
band
(including the frequencies that the R3 doesn't cover)???

I'm not familiar with the allocations. I only have a general allocation
chart
here.

The overall performance is
rather poor

agreed. for the 2.4 GHZ range of the R3

The control setup is hard to work with.

It was real hard for me to learn, but once I learned it, it's pretty easy,
although I still have to occasionally look up things in the manual that I
forget because I don't use those functions much.

MHO, the R3 is overpriced and it underperforms.


agreed.

although I still kind of like it.

and as far as I know, it's the only FCC-approved "video scanner" in the U.S.,
so far. although technically, it is NOT a "video scanner" even though it was
marketed as one.

It WON'T scan when in any video mode with the tv portion of the screen on.

I found out the hard way that unlike am-tv, you can't simply scan for the audio
of FM-TV modulated signals.

You have to have the tv portion of the screen on (not the frequency display on
the big screen, but the actual tv portion where you see either snow or a
signal), and when in that mode, it will NOT scan. You HAVE to tune it MANUALLY.

If you do get a signal, you might have to use the positice mode/negative mode
switch to get a watchable picture.

To flip between these modes, just push the mode button when in fm-tv mode.

Then you might also have to adjust the sound carrier if there's any sound on
the video signal. The small display wil read "car" when you enter the sound
carrier mode, where you can then adjust it until you hear sound, if there's any
sound present on the signal you're watching.

While th wavecoms don't scan, and are limited to four channels, you're bound
to
see something on that more than you would on the R3.


something I forgot to point out in my previous posts. The R3 does NOT scan
either, when in video mode. (tv mode with screen on).

I should have said "although the R3 has more frequencies than the wavecom,
you're bound to see more with the limited 4 channels on the wavecom, since the
wavecom gets much better 2.4 GHZ reception than the R3 does.

2.45 gHz is very popular with people who like to eat TV dinners.

On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 02:29:38 GMT, "Eddie Haskel"
wrote:

2.45 to 2.55Ghz are VERY popular with airborne and ENG people...this RX
misses that VERY important part of the band....Eddie

"Waterperson77" wrote in message
...
It's a battery-eating piece of junk

I disagree. The batteries on all pocket tv's I ever had always ran down
that
quick.

If you're comparing it to an audio-only scanner, then yes, it eats
batteries,
but if you're comparing it to a pocket tv, it's comparable and not a
battery
eating piece of junk.

The RCVR totally misses the "Video"
portion of the band by stopping at 2.450Gigs

that is true as far as I know since I read that bby a lot of people. So I
was
wondering, exactly what are the frequencies of the video portion of the
band
(including the frequencies that the R3 doesn't cover)???

I'm not familiar with the allocations. I only have a general allocation
chart
here.

The overall performance is
rather poor

agreed. for the 2.4 GHZ range of the R3

The control setup is hard to work with.

It was real hard for me to learn, but once I learned it, it's pretty easy,
although I still have to occasionally look up things in the manual that I
forget because I don't use those functions much.