Icom IC-R20

On receipt of the Icom IC-R20 I had a few questions that I wanted answering such as Have they made a decent belt clip for it? Will the bank linking shortcomings be sorted? What was the CTCSS/DCS features like? Has the priority feature been bettered? Well all will be revealed.

The Icom R20 comes with all the features found on earlier models of mini scanners from Icom (R2 and R5) such as ctcss dcs duplex operation etc. However for me the most exciting addition comes in the form of audio recording, in excess of 4 hours worth in fact. This I was really keen to give a try out.

100 channel/sec, high speed scan
The IC-R20 has a 100* channel/sec, ultra high speed scan capability. Good this is an improvement over the previous mini scanners I have owned from Icom.

Auto memory write scan
Auto memory write scan for a signal, when a signal is detected the received frequency is automatically stored onto an auto memory write channel bank. Up to 200 auto memory write channels are available.

Total of 1250 memory channels, 26 memory banks with 8-character comment
The IC-R20 has 100 regular channels (includes 10 pre-set channel), 50 scan edges, 200 auto memory write scan and 70 TV (audio) channel memories. Each regular channel stores an 8-character alphanumeric name, including 5 icons, modes, tone frequency, skip information and so on. Icom’s DMS (Dynamic Memory Scan) system divides these memories into 26 groups, A to Z, and allows you to scan selected banks by simply adding and deleting bank links. The Pre-set channel memories up to 10 of your favourite channels for easy recall. In addition, TV channels and short wave broadcast stations are pre-programmed.

11 hours* of continuous receive capability
The IC-R20 has a very effective power saving design for long operation. A lithium-Ion battery pack, BP-206 provides 11 hours of continuous receive* and when used with the power saving function, longer operating periods are possible. Power by AC adapter or optional cigarette lighter cable is also possible and the Li-Ion battery pack is simultaneously charged during operation.

Built-in ferrite bar antenna for AM and earphone cord antenna for FM broadcasts
A built-in ferrite bar antenna clearly catches AM broadcast stations with good sensitivity. When you listen to FM broadcast stations with the optional earphone, SP-13, the antenna type is selectable from cord or whip in set mode.

VSC, CTCSS and DTCS tone squelch
The VSC (Voice squelch control) opens the squelch only when a modulated signal is detected and ignores un modulated, beat noise signals. The CTCSS and DTCS tones provide quiet stand-by while waiting for a matched tone signal. This is convenient for monitoring a specified repeater, station, etc. Tone scan detects a tone frequency used in a channel. The pocket beep function alerts you with a beep sound when a matched tone signal is received.

Useful bandscope
Easily find busy channels or unoccupied frequencies within a specified bandwidth (from 1 kHz to 100 kHz). All signals are visually shown on the screen and AF output is emitted while sweeping the range.

PC programming capability
With the optional CS-R20 cloning software, memory contents such as frequencies, channel name, bank name, set mode items, etc can be easily programmed. A USB cable is supplied with the CS-R20 to enable you to connect to a PC.

Noise reduction functions
- Noise blanker (SSB, CW)…Eliminates pulse type noise.
- ANL (Auto Noise Limiter, AM only)…Reduces noise components.
- AF Filter…A low pass filter for suppressing high tone audio, and reduces high tone distortion.
- Attenuator and RF gain control…30dB (approx.) of attenuator and RG gain control are built-in.

Looking at these features this hopefully should make for a very versatile scanner. So then on with the review.

The first thing that struck me was the size of the R20, I was expecting something larger than what I was looking at which was a bonus for me as after owning an R2,R5 and yaesu vx5 I was sort of used to using the smaller scanners. This does not mean that the R20 falls into the category of miniature scanners though by any means, but it is an acceptable size. I wont go into all the buttons you can see on the keypad as I think the images below will be self explanatory. However I will mention the bottom row. As I have already mentioned the R20 comes with an audio recording facility and these buttons are akin to the buttons you would see on a tape recorder and they more or less work the same as the ones on a tape recorder. (Read more in the audio recording section below.)

The R20 is also an acceptable weight (See specs below) so you are not forever pulling your trousers up due to excess weight when attached to a belt. Which brings me to the next point. The belt clip. This is a vast improvement to the one supplied with the r2/r5 models which were prone to breakages and took some force to hook over a belt clip or top of your trousers. The only drawback of the belt clip is it makes the unit top heavy when stood on a hard surface and I was constantly having to stand it back up after it toppled over backwards a few times. This can be remedied by being very careful how you stand the R20 up.The belt clip utilises a spring loaded alligator clip format like seen on professional motorola GP type radios.

The bottom section of the unit houses the speaker, the rear houses the battery pack which is accessed by opening a clip at the rear bottom of the unit. I know some people prefer to use alkaline's or rechargeable cells when out and about due to the limitations of battery life when out and about, well Icom have catered for those people by supplying a plastic spacer which you insert in the battery compartment and then you can insert 3 alkaline's or rechargeable batteries. A nice touch. well done Icom.

The left side of the unit (As you look at it face on) has two volume buttons one for up and one for down and a squelch button which can be used to monitor weak signals or for monitoring duplex radio transmissions.

The right side of the unit has three apertures, one for civ (Used for cloning and computer control )this also doubles as an earphone socket a DC socket for charging the unit and a USB port for computer control.

The display is nice and big with the frequency display nice and big to boot. However when alpha tags have been added I think you will agree that the size of the frequency display could have been shared with the paltry size of the characters. If you are any distance away then you will have to do some squinting to see who you are listening to. Remember the idea of alpha tags is to see who you are listening to so its no good being miniscule. Also 8 tags? Sorry Icom you will have to do better than that. Yes its an improvement over the R5's 6, but it's still not enough. Also displayed when in memory mode is an icon displaying the status of the battery, mode in use and a 15 segment signal strength meter. Also there is what at first seems a pointless icon showing the volume with an up down arrow This is in fact to show that you are in normal mode as opposed to Dual watch mode and that the use of the rotary knob can be used to adjust the volume as well as the side buttons.

Okay so it all looks good but how does it perform? To start off with once you have charged the battery pack,(Or inserted your cells) which incidentally is a 3.7v Li-ion job you power up the unit by pressing the orange "Power" button and from here you can enter frequencies either via the right rotary knob on top of the unit (The left one is for volume control) or directly using the keypad. One thing I noticed is that you do not have to enter the frequency, you tap in say 456.750 and it is entered into vfo you do not press 456.750 "enter" or similar as you do on most receivers. To enter into memory mode is simply by holding down the MR button and from there you can select a memory location by scrolling with the rotary knob and then hold down MR until you hear the unit beep to confirm it has been written to memory .There are a total of 26 memory banks Starting with Bank A through to bank Z. Unfortunately before you can add a memory to a bank you have to program it to a non bank memory 0-1250 and from there you add the channel into a bank allocation so in fact all frequencies are programmed twice into the R20, rather a waste of resources to my mind and is just the same as the R5. One thing I must mention is there are two options for controlling the volume. Either via the left (As you look at the receiver) rotary knob or by two buttons on the side of the unit, one for up and one for down. The reason there are two options for volume control is that when in Dual watch mode the rotary knobs are used solely for memory allocation settings. The side buttons being bigger than the R5's make for much a better feel and do not require such a precise push. This is more apparent on the squelch button when monitoring two sided frequency conversations. As this is where the R2/R5 struggled somewhat.

It appears at last that Icom have listened to us and have given us the bank linking feature we have been asking for. In the R2/R5 you could only listen to one or all banks whereas now you can select which banks you want to monitor. This is useful for instance if say you are at an airshow and want to monitor civil and military airband. If you have these programmed in different memory banks you can select those two banks to be scanned and that way you filter out all the other radio transmissions which are programmed into your scanner. one thing that took me a lot of time to get used to is switching from memory mode to vfo.and to switch from scan to memory mode, things went wrong forcing a power off power on cycle to get the settings right but this was my fault for not reading the manual properly. The correct procedure for any of the above actions is to press the "Dualwatch" button this for instance if you are in a scan will stop the scanning process and will halt on the memory channel and if you so wish, from here you can switch to vfo mode.One more thing I should mention is that the R20 appears to use the same memory banking system as the R5 whereas the frequency has to be entered into a memory allocation and from there the frequency can be duplicated into a memory bank. At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking that it is a waste of resources using two different memory locations,( I know I did) however this isn't the case you are not actually duplicating it into a
bank memory. You are simply adding a bit of configuration info to the
main memory entry to tell it that this particular frequency should be
indexed to Bank X, location Y.

So, for example, you might enter a new frequency into location 347 and
then edit that entry and add in that the data in location 347 should
include an index reference to Bank D, slot 12.

So, just as you would attribute settings to memory location 347 such
as mode, step size, CTCSS tone, offset frequency etc, you also set
which bank and slot you want it to show up in.

It's a lot like writing a web page and then later adding an
image to one of the pages, the image that you see on that page isnt really there it is in another directory on the web site.

In all 26 memory banks are provided which should be enough for anyone. Scanning speeds are more than adequate in fact they are pretty damn quick Icom quotes 100 ch's/sec I didn't get chance to check this and I suspect they mean the search rate rather than the scan rate. But it is definitely quick and an added bonus over my R5. Nice to see there is a selectable time before scanning resumes but would have been even better on a per channel basis.

There are 25 search banks available (Or scan edges as Icom insists on calling them) unfortunately I can see no way of linking these as you can with the memory banks, which is a bit of a bummer. Icom got it right with the memory banks but forgot the search banks. Maybe the next model will have this feature?

So you now have all your favourite frequencies programmed in how does it perform? For the purpose of this review I used two antennas firstly I tried the stock whip telescopic antenna that is supplied with the unit this is a six segment very long ariel and I could see this being easily broken due to a combination of the sheer size and that it is made of the poorest quality metal. Users of Uniden mobile/base scanners will be familiar with this as it is the same poor quality. I then tried it with a Watson w-889 which is my benchmark aerial for reviews as it gives the radio a fair chance as this I have found to be one of the best all round performers and also I can judge a receiver equally and not wondering if it performed well/poorly due to the antenna that it came supplied with. Starting on 30 MHZ which is about the lowest I go, I found the R20 performed superbly bringing in distant weak signals. on 70 MHz fire I found the R20 adequate nothing outstanding and not poor. Basically I have come across better and come across worse but it lags way behind the AOR 8200, which I found to be an excellent performer in that part of the frequency spectrum.

Testing on my test Airband frequency of 119.250 I found the R20 outstanding very impressed with both sides of the conversation booming in. When you realise that I regard any receiver capable of just about picking up the control tower side of the conversation from my location as being good, then strength six gives you an idea of how well the R20 performed here.( Incidentally I have heard reports that the signal strength meter is set too high. Whilst I agree they are not to be taken as gospel I found the setting to be about right, definitely more accurate than the one that comes with the Uniden 780). I was very impressed. Further testing brings in Birmingham airport frequencies loud and clear that's ground and air! I think all other scanners only manage the ground side of the conversations when at a good vantage point in my house.

VHF am signals in the 150MHz area were also loud and clear no problems with the am mode in fact one signal that is impossible to receive on any other scanner I have owned due to the range was just audible on the R20.

Listening to the PMR vhf band 163-170 MHz area I found the R20 again to be extremely good. From a good spot in my house I found signals booming in from a neighbouring city loud and clear. I have found some receivers to be useless on VHF pmr so this was pleasing to find the R20 was not deaf in this area.

Moving up to the 177-200 Mhz area which in the UK is used by various pmr trunking radios I found the R20 to be once again very good indeed bringing in signals I had not heard before on this part of the radio spectrum.

UHF Military I am not capable of giving a fair assessment as I live miles away from any military airbase and the only frequencies monitor able are airborne transmissions that I have no idea how far the transmission is coming from.

UHF PMR (Incidentally PMR is a term used in the UK for Public Mobile Radio which could be the bin men or gas engineers, taxi co's etc.) The R20 again performed very well, not outstanding I may add but definitely not badly either. One distant frequency which is very touch and go on any receiver was audible on the R20.

When out and about in my car using the mag mount brought in some worth while observations. For a start the UHF band sensitivity improved slightly over the supplied whip I have seen many referrals over the years re extension sizes of telescoping type antennas for various frequency ranges and to be honest for what little gains you may get for collapsing for uhf when weighed against the losses you will get on VHF I find it best to leave fully extended at all times. Pager signals could be heard on most of the VHF PMR bands but not to any annoying degree and and only when very close to a pager site. When passing right underneath a strong pager site although the signal was nearly wiped out it managed to fight through and stay very audible. UHF of course remained untouched and oblivious to any pager signals going on around them.

Testing with the watson showed that this receiver is definitely no slouch on UHF and gave results to prove it, however there was a slight trade off on vhf showing the stock one to be better on VHF and the watson better on UHF.

When I first saw the features of this receiver being advertised I saw somewhere that it would decode DTMF signals, of which I was dying to try out. Unfortunately I think someone got confused with DTCS, which Icom refers to for what we call DCS. Okay the R5 has ctcss/dcs features so does the R20 do it any better? Well first of all to search for any tones in use you now just press and hold down the T-Scan button and the R20 will search for any tones in use. So the R20 is definitely better there. As for decode speed I can't really say that it is any quicker than the R5. After using a Radio shack pro-92 sort of spoils it for other scanners as this decodes tones instantly. If they can do it why can't the others? Apart from that it worked flawlessly, working out how to store a tone took some getting used to and I'm still not sure I'm doing it the best way but it works ( I really should study that manual) and once stored need never be worried about it again.

Icom still have not listened, it's still the same useless priority feature that comes with the R2/R5 scanners Icom get it sorted!!

Has three settings automatic, off and on. For most of the time I kept it to auto so every time I pressed a key or turned a knob the display and keypad lit up. Incidentally when first looking at the R20 you could be forgiven for thinking the keypad does not light up but in fact it does. The backlight on the display is a very good effective green in colour light. Giving more than ample lighting this should suffice for anybody's purpose. I would like to have seen an automatic function where you could set the receiver on receipt of a signal to light up momentarily. This was a feature I liked about the 8200 mk 3.

The attenuator I personally would not bother with it is very harsh and completely flattens any signal apart from the very strongest ones. A better idea would be to employ two attenuator settings like the Alinco djx 2000 that way you could choose the severity of the attenuation. Also it appears to be another case of all or nothing. Meaning the attenuator cannot be set on a per channel basis. Once activated it is on for every channel so is only any good for when sitting on one frequency.

It has one it works and appears to work well. But regular readers of these reviews will know I see little point in having it. I mean, you have a receiver capable of searching the frequencies and you are able to listen but with the band scope all you see are peaks. I'm sure someone will like it but for me I'd rather some other feature added in its place.

The battery life of the li-ion power pack is phenomenal. 21 hours of continuous use before showing signs of need of a re-charge! This was with the display light set to automatic for most of the time and on scan, manual mode etc. In fact a normal type scanning operation where you would scan for something of interest and hold when something interesting was heard. Battery saver was set to the default automatic. A lot of the time the unit was on full volume when it was in my car, now that is usually a great battery drain. Now if you were just monitoring one frequency with display light off god only knows how long you would get. This is amazing and users that like to spend a day out and worry about the battery pack dying need worry no more.

Yes it has one (so should any self respecting scanner these days) It comes with two settings off or auto.

This is not a feature I would have thought I would use much but after testing it out on the R20 I think I will be using it a helluva lot. You can monitor two frequencies simultaneously with this feature. So why would you want to do that? You may ask, I know I did. well for a start you can monitor frequencies using duplex, split frequencies where talk through is switched off. By entering the base frequency and the mobile users frequency you will effortlessly (As long as mobile user is in range) pick up both sides of the conversations. Not only that but you can enter two of your chosen programmed frequencies. e.g. the police are chasing suspects using the main channel and some units are talking to the helicopter on another channel. All you have to do is enter both of these conversations and you can easily monitor what is going on without missing anything. I found the bandscope on the R20 very easy to use and an added bonus is you can even scan the channels whilst using this feature. You can even leave one channel on "watch" and the others scanning! Awesome! This is another of those "How did I live without this?" features that makes this receiver an even more great bit of kit.

The audio quality gave very good results with good clean audio being heard with no distortion when on full volume. However this is definitely not the loudest of scanners meaning that when out and about in a vehicle the volume really does have to be cranked up to full. You may want to consider this if you intend usint it in a noisy environment.

As if I wasn't impressed with this receiver enough it comes with this nifty little feature. Yes you can record what you hear. By using the bottom row of buttons which are purposely set to look like tape recorder buttons you can record up to 4 hours of audio. What's more you can set it so that it only records audio without all the dead spots in between. This all sounds good but is it? Well I am pleased to say yes. It performs superbly. There are 3 recording modes. Fine which gives crystal clear recordings, (Doubt if you can tell the difference from the original audio) normal which gives slightly reduced audio quality and long which gives even less quality. So why would you use it on any other setting than fine? I hear you ask. Well the answer is simple the better the quality the shorter the recording life is. I'm not sure of the maximum recordings on each setting but the "Long" setting gives up to about 4 hours of constant radio traffic recording and by 4 hours I don't mean if you set it at 12 o clock the recording will cease at 4. I mean it will record 4 hours of audio if you set it to record just the audio (For my purposes I can see no reason to have it set any other way). Incidentally the long setting you may be wondering what the quality is like. I can say it is still good and not annoying to the ears and does its job well. After going to bed and leaving the R20 to record the nights action (I turned the volume right down) and then listening the next morning I wondered how I have ever coped without this function before. Yes there is software available that will let you do this on your home computer but you have all the hassle of connecting your receiver to the PC and then you are tied the next day to the PC to monitor all the activity. Whereas with the R20 you can carry it with you wherever you go. Not only that it also does a better job of it. This will be a big selling point for the R20 I have seen this feature once before on the Alinco DJX 2000 however the recordings on that are very brief and the Icom does it so much better.

During this review I did not check the lower frequencies in use or the various modes available. I am a vhf uhf man and there is much more capable equipment dedicated to these frequencies and to be bloody honest I don't know what I am talking about when you go down that low or at the higher extremes the R20 is capable of. So I really can't be fair to the R20 in those bands.

This scanner to me is a winner! No doubt about it. During this review I made comparisons to the R2/R5 scanners as they are ones I am familiar with from Icom. When in fact this was meant as a replacement for the R10 of which I was not familiar with. Although I heard a lot of bad things. Not only that but I suspect Icom are trying to gain the throne held for many years now of what I have regarded as the top hand held scanner and that is the Aor 8200. So how does it compare to the 8200?

I would answer the question like this. If you already own an 8200 with the ctcss card etc. then maybe there is little point selling it to buy an R20. However if you are tossing a coin between the two then I would say go for the R20. Built in ctcss/dcs Remember You pay extra for ctcss with the 8200 and no dcs capability at all. Voice recording feature (Boy I love that) Dual watch (yes I love that too.)

What would I like to see in the future well search bank linking would be great. Icom got it half right this time with memory bank linking. Light on when squelch opens. This would have to be optional for battery saving reasons. CTCSS/DCS instant decoding come on it is possible and you know we want it. Also the attenuator. Memory selectable with two selectable settings. Audio needs cranking up! Although it suffers from no distortion the maximum volume is on the poor side. Another thing from what I have been told the software available for the R20 is supposed to be very basic maybe butel will design an arc 20? Also sort that bloody priority feature out.

The R20 has features which I have not even touched as yet such as auto power off, Computer control VSC etc.

The R20 is a brilliant performer constantly amazing me with signals being brought in on VHF a host of good features that a discerning scanner user will utilise. Also a cinch to operate. The battery life is amazing and that alone is a good selling point about 3 times longer than the 8200 and then some! The voice recording feature has got to take the award for best feature in my opinion. Now to send it back. Send it back? No way I am going to buy this baby!

This is a feature I will add to reviews as when used for a certain amount of time things that were not apparent in the short time to do the review transpire with continuous useage.

I have noticed when in a scan that on some frequencies if when it stops on an active channel and you press the Sql button to monitor the repeater input freq, that when you release the button and it returns to the original frequency it appears as though conversations have ceased, but if you flick away from the ch and back again there is audio still. So always best to stop the scan before performing this operation. Also the R20 suffers quite badly from nearby stations crashing in on other frequencies e.g. My local police on 452.725 gets a neighbouring police transmitter on 451.450 spluttering through with sometimes enough clarity to hear whats being said. I take it this is intermodulation? I thought this was just happening on UHF but found it happening on VHF too. One answer is to use the attenuator but I find the setting too harsh and allows only the very strongest signals to come through.

Icom IC-R20

Options and Accessories

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