 Icom IC-R5
Before I go any further I would like to thank Bob Stewart from Stewart
aviation for entrusting me with the loan of the R5 for reviewing purposes, I had enquired
with several well know companies and retail outlets in the UK with the replies
being either a lame excuse or no reply at all. I must also thank Paul Wey for
setting this up. Paul had mentioned to me that he would ask Bob about the prospects
of my loaning one for review, the next day there was a phone call with a promise
of one in the post and the next day it was on my doorstep!
I have had a love affair with the Icom R2 for four years now, this little
scanner has traveled with me everywhere in those four years and has never let
me down once. So what would I change about it if I could? Well alpha tags would
be nice, along with bigger bank sizes and memory allocations, the belt clip
would go also, DCS as well as CTCSS would be very welcome.Bank linking, as
opposed to one or all banks available to scan. Auto store would be a good feature
especially as I like to take it with me to new towns and auto storing would
be just brilliant for instantly storing those new found frequencies. Also having
its own in-built charger should come as standard. Most of these subjects I
have covered in my review of the R2 and I would like to think that the manufacturers
take note of what I and other reviewers have to say about their products.
So lets assume that Icom have read a few reviews of the R2 and have a better
idea about what we do and don't want and that the R5 is a product of the feedback
that they have got. Now lets see if they have given us what we want in the
R5.
Alpha tags
Lets start with alpha tags. Well I am pleased to say that they have been included
with the R5, it could have been better as you are limited to 6 characters,
yes I know its only a small radio but the Yaesu VX5 5 managed to squeeze in
more so it is possible in a receiver this size, also the lettering for the
text is a bit on the elongated side giving it an awkward appearance on certain
characters, whereas the Yaesu VX5 has it perfect. What I also did not like
about the R5 at first was that you had to have one or the other, by this I
mean you can only have either Alpha tags or the frequency on display, other
scanners I have used allows the display of both simultaneously. Having voiced
this gripe I soon came to prefer it this way and am more than happy with this
setting. (Should you require to see the frequency in use when you have alpha
tags displayed just hold in the V/M button in for a second and another quick
click of the button puts you back to alpha tag mode.) Although having a couple
of points to moan about alpha tags have been included so this is a great bonus
and for me and no doubt countless others a very welcome feature. Thank you
Icom for listening to our needs.If you prefer you can have a bank tag activated
indicating what is contained in that specific memory bank.
Memories
The R2 came with 400 memory channels, which is ample for some users but for
some it is not enough. Now whether this is down to megalomania or that you
simply have more than 400 memories that you would like to store into your scanner,
I think it is safe to say for just about everyone the more the better.
The R5 has excelled with 1250 memory ch's which include 200 auto-write ch's,
(More of that later) and 50 scan edges. So effectively you have 1000 programmable
memory allocations by omitting the auto-write and scan edges. This should be
ample for just about any user, yes I know there is the odd person out there
that wants more but for the main bulk of scanner user 1000 memories is more
than adequate.
The bank sizes have been improved also over the R2 which had bank sizes of
50 channels, which I found a little restricted the R5 comes with 100 ch's per
bank.
Belt clip
I'm afraid to say that those of you who found the R2 belt clip inadequate
and are thinking of upgrading to the R5 are going to be a little disappointed
as the exact same clip has been used on the R5. Oh well we can't get everything
in life we want I suppose and I assume Icom decided it would cost too much
resulting in you the consumer paying for it at your end. If they were looking
to carry on with the success of the R2 then they obviously realised that the
low price was a winning point. Granted it does its job but it is prone to break,
I know I have broken one before. Apart from this every other wish has been
granted.
Auto store
Auto-store has been included with the new R5 which is a very welcome feature
indeed.
DCS
Or DTCS as Icom call it has been added to compliment the ctcss feature already
on the R2. DCS is similar to CTCSS (See FAQ sheet on front page of this site
if you are not familiar with ctcss) but is digital coded (Digitally Coded Squelch).
We can expect to see more and more users using DCS in the future so It is a
very welcome addition.
Charger
I am very pleased to say that the new R5 has it's own built in battery charger
circuit and that two Ni-Cd batteries and a wall charger are supplied. This
was in my opinion a big let down for the R2, I always suspected it was another
way of keeping the costs down but it looks like Icom have listened to us and
included it with the R5.
Taken note
So it looks like Icom have taken note of what we the public want. This was
My first thought when I heard about the features that the R5 has. This is good
news as it can only mean better and better receivers for the future tailored
to our needs. Out of all the things that I could ask for to be changed only
a couple had not been changed, one being the belt clip, the other we shall
cover later.
At the time of writing the price for the R5 is around the £170 mark,
which for all the features packed into this little baby is an absolute bargain.
I was expecting the price to be around the £300 mark when I was told
of the features that it would come with.
Okay so it sounds like a bargain but how does it look and how does it perform?
Aesthetics are big on my list, yes I do judge a book by it's cover and I always
liked the look of the R2. Well if you also were happy with the looks of the
R2 then the R5 looks very much the same in fact at first glance you could be
forgiven for mistaking the R5 for an R2.
Antenna
The Icom IC-R5 comes supplied with a Icom FA-S270C SMA antenna. This is the
very same one fitted to the R2. I have no cause for complaint here as I found
the one fitted to the R2 was adequate. For the purposes of this review I have
pasted my findings on the capabilities of the FA-S270C, copied from my R2 review
page. A full examination of the aerials receive range runs roughly like this.VHF
airband= Very good.VHF Police (152-155)= Very Good. VHF PMR (165-170)= Very
Poor. All UHF worked very well including up into the nearly dead Analogue Cellular
900Mhz area. If like me you find the stock antenna unsuitable for certain situations,
i.e. too big, there are other smaller sma antennas that can be used. One that
I use (Not sure what part name is but is available from Stewart Aviation) a
stubby aerial in comparison to the FA-S270C, gives very good results on UHF
and adequate on vhf. This aerial (See image below) finds itself perched on
My R5 whenever I take it out and about, I find the supplied aerial just too
unwieldy for when I am constantly putting the R5 in and out of my pocket. Also
it is ideal for discretion purposes. Update: Stewart aviation no longer stock
this aerial!!!
In size there is very little between the two radios so if you are thinking
of upgrading then you will have no disappointments here. The Front consists
of seven buttons, these are from left to right: Two volume buttons one for
up and one for down, A band/Lock button, a TS (Tuning step) button, a Mode/scan
button, a V/M/Skip button and below this is a power button. Above these buttons
is the display which gives more than ample viewing from all angles. The only
time the view is restricted is when running the backlight and looking from
below upwards, in this situation the viewing of the characters disappears altogether
but for all other angles the view is very good, in fact apart from this one
situation I found the display much clearer than the R2 which was in now way
poor. Below all these is the speaker grill taking up approximately half the
size of the front fascia of the radio.
On the side again at first glance it looks the same as the R2 with the two
buttons function for various functions for the radio and squelch which doubles
as a squelch and a monitor button for monitoring duplex transmissions. In fact
these have been swapped around in position, the Func button is now on the top
and the sql button is at the bottom. I know this was a gripe with a lot of
R2 users and it looks like Icom have listened to peoples requirements once
again her. Personally I did not mind it how it was and I am finding it hard
to make the adjustment as no doubt other R2 users will. This will not effect
new users and no doubt in time it will come second nature for me also.
Image showing the Function and Squelch buttons.
On the opposite side is the DC socket for powering/Charging the radio. This
will be new to R2 converts as the R2 did not have any form of direct power
supply, Batteries for the R2 would have to be charged in a separate charger
(Unless using alkaline's of course.).
Image showing the power supply socket.
The rear of the unit looks Identical to the R2, having the same
belt clip as the R2. As I have said before this is prone to breakages and it
turns the radio into a bulky item in comparison to the radio's actual size.
Fortunately it can easily be removed if you prefer, I know I never would trust
the belt clip when out and about especially with the light weight of this scanner
you would probably not realise that it had gone.
Getting started.
So now we have covered the details of the R5 we can now look into getting
it running. As previously stated the R5 has its own charging circuit and Icom
supply the mains wall charger. This comes in the guise of a 6V 500ma wall socket
type of charger that we have come to expect on most scanners. Also there are
two AA type Ni-Cd batteries supplied by I believe Icom UK who open each box
and slot the batteries inside.
The battery compartment.
If you are like me you will not have the patience to wait the 10 or so hours
that the manual says it will take to charge the radio. Fortunately I had two
batteries already charged and so I slotted then straight in and was ready to
go. Incidentally I found the supplied Ni-cd's gave 8 hours continuous use before
the battery warning indicator came on. From this point I had it on stand by
e.g. I had it on one frequency so the battery saver was activated and got another
4 hours use. The battery indicator takes the same form as the R2, two segments
of a battery icon on the display and when battery shows signs of depletion
only one segment remains. Charging for the first time brings up a strange couple
of questions on the display, it will show "Ni-Cd" and you then have
to turn the dial to select "Y" (Which I presume means Yes) Then you
are presented with "CHG N" again you turn the knob so that it flashes "Y" and
then the battery charge cycle takes place. Very strange I thought. Also I found
it takes a fair bit longer than 10 hours to fully charge the batteries.
Receive modes
The R5 can tune signals using AM, FM and WFM receive modes. Which should be
adequate for most types of vhf uhf type listening. With am mode being for shortwave
type monitoring. With tuning steps of 5, 6.25, 8.33, 9, 10, 12.5, 15, 20, 25,
30, 50 & 100 kHz. Which should keep most of us happy as it has the new
8.33KHz steps for the airband as well as 6.25KHz that is used by certain users
here in the UK. Frequency coverage is 150 kHz to 1309.995 MHz.
Search
The search function takes two forms, one being what I like to call a direct
search in which you dial into a frequency and can directly search in ascending
or descending order from this point. I find this handy if I have not got a
search bank set up which covers the part of the frequency spectrum I wish to
search for activity. The other is a programmed search. In this case you program
in a search range between two points. For example if you wish to search the
airband you may set it to search between 118.000MHz and 137MHz and the R5 will
now search between those two points, restarting the search cycle once this
has been completed. Modes, Frequency steps, offsets etc. can all be programmed
into each individual search bank. Before we go any further I must point out
that what most of us call search banks or search ranges Icom call them "Scan
edges". The R5 comes with 25 programmable "Scan edges" so this
should be more than adequate for most users. A nice added bonus is the addition
of an "Auto write" function in which active frequencies found in
a search can be written to a temporary (How temporary is up to you) bank with
up to 200 memories being allocated to this bank. For anyone unfamiliar with
auto write, imagine the scenario. You are a new scanner owner and wish to find
all the active frequencies in your area. The traditional way to do this is
to set up a search of a band and watch as your scanner finds them and then
you manually enter the found frequencies into memory. With auto write you can
go out to work, shopping or wherever leaving the R5 searching and when it finds
active frequencies it will write them to memory, upon your return you can view
the findings monitor and if interesting you can then add to a permanent memory
bank, this is done in exactly the same way as normally adding to a memory bank
(See next section). The plus side of this on the R5 is that it will only write
a found frequency to memory once. Some scanners just keep adding the same frequency
to memory over and again. The minus side is that you can't scan this bank this
I found disappointing. This feature despite the lack of scan is very welcome
and I know I will be using it.
I have to be really honest here and admit that I found it very hard going
to program this scanner at first. The main reason being from experience of
the R2 manual and a once over of the R5 manual it was obvious that there was
little if any improvement over the R2 manual. What I mean here is that Icom's
way of describing scanning carries over to what we would call searching searching
and so I find this very confusing indeed. To program my first few frequencies
I did follow the manual and found it a breeze. The problems came when I tried
to program them into a memory bank. This I just could not do and in true "Who
wants to be a millionaire" fashion I resorted to "Phone a friend".
Let me explain here because no doubt countless others of you here will benefit
from my trials and errors.
To program into the memories 000-999 is very easy you dial in to the frequency
you require in vfo mode then hold in the v/m button until you see the memory
location flashing on the right hand side of the display. Now you can either
place it into the location flashing or select another location by turning the
dial. Once you are happy with your memory channel its now just a case of pressing
enter for a second (You will hear it beep a couple of times when it has gone
into memory). Ok I was happy with this, this was really easy but there would
be times when I would only monitor one type of transmission and not others
and so would like to group certain users into one bank. Now this is where I
had problems. You see I thought that to add a frequency to a memory channel
in one of the banks (For arguments sake we'll say bank A ch A00) You just followed
the same procedure as before but instead of saving it to the range 000-999
you selected bank A and ch A00 and entered it in the same way. But frustration
set in when I realised that this just was not happening. I consulted the manual
and could not for the life of me see where I was going wrong. After phoning
a friend (Who I am glad to say did have the same problem at first so maybe
I'm not so thick after all) it became apparent that the ch's 000-999 are linked
to the memory banks so that if you want to put a frequency into a memory bank
then you will have to place it into the 000-999 range first.
Once you have entered it into memory you now (We have already done that in
the previous paragraph) whilst in Memory mode locate the memory channel that
you have saved to. Now when you have it on the display hold in the V/M button
until the memory location flashes, now press mode (You should see bank and
then a bank letter and Ch location), now press Band keep pressing Band until
the bank you want to enter the memory into is selected, now It is a simple
case of turning the knob to select the ch. location in that bank. Once selected
quickly (No need to hold it down) press V/M to enter it into the bank/ch location.
Now the 000-999 range of ch's are linked to wherever you locate the frequencies
to in the various banks. To further reinforce this if you now change any of
the duplex, ctcss, dcs, mode or whatever in the 000-999 range it will also
change in its respective bank.
So now we have a few memories programmed in how well does it perform?
I must apologise for those of you not familiar with the R2 who are looking
at this review with a view to purchasing an R5, for constantly comparing to
the R2. You see the R2 was a hell of a scanner for its price in my opinion
and I also believe the R5 has been brought out as an "Upgrade" with
the features we would have liked to have seen in the R2. Not just this but
the similarity in looks distinguishes it from being a completely different
model.
Now I had a few banks programmed with memories I wanted to explore as to whether
Icom had fixed the problem of not being able to link memory banks for scanning.
You see with the Icom R2 it was a case of you could either scan one bank or
all banks. Not like on other scanners where you can select which banks to scan
or linking as it is sometimes referred. Well My friends it seems that Icom
have definitely listened to what we want and changed the R5 to what we want.....
In most cases! Unfortunately this is not one of those cases, I'm afraid you
are stuck with the one or all Bank scanning. This was a let down for me and
no doubt will be for countless other users of this scanner. Icom you really
need to review this situation.
Scanning speeds, I did not notice any improvement here it may have been faster
it may be slower I honestly do not know but I found the scanning speed lets
say.. adequate, it could be faster but it does the job. The scanning direction
can be changed by a turn of the rotary knob on the top of the unit. As with
the R2 there are various scanning pause and resume times I set My R5 at a setting
of 5 for resume time so that it would wait 5 seconds before scanning at the
end of a transmission. Not 100% sure but I believe the R2 only gave you the
option of 4 seconds.
Priority channel
The R2 had a totally inadequate priority feature which would only check for
activity whilst in search mode or vfo mode, not from memory mode which is the
norm. So I was anxious to see if Icom had sorted this little "Glitch" on
the new R5. A look at the manual suggests that unfortunately we are still stuck
with the same restrictions. Because of these restrictions I found that I never
once (Apart from when I tested it once) used the priority feature on the R2
and I doubt that I will on the R5 either. This is a bit of a let down to say
the least.
CTCSS
The R5 comes with CTCSS (Continuous tone coded squelch system) This includes
not only decode but search also. Yes so did the R2 but I find that the R5 does
it that bit quicker which is very welcome even though there are scanners out
there that can search and find tones in use instantaneously or near as dammit.
There are two options for CTCSS search one is to activate CTCSS on your target
frequency and setting the R5 to search for the tone in use. With this option
you will hear no audio coming from the radio until the correct tone has been
found. This has the advantage in that the tone will be stored with the frequency
giving you time to enter it to memory. So if you have a frequency loaded into
a bank and now you wish to find the tone in use just go to it's relevant 000-999
Ch search for the tone, once found just overwrite it in the 000-999 range this
will update the frequency in the memory bank also due to the locations being
linked as described earlier.
The other option for CTCSS search which can be handy when you have a frequency
being used but the transmissions are few and far between, setting the search
up as previously described takes a little longer and may result in the conversation
being finished before you manage to locate the tone in use. In these situations
simply press "Func" and whilst holding it in press Mode/scan button.
Now the R5 will search for the tone in use instantly. But remember it will
not store it as in the previous method. The last received tone will be temporarily
stored but you have to set up the tone squelch manually to add it to memory.
Just like the R2 I did not find any clipping of conversations at the beginning
of a transmission. Some radios can be a bit slow to sample the tone and decide
if it is the correct one in use this results in the first half second of conversation
being lost. Fortunately the R5 did not suffer in any way from this.
DCS
(Digitally coded squelch) Or DTCS as Icom call it is another addition that
the R2 did not have. I wont go into how to set this up I found the User manual
explained this well enough. Setting my Yaesu VX5 with a DCS tone and then transmitting
I found the R5 did it's job admirably, locking onto the correct tone in a very
short time. It is always worth searching for CTCSS tones in use for a radio
user the if none are found then try for DCS tones. CTCSS is no doubt the most
commonly used but more and more users are now using DCS, especially PMR 446
users. I must congratulate Icom for the addition of DCS on the R5.
Performance
I tested the R5 firstly with the supplied stock aerial FA-S270C which judging
by its model name is for all intents and purposes a 2M 70CMs ham radio aerie
which is indeed fitted to at least one Icom hand-held amateur band transceiver
and fitted to the R2. Also I tested with the Watson-W889 telescopic.
Low band
When I say low band I am referring to the 30-40 MHz area. The R2 I found was
was more than adequate here but the R5 I found Excelled, with the stock aerial,
on some low powered users in this area I found the R5 managed to hold on to
signals long after other scanners would have lost them. With the Watson fitted
and fully extended I got almost twice the signal graph reading! A bit further
up into 70MHz fire brigade territory and the performance had appeared to have
dropped rapidly. My local fire brigade has never been the best of signals and
this can be testing for a number of scanners and the R-5 really did struggle
here. The R2 managed to receive it, not brilliantly but it was audible and
a stable transmission, whereas with the R5 the signal was fluctuating. Fitting
the Watson did improve the situation but not to any great extent. I did note
that holding the tip of the aerial improved the signal somewhat. Maybe I make
for a better antenna system than a rubber duck?
VHF Airband
My benchmark here is my local control tower on 119.250 with the stock aerial
I found the control tower could not be heard, only the pilots being audible,
fitting the Watson and both sides of the conversation could just be heard.
Moving to an upstairs location improved matters no end. I Found the R2 slightly
has the edge here. (Speaking to another user he swears his R5 has the edge
over R2 on airband). Update: I have given the R5 another work out against my
Bearcat 780 which is no slouch on airband and found that it performed really
well, bringing in both sides of a conversation from Birmingham airport probably
15 miles away. This is proof enough to me that the R5 is indeed a good performer
on airband as other scanners I have tried this with have failed to receive
both sides of the conversation. Also the test was done away from any computers
whereas before it was right next to my P.C. which can cause interference.
VHF
With the stock aerial, I found it performed better on the PMR (or PBR whichever
you prefer) vhf band 165-170 MHz,than the R2, as it is the same aerial fitted
to the R2 I think it would be safe to say that it is the R5 which is better
on vhf as opposed to the aerial itself. I had programmed some frequencies into
memory which I knew the R2 would not have heard unless a more suitable aerial
was fitted, but surprisingly the R5 brought them in with perfect clarity and
a decent bar graph reading to boot. Fitting the Watson improved the signals
by at least 50%. This was more than satisfactory.The R2 I always found a good
performer on VHF (With the correct aerial) but the R5 is even better. Again
checking the R5 in the 152 MHz area the R5 brought in distant signals. My benchmark
for this area of the spectrum is the Staffordshire starnet trunked radio control
Ch on 152.150. The R5 I am in no doubt if it were a trunk tracking scanner,
would have been able to follow the conversations without the need for any external
aerial system.
UHF
With UHF I had no problems with whatever aerial I fitted, signals came in
loud and clear as expected. I always find that if a scanner is going to struggle
on performance it will most likely be VHF as opposed to UHF.
Birdies
I checked the R5 through the main search ranges to see how much interference
the radio generates internally. These are measured by the amount of lock ups
on frequencies when the frequency is actually not active. For this test I used
the stock aerial. 119-300 area threw up approximately ten birdies, moving up
to the 300MHz area and there were a fair few here, 14 to be exact between 300-310MHz.
Above this point there were no more until 351Mhz and a few at 360MHz, 390MHz
found some very strong Tetra signals indicating that the end is Nigh for scanning
the police frequencies in the UK. Searching right up into 460MHz there were
very few to be found.
Interference
Whilst doing the birdie test I also checked for interference, in the form
of image frequencies and inter modulation. Before I go any further it must
be noted that I live in a nice part of town, by that I mean I do not live near
any transmitters of any sort so any likely problems are unlikely to show up.
Whilst out and about in the City centre I found the R5 handled itself well,
although I did find a 440MHz trunk data channel breaking through on 456MHz.
Note: on a further visit into my City centre, very close to a trunk repeater
on 440MHz. I set the R5 to search between 400 and 460MHz and I found that the
trunk data channel constantly broke through throughout this part of the spectrum,
also when it did break through it brought in a local police frequency and a
trunk voice ch. so that all conversations would break through at the same time.
How this compares to the R2 I do not know as I never did this test with the
R2.To be fair to the R5 I have never tried this search test so close to this
repeater before so I can't comment whether it is a downfall or not because
I do not know how other receivers would cope in the same situation, however
it will be used as a benchmark in all future reviews. Again to be fair this
is what the attenuator is for, to be used in situations like this. One annoyance
that I did find with the R5 was that if the squelch was not set up correctly
that at the end of a transmission there would sometimes be a squelch tail accompanied
by a high pitched squeal. On speaking to another user he said that his did
not suffer from this so it may have just been my model. Note: This squeal appears
to have disappeared which may suggest it was coming from some other source
such as my computer.
Update:
Now I have had more time to evaluate the R5 it is clear that it does not reject
unwanted signals as well as the R2, this can easily be overcome by activating
the attenuator. This problem only occurs in very strong RF saturated areas
and will not bother the average user sitting at home. However if like me
you like to use your scanners in all types of situations then this may be
something to consider. I did find at times that I did not trust the found
frequency when searching for new frequencies, sometimes wondering if it was
another frequency breaking through. Again this can be overcome by activating
the attenuator at the expense of losing more distant signals due to the attenuation.
Duplex
Again like the R2 the R5 has a duplex facility whereby with a few key presses
and knob turns (See manual for full instructions) you could monitor both sides
of a conversation when two frequencies are in use. This is ideal for times
when talk-through is not activated. This was a good selling point for me with
the R2 and the R5 to me would be useless without it. No doubt the R5 will carry
on where the R2 leaves off with sales largely due to this one feature alone.
Audio
The audio I found to be good. From a small receiver one always wonders if
there will be sacrifices in this department. Cranking it up to full volume
and it soon becomes clear that it loses out here to the R2, as a bit of distortion
sets in. However I have come across worse and I really do not have any cause
for concern here, as the R2 really was in my opinion a tough act to follow
in this area. Having said that, with the two radios being virtually identical
in size then why any difference at all?
Power saver
Just like the R2 you have two settings here, On or Off. Where there is a difference
is that you do not get the constant click.. click... click that was audible
with the R2. In use I found it did it's job conserving the battery power when
there was no transmission being received.
Attenuator
Yes it has one! Basically that is all I can say, it is not a feature I ever
use so I can't really comment on it. One thing is for sure though you don't
get many options with it, it's either on or off. By that I mean for every channel,
You can't activate it on one channel and not on another as you can with a lot
of other scanners.
Backlight
Being a pleasant green colour, I found it more efficient and makes for a more
aesthetically pleasing display than that of the R2. I soon came to realise
that I constantly had it set to "Auto" in which the backlight would
be activated for 5 seconds at every key press or knob turn.
Internal antenna
There is an inbuilt ferrite rod type antenna that can be used for monitoring
the am broadcast band 0.5-1.620 MHz. This can be activated or deactivated.
This isn't my type of listening but no doubt some of you do. With this in mind
I decided to try out the antenna and all that I can say is that it definitely
works. Listening to one frequency with it de-activated and nothing could be
heard, with it activated the signals came through loud and clear. How well
this compares to other wide band scanners I do not know.
Automatic Power off
Again like the R2 it has this facility allowing the radio to shut itself down
after a pre-determined time. 30 minutes, 1 hour, 1 and a half hours, or 2 hours.
This will only work when there has been no user input. i.e. key presses or
knob turns. If any of these are done the timer resets itself from the last
key press/knob turn.
Computer control
Icom do have CS-R5 cloning software for programming this radio, of which I
have reviewed below this review. According to the manual this will be compatible
with Win 98/ME/XP/2000. (I have tried it with Win ME and XP with no problems)
Also Butel at the time of writing are in the process of making their own software,
of which I hope to review. Whether this will software will support virtually
controlling of the scanner via the computer remains to be seen but I would
think it would be for programming only. I know I for one would definitely use
this software for keeping back ups of my memory allocations. Also imagine the
situation, You are off to an airshow and have all the frequencies used at the
airfield on your P. C. it is then just a matter of uploading to the R5 for
the days activities and then on your return you can load all your local frequencies
back into memory. Not only this, but it would cut out a hell of a lot of hard
work manually programming each individual channel as I am doing at the moment.
Cloning
The R5 also has a facility for cloning. This is ideal if a friend buys a new
R5 and you wish to upload the contents of your R5 to his. (or vice versa).
For this you will require the OPC-474 cloning cable.
My final thoughts
My final thoughts are that this should have been called the ICOM ICR-2 MK2
as this is basically what it is, a mark two version of the R2. I am most impressed
with this little scanner, Icom have listened to most of the things that we
are looking for in a scanner and given them to us, however they have left a
few things out. If you are considering upgrading from an R2 I would say go
for it for all the added features it is worth it. This is a top little scanner
that will no doubt continue to sell like hot cakes just like it's predecessor
the Icom R2. So when do I have to give this radio back? I don't I'll be sending
a cheque back instead! The R5 does lose out to the R2 in that it does not reject
unwanted strong signals breaking through but I consider the added functions
outweigh this negative aspect, and that some users may not even notice any
problems here at all due to their nature of scanning.
Serial # of R5 used in this review 01183
Thanks Once again for Bob Stewart from Stewart aviation for
the loan of this receiver for reviewing purposes.
ICOM CS-R5 Cloning software.
Halfway through this review and Bob drops me an e-mail asking if I would like
to try the Icom CS-R5 software. Without hesitation I reply that "I most
certainly would" and before I know it it is sitting on my doorstep. The
setup is very straightforward and is over in a jiffy. Now I connect the OPC-478
RS232 cable to a com port on my P.C. and the R5 and I am ready to go. Yes it
is that simple. The first thing I did was to get the software to read the contents
of my radio and upload it to my P.C. this was done by clicking on the icon
at the top called 'Clone read', Easily Identified by a computer monitor with
an arrow pointing at it. This worked flawlessly. I now saved it (File/Save
as) and gave it a name that was to be easily identified at a later time. Now
I had done that I could add, subtract or edit any of my settings via the software.
Just to make sure it worked fine I made a few minor changes and clicked on
'Clone write', which is identified as the icon with a radio with an arrow pointing
at it. Whilst performing this function a progress bar shows on the P.C. and
also on the scanners display (utilising the signal strength bar graph). I read
the information sheet that comes with the software and it stated that if I
used a USB type cable then I would get faster results, but I was more than
happy with the speed I was getting reading/writing data. When I was happy that
the software was working correctly I preceded to make some major changes, in
fact I completely re-wrote the memory settings of My R5 using this software.
Just about everything you could manually do to this radio you could do with
the software. Write alpha tags, tuning steps CTCSS/DCS settings,duplex,offsets,mode,
lockout etc. A lot of the functions have drop down menu's for example if you
wish to change the frequency steps you simply double click the tuning step
that is selected on your chosen channel and all the other options are there
for your selection. As I sometimes visit a neighbouring City it became apparent
that I could with the software set up another file with the frequencies used
there. It would then be a simple case of uploading the saved contents to the
R5 when I next visited that City. Using frequency files for reference I did
this exercise and uploded the contents to my R5. This operation went without
a glitch, totally overwriting my previous contents. The R5 was now ready for
scanning that City on my next visit. On my return? Simple I just upload the
file that I have saved for my home town! Another user of this software and
I sent each other our saved files via e-mail saved them to the CS-R5 directory
and were able to open and upload each others files, very Handy. I thoroughly
enjoyed using this software and kept finding myself looking for extra frequencies
so that I could use it more and more. In My opinion this software makes the
programming of this scanner a cinch and I would find myself lost without it.
I very rarely manually add frequencies to My R5 now only the odd one here and
there when finding new frequencies, but even then I update my file by uploading
the new contents to the software. Thanks once again to Bob I am not sure of
the current price for this software but drop Bob an Email and I'm sure he will
be happy to oblige with any queries.
UKMidlandscanner does not authorise the reproduction of this review for any
other website or magazine.
Specifications
Type Handheld
Range 150kHz - 1309.995MHz
Channels 1000
Banks 18 (max)
Search Bands 25
Steps 5/6.25/8.33/9/10/12.5/15/
20/25/30/50/100 kHz
Modes AM, FM & WFM
Conversion Triple
IFs 1=266.7 MHz
2=19.65 MHz
3=450 kHz
Sensitivity FM (12dB SINAD)
1.625 - 4.995 MHz 0.32µV
5.000 - 179.995 MHz 0.20µV
118 - 247 MHz 0.18µV
247 - 330 MHz 0.20µV
330 - 470 MHz 0.18µV
470 - 1000 MHz 0.28µV
1000 - 1310 MHz 0.35µV
AM (10dB S/N)
0.495 - 5 MHz 1.30µV
5 - 30 MHz 0.71µV
118 - 136 MHz 0.56µV
222 - 247 MHz 0.56µV
247 - 330 MHz 0.71µV
WFM (12dB SINAD)
76 - 108 MHz 0.89µV
175 - 222 MHz 0.71µV
247 - 330 MHz 0.71µV
470 - 770 MHz 1.00µV
Selectivity AM/FM = - 9dB@ 15kHz
-60dB@ 30kHz
WFM = - 6dB@150kHz
Scan TBD chan/second
Search 30 steps/second
Audio 100mW at 10%THD
Current 170 mA (max vol)
100 mA (recv)
41 mA (power save)
Power 3V int (2xAA)
6V ext
Size 2.3(W) x 3.4(H) x 1.1(D) in
58(W) x 86(H) x 27(D) mm
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