Kenwood TM-V71A

[KD0DKI]

Does anyone have any experence with this radio, I'm looking for my first radio, this looks like it has the ability to do a lot.

[w2alq]

Hi Sam,

I am about to buy one of these radios tomorrow. If no one has responded to you since you posted this I will give a detailed review for you tomorrow.

Chris, W2ALQ

[NR7J]

Does anyone have any experence with this radio, I'm looking for my first radio, this looks like it has the ability to do a lot.

Click on link for reviews > http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/6712

[N8MME]

I have had one for several months and I love it. It is easy to program and operate, has a lot of good features and I highly recommend it. :D

[KA1MDA]

I bought one a few weeks ago, and love it. Very versatile, easy to read display, and much more resistant to intermod than my Icom 706MK2G. Also doesnt get anywhere near as hot as my 706MK2G!

Only real drawback I have found is the built-in speaker is kind of tinny sounding, doesnt get very loud, and tends to sound distorted when audio level is turned up. Hook it up to a decent external speaker, though, and it sounds great!

AM aircraft reception is also very good, and cross band repeat works great. All the problems the D700 had with those 2 features (muddy audioon AM, excessive deviation in cross band rpt mode) have been corrected in the V71and work great. Works pretty well as a scanner too, although sensitivity above 500Mhz can be pretty deaf.

I would strongly recommend getting the PC programming cable- makes it so much easier to program the radio. Also will make it easy to restore memory and menu settings if anything ever gets accidentally deleted.

73, de Tom, KA1MDA
www.ka1mda.org

[KE7TJK]

I'll also give a thumbs up on this radio.

I've had mine a little over a month, and it performs great.

[KE7VOQ]

Yeah I have one day experience with this radio! I am new to ham radio and as such wanted to go with an ht.

My friend/elmer loaned me his FT-60 yaesu and boy I learned fast that I wanted a mobile. So I looked at the yaesu. The FT- 7800 was a good price but I wanted more features. The 8800 is good but there are no backlit buttons and the volume control is hard to get down plus I like the aesthetics on my kenwood tmv-71a better. I am glad i went to HRO and got to play with them.

Anyways the kenwood is just as good as the yaesu 8800 and perhaps better. I like the two radios in one idea and love to scan, it works great. You can actually scan 2m and transmit in 2m etc., although I think the manual says that it will diminish receive capability. I don't care I use it to scan 440 and 2m at the same time, or scan 440 while I rag chew on 2m etc.

The radio is easy to use I was scanning and storing stuff within 40min. Today I found that an old digital camera with serial cable is the same things as the computer cable kenwood sells and so I have been playing with the computer program.

The backlit buttons are nice, the display has tons of levels of brightness, there are 10 banks of 100 memories (more than I will ever use). There are 5 different setting modes for the radio so different users or you can program and have the radio exactly the way you want it. X-band repeat works great too.

My audio and tx reports are good. I have a diamond nr-770HB (black but same as HA) antenna and love it over the FT-60 with a diamond 77 that my friend loaned me, I can hit all repeaters and hear simplex pretty far. Receive is great. It is on a mag mount in my shack on top of a file cabinet.

Can't really say much, its a standard dual band, with 50 watts on both bands!

Any q's just ask. I might post some pics, but have to find the cable for the new camera lol at least its usb, right now I got an old comp jerry rigged in the shack, I might have to go out and buy a usb to serial adapter.

73s

Paul
KE7VOQ

Note water and electronics don't mix! I have since put the drink on the other side of desk on a tupperware lid coaster. Also paper and surge protectors don't work. I have since moved that as well. The desk was just messy as I was getting the shack all set up.


http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t234/az1911er/radio/IMG_1650.jpg
http://s161.photobucket.com/albums/t234/az1911er/radio/?action=view&current=IMG_1650.jpg

[w2lie]

I got my TMV71A for Christmas in 2007. Santa was very good to me ;)

I was just getting back into Ham Radio after not using it for about 10 years. This radio was supposed to go in my truck, so I would have something good to use on the road. It didn't make it that far :)

This radio is my every day radio that I use on my computer desk.
The radio wasn't as easy to program up as I was hoping, but the computer software that is a FREE download was a big help. Also, the ability to homebrew your own computer cable was a big help as well....

There were a few firmware upgrades since I've purchased this radio... make sure you check Kenwood's website for the updates.

I too have noticed that the internal speaker does a poor job with loud audio. I hooked up a speaker from an old Nokia Car Kit from my now useless TDMA phone. Again - another freebie (its already paid for itself when using the old car kit)


This radio has enough memories for me to program ALL the repeaters and simplex freqs in the Long Island and NYC area (even the 220 Mhz freqs to Rx only) - as well as plenty of room for those out of band frequencies that we all like to keep an ear on while driving. (UHF-T)

Kenwood did a good job in allowing you to daisy chain banks together to make one giant scan list. The radio allows you to scan all memories, banks, or lists depending on the buttons pressed / mode you are in. I find this good becasue I can scan all the repeaters in a county, or two counties if I would like. I can scan two different banks in A and B side of the display too!

Go for this radio - You won't be let down!

73

[kc9jwa]

I have that one , its real good , works great signal fine, its a duelbander, i forogt how mnay watts i know it senough thou nuttin over, it costed a good price but not to bad, i love it heck i have to have keenwoods or it aint a radio.:D