Icom IC-A6 COM Transceiver

Thursday, August 21, 2014
Great Product
by Scott from Northridge CA USA 
Pros: Well built, good reception, easy to use
Cons: A bit heavy but I think that is because it is well built
Review: This radio is well made and easy to operate. Fortunately I have not had to utilize it for any emergencies but I use it regularly to listen to the ATIS before starting my engine. The reception is clear and I feel I will get many years of good service from it.
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Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Don't judge a book by its cover
by daniel from Bridgeport CT USA 
Pros: Quality and solid
Cons: Don't have
Review: Battery seems to drain quickly, needs to be charged daily.  Otherwise..... very easy to operate it.
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Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Good quality product
by Galen from Mount Vernon IL USA 
Pros: Quality and solid
Cons: Need battery life indicator
Review: Quality excellent. Durability excellent. It needs a battery life graphic. It doesn't do any good when the batter only has 5 minutes left to then show that graph. that should display at all times, including when charging so you know it is charged.
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Monday, June 04, 2012
Icom needs design imporvement
by mark from Turners Falls MA USA 
Pros: rugged controls
Cons: Fails to charge battery while powered up/tunred on, complex user interface, manual is poorly written
Review: As others warned, the manual is useless. Icom ought to redesign the user interface such that there's less of a need for a manual. If it was easier to set the channels the lack of an English language manual wouldn't be such a problem. And while the unit 'does what it needs to do', but lack of battery charging capability while turned on remains a serious performance and safety shortcoming. If you forget to charge the battery but then expect it to perform as a reliable backup you'll be stuck with no radio even if the aircraft has DC power. They basically forgot to add a simple steering diode to the DC power supply circuit.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2011
I would buy this product again
by Ricardo from New York NY USA 
Cons: Don't have.
Review: It met my expectations. It is the best transceiver that I could find.  Very easy to operate. Excelent. I recomend.
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Tuesday, August 09, 2011
EXCELLENT
by etienne from PONTARLIER . France 
Review: Excellent,thank you very much,and I would buy this product again at MyPilotStore !
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Sunday, July 24, 2011
Not worth the MONEY
by Mark from Chicago, IL: 
Pros: none
Review: I have owned two icoms with the same result twice.....POOR QUALITY and low reliability. Tech support is almost non-existent. Poor Charging and batteries never stay charged. Constant hum and static.
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Monday, March 14, 2011
A6 and ICOM not helpful
by Skyflire from Chandler, Az. 
Pros: It fits in the plane.
Cons: Charger poor, Manual terrible - difficult to follow and program the unit.
Review: I use the A6. I had one hell of a time making it work without a constant hum in the background every time we tried to transmit.... a small problem???? I met with ICOM at Oshkosh EAA and they were little help - saying that the unit is overpowered for small planes. We eventually got a fix through the Comtronic headset/intercom people. It has worked fine with the addition of a special filter provided by Comtronics. I am currently having problems once again with the hum and can't figure it out yet. I may plug in my A-21 and use the A6 for a spare, or.... donate it to Goodwill :)
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Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Good product
by Graham from Charleston SC USA 
Pros: Compact
Cons: Complex
Review: All good.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Works Great
by Colin from Austin TX USA 
Review: No complaints. Solid design.
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Sunday, April 11, 2010
Hate it, bought an older model
by Geezer from Seattle, WA 
Pros: Large screen
Cons: Battery life stinks, manual terrible, programming to difficult.
Review: I'm in Search and Rescue and this is the worst radio I've ever purchased. In process of selling it. The radio battery drains instantly, won't hold charge after charging. Programming is aweful. Instructions stink. I went on eBay and bought a used A4 and am extremely pleased. Don't buy this radio, you will be sorry.
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Monday, February 15, 2010
Very rugged unit
by Travis from Dry Ridge KY USA 
Pros: sturdy unit
Cons: Battery seems to drain quickly, needs to be charged daily
Review: Well built and rugged. Sealed from the elements. This is the 5th unit purchased for the maintenance operation and all 5 going strong.
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Friday, October 23, 2009
by Charles from Lincoln MT USA 
Pros: operation good
Cons: the book could be a little simplier
Review: Its a good outfit except I would like a "quick and dirty"card to carry with the unit so I can do some of the simple things like chage freqs etc.The book is a little complicated for an old guy.The motto here is KISS! Charlie S
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Monday, September 21, 2009
IC-A6 MANUAL IS USELESS
by frustrated..and sorry i paid good money from uk 
Pros: if i could tune the damn thing in i could comment
Cons: employ someone who can knows how to put some english words together
Review: THE STAR RATING IS REGARDING THE ABSOLUTELY USELESS MANUAL. I PAID GOOD MONEY FOR THIS UNIT AND THE MANUAL FOR IT IS PATHETIC,WHAT MUPPET WROTE IT,AND WHO OR WHAT WAS IT WRITEN FOR.I AGREE WHOEVER WROTE IT DOES NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. FOR GODS SAKE SOMEONE [DO A PROPER INSTRUCTION MANUAL][IN PLAIN ENGLISH]
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Thursday, August 13, 2009
by donald from kerikeri . New Zealand 
Review: I'm very happy with the product but I was unaware that the battery charger is not suitable for the New Zealand power supply and I was forced to purchase a battery charger here that was compatable. Your charger has an input of AC120V and output of DC12V and the New Zealand one has an Input 240V output 12V Could I suggest that purchasers in other countries be made aware of your power supply
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009
easy to use
by Tedd from Reno NV USA 
Review: Very user friendly just sad that they had to change the configurations for power supply.
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Saturday, July 04, 2009
Not Bad but Not the Best
by A Customer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada 
Pros: Nice design, large display, but looks aren't everything
Cons: charging options, battery consumption, price of accessories.
Review: After owning this transceiver for a couple years now there are a couple things which could be improved. The cigarette adapter does NOT charge the radio unlike the Yaesu VXA-220 which will power the radio AND charge the battery at the same time. This is a big setback. You start with a low battery and after flying you end with a low battery. Not good if you want to go to battery power for some reason. Unable to tell if the battery is fully charged and for some reason after 10+ hours on charge the low battery indicator comes on during transmit. Must buy Icom high priced accessories like the cigarette adapter which is 11 volts out. The Yaesu VXA-220 will run from any 12 volt cigarette adapter providing the polarity and plug size is compatible. NO 8.33 khz spacing. The Yaesu does 8.33khz. Replacement batteries for the Icom are expensive as well as the rapid charger. The Yaesu batteries are cheap and plentiful off of Ebay. Accessories for the Icom are EXPENSIVE! Money grab. Price out the accessories for the Icom and the Yaesu and you will see a big difference. Audio quality is not bad though the Yaesu boasts .700 milliwatts of audio power. The Icom only .500mw. So why don't we see more Yaesu VXA-220 for sale from flight shops? Price point. Profit margin is probably higher on the Icom. The Yaesu VXA-220 got good reviews, the Yaesu VXA-300 Pilot III did NOT.
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Monday, June 08, 2009
by James from Lafayette, LA USA 
Pros: Good battery life, clear, performs
Cons: Should come with "drop in" battery charger
Review: This radio does everything it claims. Before I made a decision on a radio I read all of the reviews I could find. Everyone was satisfied with the radio but complained about the difficulty of learning to use it and the lack of instructions. Well, I don't usually take the time to write reviews but I have to say that the radio is very easy to figure out! If you are buying this radio for the application it is intended for (Flying), and you can't figure this out, quit flying please. GOOD RADIO, TOUGH, DOES THE JOB. USE EXTERNAL ANTENNA.
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Sunday, April 05, 2009
Its a great radio for ULM comunications but with some whiz
by Javier Suarez from Pachuca mexico 
Review: Inside my expectations.
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Product is recomended as replacement or experienced user
by A Customer from columbia MO USA 
Review: Product apears to work as described however, I had to be instructed by a flight instructor in order to utilize it properly. I dont think the person that wrote the directions speaks english.
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Very good product.
by Dag Kristiansen from Borgenhaugen Norway 
Review: I'm very pleased with this product and mypilotstore.com
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Better Then a Yaesu
by hondroid from Ontario 
Pros: Good RX audio, build quality, durable.
Cons: Battery consumption. Speaker should be at the top then the display and keypad.
Review: Great radio for the price. Instructions are lacking but if you can obtain a Private Pilot License or higher you should be able to figure out how to operate this basic radio.
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Friday, August 22, 2008
cheapass
by joe from tulsa OK USA 
Pros: cool looking
Cons: doesnt work worth a damn
Review: pitched it
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Saturday, August 16, 2008
Love it
by Jeanne Matisse 172M from Port Orange FL USA 
Pros: Easy to read easy to operate
Cons: Afraid of damage by overcharging.
Review: Delighted with my Icom IC-A6. Every pilot should have one in his/her flybag and abord the plane.
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Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Solid and reliable
by Dave from Olympia WA USA 
Pros: Reliable and easy to use
Cons: a little heavier than it looks.
Review: Quick delivery at an excellent price. Radio is a bit on the heavy side, but I suppose that makes it more durable. It has been easy to tune and use for monitoring airport frequencies and weather
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Thursday, June 12, 2008
Terribly Disappointed
by Charley from Ontario, Canada 
Pros: It is reported to be an excellent product.
Cons: The instructions are hugely lacking in ...well...instructions!
Review: It is probably a good product, but it is difficult to imagine how any corporation could produce such an item and then fail to provide decent instructions for its operation. The manual seems to be "hit and miss" jumping illogically from one topic to another. I have to conclude that it is a good product, but now I have to find help in using it.
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Tuesday, May 20, 2008
AWESOME RADIO, VERY POWERFUL
by Freeway's Brother from SSE of airport KROS, MN 
Pros: Good power and range, backlight stays on.
Cons: Tough to program if you are unfamiliar with Icom's menu system.
Review: My Brother is a CFI-I MEI and I live in the area of his flights, and I use this radio to talk with him all the time, I got the "sport" version from my parents for Christmas, which included a OPC-499 ADAPTER and an alkaline battery pack. It is complicated to program the memory channels, and the functions are difficult at times, but that is an "ICOM" thing. I have a IC-706 & IC-706MKIIG and their functions are difficult at times too.
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Best ICOM
by Michael Harwood, CFI from Wildwood FL USA 
Pros: Feature rich programming and frequency storage
Cons: Could be a little smaller
Review: The ICOM A6 is a great radio. Once you learn the functionality, it's very easy to program frequencies. I use separate memories channels for vary needs. I have programmed all the AWOS and ASOS in my flying area for easy lookup with the airport ID. I instruct and use this radio extensively in Light Sport Aircraft.
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Saturday, December 29, 2007
Difficult to program.
by Doug Rodrigues from Sparks, Nv. 
Pros: Good quality.
Cons: Instruction manual can only be classified as almost worthless..
Review: Four stars for the quality of the unit. Easy to enter one frequency to use, but still cannot figure out how to program into the memory banks or scan? Surely someone could have written instructions that make sense?! Following instructions exactly as written, the radio's memory banks still cannot be used. It's as thhough the instruction manual was written for a different model radio! If my life depended on it, I still cannot figure out how to use the memory banks!
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Great buy! more than I had hoped for.
by Wilber (Bill) from Thomaston ME USA 
Pros: I feel that ICOM is the leader in communication.
Review: My Icom A6 transceiver is all that I had hoped it would be. It more than meets my needs and I have come to rely on it with complete confidence.It's very easy to operate and the screen is very easy to read while in flight.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Good radio.... nice size
by A Customer from Shreveport LA USA 
Review: Works as stated. clear and easy to use
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Saturday, August 25, 2007
by Wilbur from Thomaston, ME 
Review: I am totally satisfied with my ICOM tranceiver.
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Great Product
by Lars Slate from Chandler, AZ 
Pros: Perfect size even for large hands. Great readout.
Cons: If I had to pick one I wish it had more than 6 Chars to customize the memory names.
Review: After looking at Radios for weeks I decided on this one. Did not need the NAV as it would be rare to use a back up, most of us have a hand held gps, etc.

Read an shootout on radios and the ICOM and Sportys came out on top.

Sure the manual is vague but if you spend a little extra effort you can learn it very fast.
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Monday, April 16, 2007
Very User Unfriendly
by A Customer from Florida 
Cons: Extremely difficult to program to scan a set of frequencies. Plus many others.
Review: It requires the pressing of too many buttons to accomplish a single task. No task is obvious from the labeling of the buttons. You need to have the user manual open to the proper page to be able to get it to do anything. And then, it still sometimes doesn't work because the user manual is incorrect or so vague as to be useless.
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Wednesday, December 27, 2006
by A Customer from MINNESOTA 
Review: I LOVE IT
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Monday, December 11, 2006
by Duane Mitchell from Tallahassee, FL 
Review: The transciever is excellent but as a longtime technical writer/editor I am qualified to judge the instruction manual as the worst I have ever seen. Somebody needs to spend a few bucks to have it revised and sent as a supplement to customers who are stuck trying to figure out how this great transciever works. An on-line revision would help.
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