IC 208H PROGRAMMING FOR FREE
IC 208H PROGRAMMING DRIVER
IC 208H PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE

It puts out 55W on 2m and 50w on 70cm, this is the most power you can get at this price point. I had excellent reports of sound quality on both bands. Last night I spent a couple hours making 2m and 70cm contacts while waiting to pick up my girls at youth group. The large VFO dial and bright display are great. Once you are used to the way Icoms operate, I think they're quite easy to navigate the features. Now that the radio is all hooked up, the initial setup issues are taken care of and I've had a chance to live with the radio for a little bit, I love it! I especially like the mic which has all the controls located right on it. However I do have their version for the Yaesu FT-7900 on my laptop since Res2cue has the Yaesu and uses my laptop to program it.

IC 208H PROGRAMMING SOFTWARE

I also ordered the RT Software version but have not received it yet so I can't comment. The software is not the most up to date program out there but it has all the functions you might need.

IC 208H PROGRAMMING DRIVER

I did have some aggravating initial issues getting the driver for the cord installed but the vendor was VERY helpful in getting those issues straightened out.

IC 208H PROGRAMMING FOR FREE

I used the cs208 programming software that I downloaded for free off the internet and purchased the cord needed from ebay for about $12. It's also very compact at around 3' long. The large characters are very easy to read and the display is quite bright. The removable face unit is mounted on an adjustable gooseneck with double face tape in a very handy location. I'm not a fan of cords hanging either in my line of sight or around the dash. I really like this setup versus the mic being attached to the removable head as it makes for a much cleaner installation. The microphone cord attaches to the unit with the cord running from under the seat. The radio is mounted, using the supplied bracket, under the driver's seat. I've got it installed in my '02 Tacoma with a Larsen dual band NMO mount antenna in the center of my roof. Well, after some further research I went ahead and purchased the IC-208h. You can't see the numbers moving, they are just a blur. Since we don't move around, except for DH's travels in-state, we can't see needed it often. We decided not to buy the cable at this time. Right now they have an sale to make your own offer and there's $40 off. With the specials they had last month, I think $288 was the total with tax. We did pay tax though which can really get you. They are local to Alabama so shipping was next day. It took us over an hour to program it but that included looking up repeaters to verify DH had all the information correct for them and we put all of it in a spreadsheet so that we can refer back to it and see what's supposed to be somewhere if we mess something up. DH will possible set up his own banks for some of the routes he regularly travels so he can scan those separately. On mine, we set up Bank A with the repeaters and simplex channels we use locally, leaving out the aforementioned simplex channel that is hard to pick up outside town. We learned about Banks - you can put any memory channels into a bank and scan only the bank.

Originally, DH and I talked about cloning mine from his but he decided since his was a little chaotic (he'd been adding repeaters in as he traveled, etc.), we'd program mine like we wanted it then clone it to DH's. I'll try to remember to post what that is like to program it (if I can't find a way to clone it from DH's. I've messed with DH's some taking out some memory channels and it wasn't bad. I will say that tonight I will see how easy the 208H is to program. I can just tune that memory channel in to see whose around. Since I can set it to skip that memory channel, I don't get one-sided conversations. Without the ability to skip that memory channel, my radio stops on him and a lot of times on the static I do get from who he is talking to. It gets frustrating only getting part of a conversation. But, on the road to and from work (we live out of town), I can usually pick him up but not who he is talking to. There is a local fellow that hangs out on a simplex frequency. My favorite feature (which may be standard on all radios) is that I can skip memory channels while scanning. I've never used any other radio beside this one and the older Icom so I can't compare but I like mine. Yesterday, with a local repeater, I was probably 50 miles or more apart from DH and we had a nice chat while he was traveling.

With roof mount antennas on our vehicles, we can talk about 15 miles apart with city between us on simplex. I've been using an older Icom that allows you to monitor 2m and 70 cm at once.

Ic-208h programming