Railfan Technology > ICOM IC-R30 with NXDN

Icom just announced the new handheld receiver IC-30R at the Tokyo Ham Fest. No prices at yet but it has NXDN

IC-R30 Communications Receiver (Handheld)
The IC-R30 is the successor to the popular IC-R20 compact handheld receiver. The IC-R30 can listen to two signals under certain conditions (analogue + analogue or analogue + digital). The IC-R30 will be able to decode D-STAR, P25, NXDN and dPMR digital (conventional) modes.

 

Universal Radio has these radios listed in their online catalog but no price listed, just that it was a "Future product."   I looked a two other dealers and didn't find any mention of them.   The radios have not been approved by the FCC according to their catalog.  The IC-R20 was a high-end radio.  It was sort of a "DC to Daylight" radio, meaning it covered LF, Low Frequencies down to 150kHz up to over 3GHz.  Really a bit of overkill for the rail fan but a good radio if you care to listen to railroads, and other stuff.  The IC-R20 is out of production but I found them on Amazon for about $600.  I suspect the new IC-R30 will be in the same price range.  It does cover many of the digital formats that are in common usage but not all.  It does list NXDN as one that it does handle.

Whistler has a similar radio, the TRX-1 that is digital compatible.  It's on sale on their website for $540.  It doesn't support NXDN at this time but is software upgradable.  NXDN is to be included in their next free software update.  Of course, as of today, that's vaporware.  NXDN has been cooking in their development department for about six months.  

John

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This radio appears to be based on the next generation of the Icom NXDN tranceivers that has been "announced" on the Icom website for several months, but has not yet been available for purchase.  Based on past experience, I would bet this recevier will cost about the same as the two-way version of the radio.  If so, it will likely be no bargain.

But the frequency range of the two way is nothing compaired to the R30 and has to have a program and cable to program. R30 will be direct entry to program.

dhb Wrote:
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> But the frequency range of the two way is nothing
> compaired to the R30 and has to have a program and
> cable to program. R30 will be direct entry to
> program.

True, but "opening uip" the receiver to be able to receive over a wide swath of the radio spectrum also usually degrades the radios ability to reject unwanted signals (selectivity).  I quit using scanners for railfanning years ago for that very reason.