Railfan Technology > Kenwood TH-D74A

Has anyone tried the Kenwood TH-D74A on the rail bands?

How is the sensitivity at 161 MHz?

A very cool radio, but with a rather short battery life and a large price ($559).

http://www.kenwood.com/usa/com/amateur/th-d74a/

73's
Scott, AB6YS

Scott Schifer
Torrance, CA
TinyTrains Website

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I'd think that was expensive, and do you really
need the 420 MHz band? Certainly not for train
listening. I've got a nice ICOM IC-V82 'ham'
handy-talkie, and it cost around $150. You can
do better than $500 for a good train radio.

John.

Short answer: not a good choice. First, it will not do 2.5 kHz tuning steps, so it will not tune the "splinter" frequencies that will eventually come into use on the railroad band. In that respect it is no better than any other portable amateur radio out there, but costs a lot more. For the record, the relatively inexpensive Uniden BC-125AT scanner WILL tune the splinter frequencies and actually performs at least OK for a scanner (at a street price of around $100). Second, none of the TH-D74A digital features include NXDN digital that is the AAR-designated digital platform for the railroads (and is already in use in a few places on the railroads). If one shops around, one can find new or lightly used NXDN Kenwood or Icom digital portables for about the same price--I recently bought a new full DTMF keypad 500 channel NXDN portable for considerably less than the list price of the TH-D74A. In analog, it is now possible to purchase a used Kenwood TK-290 commercial portable for around $100. Getting a TK-290 programmed can be a pain (the programming software is an archaic DOS program), but, once programmed, the TK-290 is one of the best analog portables out there for railfanning (for years, the TK-290 was the standard portable radio used by many railroads--now being rapidly replaced by Icom and Kenwood NXDN digital radios equipped with specific railroad firmware).

Another choice that I've mentioned before is the Wouxun KG-UV6X commercial analog radio. Now, it's not on my highly recommended list because I've heard stories of uneven reliability and performance from other users. Mine has performed well for several years, with no problems. Some of its functions can also be a little "clunky"--typical of Chinese radios. All that said, my particular KG-UV6X has sensitivity with its stock antenna that nearly matches the TK-290 equipped with an extended range antenna (which has fantastic sensitivity), though the KG-UV6X selectivity is not as good as the more expensive Kenwood and Icom commercial radios. For around $180, though, the KG-UV6X might be worth looking at.

Please check out some of my other posts for more information on radio choices and performance.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/18 07:00 by WW.

Another thing that I've mentioned before about the Wouxun KG-UV6X and the Uniden BC-125AT: if you buy either, be sure to buy a protective case for the radio. One place where the manufacturers will often compromise to save money is to put the radio in a less than robust plastic case. The "mainstream" commercial radios have much tougher cases, mainly because many, if not most, commercial portable users do not like using a protective case because it can impede keypad usage and must be removed to charge the radio in a drop-in charger.

In another post, I reviewed the BC-125AT and gave it good marks for sensitivity and ease of use. Like most scanners, its likely weak point is selectivity to reject unwanted signals. I haven't had my BC-125AT in a real RF interference filled environment, but just about every Uniden scanner that I've ever seen can have problems with that.

Finally, quite candidly, I don't use portable radios a lot for railfanning--they see use for that only when I'm away from my vehicle or, more commonly, when I'm actually riding on a train. In my vehicle, I have used exclusively mobile amateur or commercial radios connected to good antennas.

Years ago I had the TH-D7 but that radio is an antique now. The TH-D74A is much more modern. It has an impressive list of features, most of which you don't need for the railroad hobby. The radio does a version of digital communications called "D-Star." D-Star and NXDN are two different animals, about like a hippo and a horse. All of those extra features can be confusing and make operating the radio complicated.

The cheap Chinese radios are pretty good. I have had a Baofeng for about 4 years. The sensitivity is good and so is the battery life. When I got mine it came with a 16-page manual. I hope they have improved on that over the years. The manual described every function but didn't tell you how to use them together to perform a function, such as programming the memory channels. I had to figure out what sequence to use the commands to do them. Nost of the ham radios will not transmit outside of the ham bands but the Baofeng will and I caution people to be careful not to transmit with them. (Yes, you can talk to the train or the dispatcher but doing so is illegal.) As for scanning, it takes about 5 seconds to go through 100 memories. You could be searching for something and miss it with a scanner that slow, but if you know what frequency you want to listen to, it's great. At $50 or less for some of them, they are hard to beat and if you happen to loose it, it's not going to set you back too much. The speaker is small, just like most consumer grade radios and may be difficult to hear in a noisy location.

John

Thanks folks. I know it is not a railfan radio, but I need all three bands for amateur radio work here in So Cal and my TH-F6A is getting old. I was wondering how it works railfaning, but not expecting much. I expect the triplexer to start killing sensitivity quickly out of the ham bands like the F6A. Sounds like no one here has one, and frankly, I have not met any hams that own one either. It does a lot, but it's not cheap.

Thanks.
Scott, AB6YS

Scott Schifer
Torrance, CA
TinyTrains Website

I've been an amateur radio operator for over 25 years. I learned long ago that the best solution is not to mix amateur radio needs with railfan radio needs if one needs multiple bands and lots of bells and whistles for amateur radio use. Buy an amateur radio that will meet one's requirements for that, and buy a separate radio that is better suited for railfanning. For example, in the vehicle that I use for much of my railfanning, I have both--an amateur mobile radio for that use, and a commercial mobile radio for my railfanning.

One reason that I like having separate radios for amateur and railfan use centers on how they are programmed. My amateur radios are, by necessity, field programmable--I can add, modify, or delete frequencies and other features as needed. My railfan radios are commercial models that are either non-field programmable or not easily (read: inadvertently) field programmable. For nearly 10 years now, I've been using commercial radios in which all of the AAR railroad channels can be PC programmed. Out in the field, I can select any of those channels that I need to monitor, and I can add or delete them from a scan list, but the frequencies themselves never have to be touched in the field. It is also easy with PC programming to set the AAR channels up to be transmit inhibited, removing the possibility of inadvertently transmitting on a railroad channel.

And, of course, at some point in the future, the railroads will convert over to NXDN digital, which will make all of today's amateur radios essentially useless for railfanning. I do believe that the railroads mandated preoccupation with the installation of PTC may delay full deployment of NXDN for a few more years beyond what was originally contemplated, but I think that it is still coming.

wa4umr Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> The cheap Chinese radios are pretty good. I have
> had a Baofeng for about 4 years. The sensitivity
> is good and so is the battery life. When I got
> mine it came with a 16-page manual. I hope they
> have improved on that over the years. The manual
> described every function but didn't tell you how
> to use them together to perform a function, such
> as programming the memory channels. I had to
> figure out what sequence to use the commands to do
> them. Nost of the ham radios will not transmit
> outside of the ham bands but the Baofeng will and
> I caution people to be careful not to transmit
> with them. (Yes, you can talk to the train or the
> dispatcher but doing so is illegal.) As for
> scanning, it takes about 5 seconds to go through
> 100 memories. You could be searching for
> something and miss it with a scanner that slow,
> but if you know what frequency you want to listen
> to, it's great. At $50 or less for some of them,
> they are hard to beat and if you happen to loose
> it, it's not going to set you back too much. The
> speaker is small, just like most consumer grade
> radios and may be difficult to hear in a noisy
> location.
>
> John

Not to take away from the original topic, But I would like to add to the comment of the Baofeng radio. I have two Yaesu FT-270 handled radios that I switch between in my car. I have them connected to a simple magnet mount antenna. A friend was using Baofeng radios on his large property for communication. They worked fairly well and he talked about how cheap they were. I decided to give it a try. $28 out the door on Ebay for a Baofeng UV-B5 handheld. No box, but for $28, if it didn't work, no major loss. I did have to glue the cheap plastic charging base back together, but otherwise it works really well. I was able to figure out the keypad entry of frequencies fairly easily. With the little antenna, it works almost as good or better (under differing circumstances) as the Yaesu handheld with vehicle antenna. I don't scan channels very much. Your mileage may vary.

Gary

SN711: You beat me! I paid $34.99 for mine. :(

BTW Scott, I overlooked the fact that you're a ham when I made my initial entry. My comments are good for the non-ham but I've got a Yeasu FT-2DR HT and an FTM-400 in my truck. They have the dual receive. I usually keep one on the ham bands and the other on the railroads.

73's John WA4UMR

I've had several Bao Feng radios in the last few years. Depending on the model, they can be pretty good performers and they are physically pretty tough radios--they will take quite a bit of abuse. There can be considerably variation in performance between two same model radios--that variation in quality is enough to knock them off my recommended list. They are also pretty useless for scanning. But, as noted, they are dirt cheap.