ICOM A14 Product Review

The ICOM A24/A6 has been on the market for a few years now and are excellent products. But recently ICOM’s chief competitor Vertex Standard fired a shot over the bow when they introduced the VXA-200 whose claim to fame was 700mW of audio output. ICOM fired back with the new ICOM A14 that also has 700mW of speaker power and a Li-ion battery. Let’s see just how good this new ICOM really is.

The ICOM A14 comes in two flavors, one is the standard A14 and the other is the A14S. The "S" model does not have a keypad and in my opinion does not belong in the cockpit. The A14S is a great unit for someone wanting to just listen to aircraft in the pattern or fuel service vehicles but I’d highly purchasing the standard A14 for my aviator buddies. It’s easier to operate, has more features and the price is the same as the downgraded A14S. This article is based on the ICOM A14.

The A14 will transmit from 118.00 to 136.975 MHz, which of course is the aviation band. The unit will receive from 108.00 136.975 MHz. which includes the aviation localizer and VOR band. Yes, you can hear the VOR ident but VOR/Localizer display information is not present on the display. This unit also receives the usual Weather Channels, 161.650-163.275 MHz. Duplex operation is available for the A14, thus you can transmit on a VHF com frequency and receive over the VOR, just like the old days. Most panel-mounted aviation radios manufactured today are 8.33 KHz spacing on the VHF com spacing but the A14 is the older 25 KHz spacing. This is not a problem when used in the USA and keep in mind, the A14 is not a high-dollar panel mount but a backup radio. Transmit power is 5 watts as with most portables, the specs on the ICOM A14 are almost identical to the older A6 with the exception of the speaker output. The A6 speaker power is 500 mW versus the A14’s 700 Mw, that’s a whopping 40% increase in audio out. We will discuss the audio quality later. I’ll not dig into the exact specs of this unit but it’s about the same as any other high quality you would purchase today regardless of the model or manufacturer.

Lets talk about the battery and charger. The A14 comes with a Li-Ion 7.4Vdc 2000mAh rechargeable battery (BP-232N). During my test this battery lasted for 10 hours of use when being keyed at 5 watts for 2% of the time and receiving a signal (open squelch) for 35% of the time. To date, this is the longest lasting transceiver battery I’ve tested. Having said this we have had problems in the past with Li-Ion batteries; some have heated up during charging and in a couple of cases actually caught fire; ICOM has eighteen Warning, Danger or Caution notes when charging or handling the battery pack mentioned in the battery charging section of the Operator’s Manual. Now, I’m in no way saying your A14 will catch fire; all I’m saying is our experience hasn’t been the best with Li-Ion batteries. The supplied battery is an ICOM made battery (or at least their name is on it) versus an after-market battery. ICOM is finally supplying a nifty drop-in charger cradle and the A14 is the first portable transceiver to supply the cradle as standard equipment within the ICOM line. Simply plug the charger into house power and then the charger output cable into the drop-in cradle and now you’re ready to drop in the A14. I found not only does the drop-in cradle look appealing but the drop-in charger was far more convenient than digging around the back of my desk trying to find the blasted cable that disappears every time I unplug it. But here’s the rub. The manual states the charging period of the battery is Approx. 12 hours and in some ways leads one to "think" this little drop-in charger is automatic BUT it’s not. On the front of the drop-in charger is a light. This light turns Orange during the charging cycle and turns Green when the battery is fully charged. Even though the charger shows the battery is fully charged, it will continue to charge the battery until the A14 is removed from the charger or the AC adapter is removed from the wall. I talked to ICOM about this and their answer was "Get a timer for your charger that will shut the thing down in 12 hours". Will it hurt to over charge the battery you ask? It sure will. I left mine on charge for three continuous days and found the battery got very hot and would only run my ICOM A14 for 6 hours of use. Once it ran down, I again over charged my battery for two full days and battery life was now down to 4.5 hours. After this intentional overcharging I found my battery would no longer charge, only heat up regardless of how long I charged it. Yes, you can easily over charge this battery and unless you have some kind of safeguard in place (a shut-off timer) sooner or later you’ll screw up and over charge your A14 BP-232N battery. No worry mate, you can purchase another battery for $70.00 or so. Bottom line here is this. Put your charging system on a timer or you’re asking for trouble. Before I forget, if the charger light is blinking Orange or Green, that means the inserted battery pack or the charger has a problem of some type.

Turning on the ICOM A14 is easy; just turn the only knob on top of the unit clockwise and now the A14 lights up. Once turned on the first thing the A14 does is show the battery voltage on the display and then shortly says ICOM (like you didn’t know), then reverts to the last frequency you cranked in. The on/off knob is also the volume control for the unit, the more you turn it clockwise the louder the A14 will get as you would expect. It does take quite a bit of force to turn the on/off/volume control on the A14 but I kind of like that; you will not accidentally bump the radio and change the volume setting like many other models out there today. One must physically grab and turn the volume control or it’s going to stay where you placed it. Also located on top of the radio is the rubber duck antenna, which is attached BNC style. Which reminds me, one of these days I’ll write about just what neologisms such as BNC, SMA and TNC really mean but that’s another day. A BNC fitting is ample for the frequency range the ICOM A14 operates in.

On the top left side of the unit is a push-button labeled "Light"; when pressed, this black button will turn on the back lighting to the A14’s display. Push it again and the display light goes out, no magic here. The backing lighting of the LCD display is excellent when turned on. I’m sad to say it but the keypad is not back lighted. In my opinion, a portable emergency radio is something the pilot will only use in the air when things get really sour. If you can’t see the keys to punch in a frequency, then what good is it during an emergency? I guess you could stick a flash light in your mouth or fiddle around with the up/down keys until you get the desired frequency you pine for but do you really have time for that during an in-cockpit emergency? This is just my opinion, you may feel different about the darkeness of the keypad and that’s fine. The next button down on the left side is the PTT (Press-To-Talk) switch. This switch is big and has a nice detent/click that you’ll notice when you press it, which is typical ICOM’s quality. Once the PTT is pressed the A14 will transmit if a VHF aviation COM frequency is showing on the display and the letters "TX" will be displayed at the top of the LCD.

Lets talk about the two squelch control buttons located just under the PTT switch on the left side of the A14. One great improvement made with the development of the A14 is the way they control the squelch setting. Most units, including my coveted A6 one must go into into a software menu and set the squelch level. No so with the A14, simply press one key or the other to change the squelch setting, it couldn’t be any easier. Finally, a squelch feature that even Mooney drivers could easily figure out!  There are 10 squelch settings with "0" being open. My ICOM A6 has 24 settings but I found the 10 within the A14 were more than ample. I never found a case where one setting would have the squelch open and the next up would block or cause a receiving signal to be broken. ICOM did their homework with the squelch operation on the A14, even I like it.

While the LCD on the A14 has a razor sharp image, it’s small compared to the earlier A6/A24. It did take some time for me to get used to the smaller display but after a couple of days I learned to live with it. Even though the display is much smaller than the display on the A6, it is very easy to read in all lighting conditions but I’m a firm believer that "Bigger is Better". You’ll understand my reasoning on this issue when you get older. As you would suspect, the larger A6 display is capable of displaying of more data than the smaller A14 display. The ICOM A14 display will show all kinds of Icons such as when the battery is low, these are covered in the Operator’s Manual. As mentioned prior, the LCD is back-lighted for night operation but the keys are not.

The Operator’s Manual for the ICOM A14 is quite comprehensive. Plenty of good pictures on just about every page that aid in the learning curve on this product. If you follow ICOM’s step by step method as called out in the book, chances are you’ll get the result you’re trying to achieve. Included in the manual is a list of specs and optional equipment available for this unit. Be advised you’ll want to turn off the weather alert function when you’re really using the VHF aviation band receiver. If not, the weather channel feature will constantly interrupt the VHF receiver. The book doesn’t tell you this but if you leave the weather alert you’ll find it’s a real hassle when monitoring the VHF aviation receiver. All in all, the A14 manual is great with the exception of the battery servicing section.

In actual use, the ICOM A14 is fairly easy on the ground and  easy in the air as long as you can read the keypad. The massive 700mW of speaker power is great and has little distortion even at high audio levels. I expected a lot more distortion from the little speaker in the A14 but distortion was low. But you’ll still be hard pressed to hear the A14 over a 94dB cabin in a Cessna 206, one really needs a headset to hear this transceiver clearly when flying (as with all portable transceivers). Also, transmitting without a headset in a noisy cabin is futile without a headset, most of what ATC will hear is the 94dB of cabin noise. As of this writing, a headset adapter (a device that allows you to plug your aviation headset directly into the A14) was optional  equipment on the A14. I’m a firm believer that during an emergency in the cockpit, a headset adapter is a must with any portable transceiver; it’s hard to imagine why ICOM didn’t supply one with this unit, they may add the headset adapter in the future. Yes, you can purchase a headset adapter, OPC-499 in the $60.00 price range. Many of the ICOM A6/A24 accessories will work with the new A14.

Would I buy one? Lets take a look at what the ICOM A14 does not offer.

No backlighting of the keyboard for night operation

Does not come with a headset adapter

Display is small

You may be think, "Well, you’ll just purchase the headset adapter" along with the A14 but lets do some simple math. Most ICOM A6’s sell for $246.00 or in that price range. These A6’s come with the much needed headset adapter AND a spare alkaline battery pack.Street price for the A14 is $205.00 BUT you’ll need to purchase the $60.00 headset adapter; now your in the $265.00 price range and this does not include the extra alkaline battery pack that is offered with the A6!

Why did ICOM market the A14 if it does less than the A6 and cost more? I’m not the brightest star in the sky but recently Vertex Standard introduced an aviation transceiver that offered the 700mW audio output so ICOM followed with the A14. My "guess" would be they wanted to get something on the market to compete with the new Vertex Standard even though it in some ways has less features than the famous A6 but cost more when factoring in the headset adapter.  Yes, the powerful audio output is nice but otherwise one has to question if the A6 isn't the better buy.  I'll leave that for you to decide.

The ICOM A14 has been a good seller and no problems have been noted. Our customers seem to like the unit but for me, my ICOM A6 is staying in the flight bag.

Supplied Accessories

• Battery pack, BP-232N
• Battery charger, BC-179
• AC adapter, BC-174A
• Belt clip, MB-94
• Antenna, FA-B02AR
• Handstrap

 

ICOM A14 A14	$205.95
Headset Adapter OPC-499	$57.95
PTT Switch IC-PTT	$29.95
Aircraft Hand-held Adapter Learn More	$76.00