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World's Most Advanced Portable TV
Eric Schlaepfer writes "Here's another great toy for your wish list! ICOM manufactures the highly advanced IC-R3 portable scanner/television set. Besides picking up radio stations in the frequency range of 0.495-2450MHz, the IC-R3 also receives regular television signals, amateur television, and wireless security camera signals."
While the Icom R-3 truly is a cool little gadget, I wish to caution those who are buying one for video monitoring purposes. It has a lot of features, to be sure, but as I found out the hard way, for the hardcore video monitoring enthusiast or TV DXer, it has some serious limitations.
Its sensitivity is lacking, so unless it encounters a very strong video signal (especially on 2.4GHz, where a lot of wireless cameras broadcast their signals), do not expect a very watchable or even decodeable picture.
Secondly, the video screen eats the hell out of the battery life. You'll find yourself reaching for the AC adapter quite frequently. This device tends to use the LCD screen to display a lot of configuration/tuning information, even in non-video mode, so beware if you buy this to use as a general-purpose scanner.
After 10 months of R3 ownership, my feelings are still mixed. It's pretty cool to walk around and stumble on 2.4GHz video, especially from wireless security cameras, but as a general-purpose scanning receiver or for attempting to receive TV DX in these skip-prone months, it falls sadly short.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Well . It's good to see Americans are making Tv's again.
It said amateur television didn't it? Whats the late night showing of Reform School Girls if not amateur television?
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Here you can buy it ...
ICON IC-R3 $449.95
Extra Battery & car adaptor $119.95
Series1 Standalone TiVo(eBay) $182.50
Car->110volt-adapter $ 35.99
Hacking TiVo Book $ 20.99
AirNET adapter $ 69.25
Watching extracted TiVo video synced from your
house to your car: Pricele..... **CRASH**
New Fender $210.00
Insurance Deductable $300.00
Emergency Room Co-pay $ 50.00
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
I'm going to agree with others, this isn't new.. I've been drooling over this radio for something like 2 years now.
One downside that I've found in my reading is that when you're using the bigger lcd (for tv and better scanner control) it drains your batteries much faster. You can control the scanner with the smaller lcd, but I think more complex options need the color lcd to set. If you're running it at home on an AC adapter, then you're okay, but mobile is kinda limited with the effect video reception/display has on battery life.
Then again, if you're the kind of person that drives around with their laptop searching for wifi networks, you might be used to that kind of battery life already.
The problem is that it used to be legal to build and sell a general coverage receiver that covered DC to Daylight. There were laws that restricted what you could do with some of signals you received, such as prohibiting disclosure to third parties, but the general principle was that any American was free to listen to anything transmitted on the public airwaves.
Enter cellular telephony (AMPS), which replaced the old mobile telephone service. Eventually, some bright bulb rediscovered that cellular telephone conversations were transmitted via UHF FM radio signals, without any encryption or signal security. Anyone with a UHF FM receiver, or an older VHF/UHF television set, could listen in on cellular phone calls. When the word got around to the general public that cellular calls were not private, the CTIA (cellular trade association) went nuts. This was a public relations problem that could hurt their sales and profits. Rather than fix the problem of broadcasting cellular calls in the clear, their "solution" was to lobby congress for a law that would prohibit sales of receivers that could listen to cellular telephone frequencies, and would criminalize the act of listening to a cellular telephone call. This was the first time that congress had made it illegal to listen to a radio signal. Of course, none of this made a damn bit of difference as to the security of a cellular telephone call. It just provided the illusion of security, which was all the CTIA was willing to pay for. It also gave a big stick to politicians who were embarrassed by the public disclosure of the contents of their cellular telephone calls. They could demand that the government prosecute the "criminals" who had the gall to embarrass them by publicizing their dirty laundry.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat