IC-446S – Buried, Battered, But…

When a customer, Mike Farr bought two IC-446S PMR446 licence-free transceivers from Icom dealer Waters & Stanton, he was advised that the product he was buying was the best PMR446 radio on the market. But little did he know how true this was, when he took the pair with him on a skiing holiday to France.

Mike takes up the story, ’I bought a pair of ICOM PMR446 (IC-446S) two way radios at the Telford Microlight Show in December from Waters & Stanton. I was told that the radios sold to me were reliable, that they came out top in many comparisons and scored well regarding waterproofing. I can agree with this, as one of the radios was lost by a friend when he had a dramatic snowboard wipeout, in very deep powder snow. Though he looked in vain for some time, no trace of the radio could be found. It was now too late in the day to continue the search.'

The following day, Mike and his friend went to search for the missing radio. He said, 'I used the 'search on the frequency' function of the remaining ICOM, and successfully established that the lost radio was still on and working, even from some mile or two away from the 'crash site'. We skied to the exact area, and again checked the radio was working, so I started to 'ring' the radio to get it to identify its location. Sadly no sound was heard, so the radio remains lost. However I was very impressed that not only did the ICOM radio pair have a facility to check that the other was on, but that the radio was still working after being on for over 36 hours, in freezing (-10'C) conditions, buried in snow after a severe battering! A true testimony to the quality of the ICOM radios.’

Ian Lockyer, Marketing Executive for Icom (UK) Ltd said, ’For years we have been getting stories from our customers about our products' virtues. The IC-446S has been submitted for many reviews and has always come top of each class. Therefore it is no surprise to me that the IC-446S kept on working in what is probably the toughest of environments for a PMR446 licence free radio to operate.’

Icom UK Marketing - marketing@icomuk.co.uk