Icom 604 VHF - Not a Happy Customer

[Bob Bradley]

Well, I picked up an Icom 604 - the current version of the radio - at Defenders on Thursday and installed it Saturday. Nice radio, not cheap with a retail price of $650 and a selling price at Defenders of $550. I had to enlarge the hole in my electronics cabinet, but I managed to get it in place without much drama. Hooked up the antenna and power and tested it successfully.

Then I went to hook up the NMEA0183 leads to get lat and lon for the Distress function. WTF? There is not a factory wired plug pigtail in the box. Instead, there are two plugs that need to have wire soldered onto them and then be assembled manually...by me. Are you kidding? $650 for a vhf and they don't even give you a proper wiring harness? If I hadn't already cut the cabinet face, I would have taken it back. Instead, I am now honing my soldering skills and taking a second day to complete the installation.

I am not pleased with Icom.

[Boatsb]

Interesting you find that a problem. We have been asking for bare connectors that plug in for a long time. Now they have it to install them properly . It allows you to attach to whatever length of wire you need and cleans up the install.

[Cricket]

Luckily Icom includes Nmea 0183 adapters as part of the package and doesn't sell them as an option. Just installed 2 Icom M506's on my CC and loved the NMEA 2k ports for easy hookup to the N2K backbone, cleanest install ever and didn't have to program anything except the MMSI #, tossed the NMEA 0183 parts it came with right into the can. Removed 2 M504s because I didn't want any Nmea 0183 on the boat after installing all new electronics this spring.

[Avenger]

Not that I've installed a lot of electronics, but I don't ever remember having an application like that where I didn't have to solder the plug connections.

[Bob Bradley]

Well, I don't replace radios often, luckily. The Ray215 that this is replacing had a nice pigtail connection with nmea in and out, + and - for each, along with remote speaker wires - all out of the same harness. I simply crimped on ring connectors and hooked them up to a 6 circuit block, which I wired to the other devices. Simple and fast. The connections were as clean and tight as when I hooked them up back in 2003.