Hi Jim,

I sell the XCOM radio so I'm probably biased, but I do my best to give
completely honest advice.

I have played with the XCOM radios in my office quite a lot. I like the
ease of use. It is easy to configure and change settings. It is easy to
use "in flight" (although I haven't flown with one yet). It does have some
very cool features as you mentioned. I also like that it can transmit 0.75
W output with only 9V power input. That is an impressive spec. Most radios
won't transmit at all at 9V. Of course, it transmits with much, much more
power at 12V or more.

My testing was plagued by an issue with a particular batch of XCOM
microphones. They received a bad batch of microphones and I received most
of them. It was tough to track down since the units they had in their stock
worked fine. Thankfully they recently solved the problem and they are
sending me more microphones to test. It was a vendor component swap issue
that was tough to isolate. I've been impressed with their professional
communications with me on the issue.

I've sold several of the radios so far. The microphone issue made us
question the radio for a time but now that that we know it is a microphone
issue and it has been solved, I think we'll be on track. I haven't had any
radios returned to me so far.

If you want a radio with a track record, buy the excellent Walter Dittel or
Becker radios. If you want something new with new features it may be worth
trying the XCOM.

Good Soaring,

Paul Remde
Cumulus Soaring, Inc.
http://www.cumulus-soaring.com

"jphoenix" wrote in message
oups.com...
Anybody have comments positive or negative regarding the XCOM radio?
I'm trying to decide on a replacement for the Filser I pulled and I
like the Becker and Dittel, but the features of the XCOM are very
interesting, monitor two channels, receive 108 to 118 range
frequencies, etc.

Do they sound as good as the Becker? Any reliability problems?

Rgds,

Jim