Hi David,

You crack me up.

XCOM told me that the radio is unique because it can transmit with 0.75 W of
power at only 9 V. That is an impressive specification in my opinion. They
seemed quite excited about that feature. Of course it will work better at
13.8 volts but only marginally better than it will work at 12V. XCOM feels
the radio will work great on a 12V battery.

Also, I had a long phone conversation with a very knowledgeable and
experience technician at Walter Dittel yesterday. The conversation was on
another topic, but I then asked him what he thought about the need for a 14V
battery in gliders. He laughed and said their radios work great on 12V and
that building 14V batteries was never optimum for many reasons. He said
they did not feel that a 14V battery was necessary at all. By the way, the
battery box they sell uses a 12V, 7 AHr battery.

I do respect your opinion on this. Feel free to fly with 14V systems. I
prefer 12V systems for many reasons.

Good Soaring,

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

"David Kinsell" wrote in message
...
Paul Remde wrote:
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.

???? It'll have somewhat more power at 12 volts, but to get the 6 watts
it's
rated for, you need the nominal input voltage, which of course is 13.8
volts.

Their web site says 10 volts minimum voltage, emergency use only. Perhaps
they
actually mean it?

-Dave