Charles,

I have a pair of KX-170Bs in my 172. When I had an issue with
the NAV receiver in one of the units, I just bought a used KX-175B
via EBay for about $300 and slid it in. Problem solved. No wiring
or mounting changes required. With all the upgrades to Garmins, it
is easy to find good working KX-170B or KX-175B radios for not
a lot of money. You can find a working replacement for less than the
shop cost to troubleshoot and repair one.

Before you take that route, make sure the problem is in the radio
and not in the installation. I once had a Escort 110 which some-
times works and sometimes didn't. I initially thought the problem
was the radio, but it turned out to be a broken connection in the
antenna balun. Find a known good KX-170B loaner that you can
side into your panel and check the installtion.

I also have an ICOM A200 in my Aztec. The only issue I've ever had
was the need to have the LCD replaced recently. The A200 has given
good service except for one, very strange phenomenon which has cropped
up within the last year. Austin approach changed their east side frequency
from 118.8 to 127.22 a while back. Ever since, I've been unable to make
them hear me when using the Icom. I can hear them fine on the Icom, but
they can't hear me. The KX-155 in the same panel works in both transmit
and receive. When I sent the Icom in for the LCD replacement, the work
order indicated it was slightly off frequency and had been adjusted. I
thought
that would explaing the issue and fix it. It did not. I still have that
problem.
The Icom works fine everywhere else, but not east of KGTU trying to talk to
AUS on 127.22. I'm not saying it is the radio itself, but an odd
combination of
antenna placement and direction of travel and maybe a slight frequency
offset.



"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...
I have a KX-170 that's *sometimes* just not working right in my VFR
Cessna 150.
For the same price (about $1,300) I could get either

A McCoy MAC-1700 as a slide in replacement for the 170b
-or-
An Icom 200 as an additional radio (with the flaky KX170b as backup).

Any recommendations?

-Charles Talleyrand

P.S. I did look into www.kx170.com. But he does not give yellow tags
with his repair and chooses not to be certified, so I don't think I
can go that way.