FWIW - I have been involved with the land mobile and marine radio market for the past 35+ years and ICOM has in the past 10 years or so risen to be one of the formost producers of GOOD mobile radio. It would seem that Motorola and what was GE have been resting on their past and ICOM and a couple of others have snuck up on them and become a real marketing threat. I am currently involved with some systems where ICOM is the entire radio system (VHF and UHF) and the defects have been vertually non-existant, and this is in systems of close to 100 units each. I think that the comment re ICOM not even making the low end marine type hand-helds could be very true as I have seen the same design of circuit boards in several different labels of unit, just the case was different. Lets face it, the very nature of a low cost marine hand-held makes it a "throw-away" product. As it has been said - don't taint the whole box by a couple of small rotten apples on the top !! John Tones, Victoria BC MV Penta