The Kenwood TH-D74A is the radio you buy when you want the “one radio to rule them all” and are not afraid to spend the money to get it. Read on to see if it is worth it!
I thought about just writing that the Kenwood TH-D74A had a couple of things I didn’t really like, and that everything else was as close to perfect as any handheld radio ever created. While that certainly is true, it doesn’t help my readers understand why this radio costs over $500, and is worth it. So I need to do a little more explaining.
Let’s start with what all this radio can do, and that is a lot. The Kenwood TH-D74A packs a huge punch in terms of features, so let me rattle off a few.
The Kenwood TH-D74A is the radio you buy when you want the “one radio to rule them all” and are not afraid to spend the money to get it. Read on to see if it is worth it!
I thought about just writing that the Kenwood TH-D74A had a couple of things I didn’t really like, and that everything else was as close to perfect as any handheld radio ever created. While that certainly is true, it doesn’t help my readers understand why this radio costs over $500, and is worth it. So I need to do a little more explaining.
Let’s start with what all this radio can do, and that is a lot. The Kenwood TH-D74A packs a huge punch in terms of features, so let me rattle off a few.
The Kenwood TH-D74A is a true tri-band radio, operating in 140Mhz, 220Mhz, and 430Mhz all pretty well with the stock antenna. That being said, the antenna’s that come with most dual-band radios are a little better at 140Mhz and 430Mhz than this one, but only a little, and I find it works well enough for a small factory antenna. You can, and probably should, upgrade the antenna for anything serious.
They didn’t stop there, the Kenwood TH-D74A also has an amazing receiver that can literally listen to any frequency you can punch in on the keypad from 0.1 ~ 524Mhz, SSB/CW reception is also possible. That’s right, you can receive from 160m to above 70cm on standard FM, SSB, and even CW! Of course, you should attach a different antenna to the Kenwood TH-D74A for HF reception. Yes, some cheapies can do that too, the difference is this radio can do it well.
Of course, the Kenwood TH-D74A can also do their D-STAR digital technology to do things like consulting a built-in and updatable list of repeaters equipped with the D-STAR technology in your area (using the built-in GPS) and have them at the ready within minutes so you don’t have to look up repeaters ever again.
The screen on the Kenwood TH-D74A is a work of art, full color, sharp as a tack, and fairly large. One really nice thing is that many color screens on radios like TYT, Zastone, Radioddity, etc are unreadable when the backlight turns off. Not so on this radio, it is harder to read of course, but still perfectly readable. I absolutely love this.
The transmitted audio is excellent on both analog and digital. In fact, I have actually had people tell me I was using the Kenwood TH-D74A without asking because of the extremely high-quality audio. This happens mostly when in digital mode but sometimes in analog as well.
Speaking of audio, the sound coming out of the Kenwood TH-D74A speaker is excellent, and because everyone hears things differently, they include a robust equalizer so you can tailor the sound coming from the speaker to your taste. Yup, an EQ built right in. Find that on another radio!
The Kenwood TH-D74A programming software is called MCP-D74 and is probably the best radio programming software I have ever used. It keeps things grouped logically, which makes finding things I need easy. I also love the fact that I can read and write configuration to a micro-SD card (my favorite), use a cable, or use Bluetooth to program the radio.
To program the radio, you need to start with some documentation, and the Kenwood TH-D74A manual is second to none. They include a nice, big, printed version right in the box.
Now on to my gripes, and I should point out that any gripes I have with my Kenwood TH-D74A are very very minor.
The keys on the front of the Kenwood TH-D74A are a tiny bit too easy to press. I would prefer keys with a little more resistance, maybe with a little more travel. This is more about me pressing more than one key at a time than any fault of the keypad. Maybe they could space the keys out a little more and solve the problem.
The Kenwood TH-D74A has a perfectly serviceable volume knob, so why do they not use it for power on/off instead of the power button? I would much prefer that, but I am pretty old school, so maybe it’s just me.
When dealing with earlier versions there were some Kenwood TH-D74A problems, specifically with charging circuit IC 585 causing the radio to refuse to charge. Newer versions of the radio supposedly fixed the issue.
Lastly, and most annoying, for this kind of money I expect a drop-in charger dangit! Come on, I buy a $20 Chinese radio, and it comes with a drop-in charger, but the $500 Kenwood TH-D74A just comes with a wall wart? That’s just insulting.
Images:
Radio Specifics:
| Screen readability | Excellent + | |
| In-hand feel | Excellent | |
| Included antenna | Good | |
| Construction quality | Excellent | |
| Belt clip | Very Good | |
| Programmability | Excellent | |
| Transmit audio | CLICK TO LISTEN | |
| Frequency accuracy | 145.000 @ 145.000 | |
| Maximum power output 2m/70cm | 3.6 watts/ 1.4 watts | |
| Actual weight | 345g | |
| Battery advertised mAh | 1800mAh | |
| Battery tested mAh | ||
| Radio manual | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD | |
| Programming software | CLICK TO DOWNLOAD | |
| Price based score 0-5 | 4.5 | |
| Overall score 0-10 | 9.5 |
Test Images:
If you are interested, click here for an article on how I test radios.
FEATURES:
- APRS, real-time GPS position information and messages
- D-STAR digital amateur radio networks
- Built-in high-performance GPS unit with Auto Clock Setting
- Wide-band and multimode reception
- 1.74” (240 x 180 pixel) Transflective color TFT display
- IF Filtering for improved SSB/CW/AM reception
- High-performance DSP-based audio processing & voice recording
- Bluetooth, microSD & Micro-USB
- External Decode function (PC Decode 12kHz IF Output, BW:15 kHz)
- Data Import / Export, (Digital Repeater List, Call sign, Memory Channel, Configuration)
- Four TX Power selections (5/2/0.5/0.05 W)
- Weatherproof IP54/55 standards
- 1,000 channels
- 1,500 repeater memory list
- Voice recording
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Conclusions
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It really is an amazing radio.