When ICOM introduced its new,lower-cost IC-A4 handheld VHF air band transceiver in March 1998, I was anxious to checkit out. ICOM dominates the aviation handheld transceiver market, and deservedly so: theirhandhelds have always been the best on the market in my opinion. Up until the mid-1990s,ICOM's IC-A21 had serious head-to-head competition from Bendix/King's KX-99, as well aslower-end competition from Narco and Sporty's. But when ICOM introduced the IC-A22 andIC-A3 in 1995, they basically blew the rest of the competition away. Narco no longer evenoffers a VHF handheld, and Bendix/King never tried to field a successor to the KX-99 tocompete with the third-generation ICOMs.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/ownership/icom-ic-a4-vhf-air-band-transceiver