You are right about Wildlife Materials Vargy, they are the standard by which everythingelse is judged. I used to guide a lot of bear hunters from the eastern US and have used about everything out there. I have a FLS 1000 but am limited to 217 freq. It is also a little harder to tune than the Wildlife TRX 2000 and it doesn't have an attenuator. The Icom RC-10 is way handier--it fits in the front breast pocket on my carhartts. When I need to course just pull off the rubber ducky antenna and pop on the yagi. Another nice feature is that you can set it to scan just certain freq. No more recharging either--it uses 4 double AA batteries and I only change them about once a month.
When I'm bear huntin in Wisconsin during training season I have about 5 old collars that I rig up on my bear baits. I set the Icom to scan just those collars. I freshen up those baits about 4 am then go back and eat breakfast at the cabin and just keep checking those collars till I get a hit. The collars are all within about 3 miles of the cabin.
Moyotehunter--first I heard of the amplifiyer--how's that work and where do you get one? I picked up an RC-10 off of e-bay not long ago for less than $200.
