I finally bought one a couple of weeks ago. I got it off ebay for less that $10, though S/H brought it up to nearly $20. I also had to pick up three extra pieces of hardware. First, I got the programming cable and software, also from Ebay. Secondly, I got an alkaline (AA) battery pack and a rubber duck antenna from American Communication Systems.

The software is easy enough to use. However, it is very odd that the programming cable was not compatible with either of my two laptops. One is a P1 166mhz, the other a P4 1.7Ghz. However, it worked fine with my desktop. Also, if you are running Windows 2000 or XP, you must make an MSDOS boot disk to run this software unless you are a real guru and know about dual booting different partitions. For the majority of folks out there, that is not an option. Sorry Mac users, I’m not aware of any options for you.

I haven’t posted here in a while.  I just found some useful information on a radio that I am researching. 

Ebay has tons of these radios for dirt cheap.  According to several websites, they are sturdy and very reliable, but they are only programmable via PC.  Details about how to do this are scant.

The programming software is Icom CS-F3 software.  It is for MSDOS and Windows in DOS mode only.  If you take your time, you can find this software on Google for free rather than spending $35-40 for it.  It took me around an hour to find it.  I’m not going to say anymore than that Russians can be friendly.