Having owned all three, I voted for the IC-7000.
It has all the filtering included and TCXO, which is extra on the others except the 897D.
7000, 857, and 480 all can be remote mounted.
In MY opinion the 897 is to big for mobile.
I like all in one, the 480 does HF-6 only :sad:
The 480HX does 200 watts, just make sure you have an alternator that can handle it and antennas rated for 200 watt or more.
The 857 is a decent radio and they offer the
ATAS 120A which if a person REALLY wanted to, they could buy a duplexer and use that antenna from 40 meter to 70 centimeter. Antennas are ALWAYS a compromise when mobile, more so with the ATAS on 2 meter and 70 centimeter. So if you are not close to your repeater, it gets to be a pain in the ass. I had three of the
ATAS 120A's. I bought one and the other two were warranty replacements. If the Farmer's Almanac would even predict rain the antenna would stop working for me! I finally let my dog use the antenna as a play toy! Using that antenna you CAN NOT TX below 40 meter. Which, if you ask me, anything below 40 in a car is useless anyhow.
The Icom 7000 I had worked great mobile, I used a High Sierra Motorized antenna, went to their website the other day and you can no longer buy them
I also had to have a second antenna for 2 meter 70 centimeter, I picked a Comet SBB-7. Still have the antenna and it works great. I finally switched to a
Little Tarheel II Motorized Antenna for HF-6 because it was a little slimmer and looked better in my opinion. I used a N2VZ Turbo Tuner so I could just hit the tune button on the radio and it would adjust the HF antenna to the best SWR without any other input from me, IMPORTANT WHILE DRIVING! I believe because of the economy though, N2VZ is having some problems "completing an order", not sure though.
The main reason I got rid of the 7000 was because as a Jeep owner, I felt ok with the hard top on, but when the soft top is on, theft is to easy.
One last thing to consider, get the size specs on the remote head of each unit, cut a piece of cardboard that size and sit in your vehicle a decide where you are going to mount it. I had my 7000 on the top of the dash so it was easy to see, for thieves too! The problem was when the sun beats down on it while it is parked, turned the digital screen black until the A/C cooled the vehicle off. I do not know if that could hurt it, but deep down I felt that it would so I moved it.
On a side not, there is a company out there, lido mounts, I myself had bad luck with these people, they sold me a mount that was missing parts in the box, I called them once and they promised to call me back to resolve the issue, they NEVER DID so I called them and they must have caller I.D. because they would not answer the phone. I called from another number with a different area code, they answered and found out who I was and hung up. FUCK THEM is how I feel about them.
I hope all that helped.
