I have used the Trig TY91 comm in a couple of installations where size and weight are critical. The comm head is so small and shallow it can be put almost anywhere. Even with its small size, switch and knob placement allow for easy operation even if wearing gloves. Air-to-ground tests show that the transmitted signal is as good or better than larger units.

I have installed and used many com radios. From the likes of Garmin, Becker, Narco, MGL, Trig, Icom, Bendix King, and Val. I think this TY91 from Trig is the hands-down winner for a 2-1/4 diameter panel mount radio. I always liked Becker for their quality on 2-1/4 transceivers but this little Trig is more modern and easy to use and has taken over my preference. The audio is superb and the transceiver is crystal clear. With the listed nominal 6 watts of transmit power this unit transmits loud and clear for long distances. With a well installed antenna I have phenominal transmit distance. In noisy cockpits the Trig handles background noise well. There are a handful of very useful features in this Trig that cannot be found together in one package on many of the other makes. A list of these include: Flawless stanby frequency monitoring (dual watch) Large easy to read display Ability to inhibit 8.33Khz frequency step entirely from setup mode. Very nice for North America based aircraft. Ability to easily swap between 25Khz and 50Khz tuner stepping with a single button tap. I use this on every flight as it speeds up frequency inputs. Rotary knob frequency tuning in standard intuitive fashion. No select/click/enter nonsense (sorry some of the competition). The tuning knobs also speed up and slow down frequency change rate by the speed of rotation. Very nice. The control head can be interfaced to portable or panel mount GPS via thenSL40 protocol allowing standby frequency tuning from the GPS when the pilot taps on the GPS displayed frequencies. I use this all the time with a Garmin aera 660 portable GPS. Becker cant do that. Some other competiton can but without other features. A second control head can be installed in the second seat of a tandem aircraft. The shallow depth of the control head allows flexible mounting, including those aircraft with a header fuel tank immediately behind the panel. A couple of additional comments: The built in intercom, while great, is very basic. While VOX it is mono and the audio inputs arent really designed for music. My basic advice for any of these types of radios (except for the Garmin GTR 200 stack mount radio) is to always have a seperate dedicated intercom or audio panel. Not necessary but an overall better experience. The volume knob is generally set at 80 percent or better in my noisy 200 hp bushplane. Still some volume is left and I have never been wanting but seems like a high setting. It would be nice if the tuning defaulted to 50Khz spacing on start up rather than 25Khz but thats just me being lazy and really no big deal. Any of these nits mentioned have zero effect on on my good impressions of the radio. I could go on about how this radio has suitably impressed. Last month I almost bought a new competative offering for my RV3 to replace an ancient Becker. I have been typically an early adopter of newer and alledged better stuff but in this case I just couldnt bring myself to buy anything else but another TY91. It does everything well. It is simple to operate, robust and reliable, feature-packed and has become a friendly and endearing device that is a pleasure to use. And it is cheap for what it does. It has never left me wanting. It is good stuff.

Great radio.. easy install without additional harness.. just solder 20ga wires to pins supplied and insert into connector

So far 4 stars and I will get to that (more concerning the harness than the radio). I literally just installed this radio yesterday and havent had a chance to fly with it, but on the ground the audio is crystal clear and the intercom works perfectly (read harness below). Easy to adjust frequencys and everything works very well. (set up as Mono, not stereo - not sure if that is the radio of the harness) Harness - well I loved the fact that it was done and I didnt have to build a complete harness. Everything installed perfectly radio worked amazingly clear except I didnt have intercom or any talkback. After re-reading the install manual Pin 17 needs to be grounded to use the intercom (this also provides talkback). So unless you have an audio panel or are keeping an existing intercom you will need to take apart the 25 pin connector and make a pin for #17 and wire it to ground. This is the only wire I needed that was not pre-done/labeled. If you need a speaker or Aux in you will need to make those as well or request a custom wiring harness.

Comm side of the TY91 is great. Pilot loves the clarity. Only caveat is the intercom has an issue. When installing it for a permanent intercom, the system does not work on our aircraft. We contacted Trig and the issue still persisted. This is why we gave it a 3 out 5 score.

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TRIG TY91 COM RADIO SYSTEM TSO