The Icom and Sporty’s portable radios are worthy for use as primary radios, but add up the labor and parts needed to install an external antenna system t, Garmin’s GTR 200B PMA.
The non-certified GTR 200B trickles down from Garmin’s higher-priced GTR 225 radio, which has a TSO, but the $1839 PMA’d version of the radio is fair game for installation in certified aircraft, a point Garmin doesn’t openly advertise mainly because the radio is intended for use in the STC’d G3X Touch integrated retrofit avionics suite. Still, we’ve heard from a handful of installers who put them in as standalone radios. There are a lot of good features as standard.