Update on the IC-7600
I have been watching the latest with the new Icom IC-7600. The FCC approved the radio on February 9th. Now the pricing is out. Universal Radio shows the price to be $3999.95 and is available for ordering, only it won't be shipping until mid-April from what is listed on the page.
That seems to be a reasonable bridge between the latest Pro series at $2600 and the IC-7700 at $6700. (a single receiver design based on the behemoth IC-7800 at $11,000).
I am really curious to see how this radio works. I have never bought a radio right away after it has come out and I am glad I did. The TS-2000 I have had a LOT of bugs when it was first delivered to the market. I didn't get mine until a couple years later and at that time the bugs had been pretty well worked through. I am happy to say I have never had any problem with my radio, though I have done one or two software updates (a major re-programming of the rig).
I think prime examples of not buying a radio when it first comes out are both of Yaesu's upper end radios - the FT-2000 and FTdx-9000 series. The FTdx-9000MP version is an ultra-high end radio with a current price of $11,000. It has gone through 7 hardware revisions (hardware means component replacement) and who knows how many software (programming) updates and it still isn't quite right. The FT-2000 is in the same boat, only there are so many of them out Yaesu can't afford to spend their time and money fixing them. I don't think Icom will ever fall in to that boat, lets hope not anyway, but these are just a couple of examples of "wait and see if it works."
I will be very interested to sit down with the IC-7600 and get a hear/feel for it. A radio that looks good doesn't mean it will work satisfactorily.
posted by Steve at
7:40 PM
1 Comments:
Steve, just like you, I am closely looking at this new radio. I still have my TS-2000 and plan to keep it, but ever since I became active with PSK31, I have noticed that its HF performance is not the greatest. It seems that I cannot make the passband narrow enough on SSB. I'll be working another PSK31 station and then a louder station will come along and the AGC will kick in dropping the station I'm trying to talk down into the noise. I suspect that the IC-7600 with its switchable (and narrow) roofing filters and a IF-DSP that's more powerful, will help work the weaker stations that are close to loud stations. It's supposedly going to appear at Dayton so I'm going to closely look at it. The price is a little steep, but I could probably swing that somehow. 73, Ned Raybould, N8OIF
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