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.