[Icom] Icom 740 comments

Sun, 25 Apr 2004 14:57:00 +0100

Hi John,
I've been posting some comments on this radio in the list several times
before but can't resist to come up again.

The IC-740 features one of the best receivers Icom ever made. It is very
quiet and extremely sensitive. Let me emphasize it, it's just extremely
sensitive. I've never heard JA's on 80 m louder than on the IC-740. The S/N
ratio is also outstanding. On the 10 m you can hear just silence, meaning,
silence w/o even a sign of air noise and suddently there comes a DX station
with 59+++. It's just amazing.
Once I made an A/B comparison of IC-740 and IC-756 listening to the same
station on the same antenna. I might copy a station coming at 59+20 w/o any
background noise at the 740. In order to get the same result on the 756 I
had to turn on the both preamps and besides the signal I had an S7
background noise.

Obviously there are negative things at the IC-740, like the ATU absence, the
impossibility to control the radio from a computer, quite a strange PBT, the
annoying fan which starts buzzling the moment you push PTT, but it's another
story. The radio worth it's today's price for sure.

If you decide to buy one, try to get it with an optional key installed (yes,
the CW key is an option there!), as well as with an optional filter.

GL and 73,
"Walt", EU1SA

> Lately I have seen some good deals on Icom 740, and am
> thinking of getting one of these radios.  Most of the
> comments I see on eham.net mention how quiet the
> receiver is, and how well the NB works.  It seems like
> most of the newer equipment I have had gets pretty
> noisy in receive, and on current Icoms I don't think
> the NB switch is connected to anything.
>
> Can anyone verify these good points to the 740?
> Anything bad I should know about, other than the lack
> of general coverge receive, which I dont consider a
> bad thing.  It doesn't seem that this model had the
> trimmer caps problems of later models.
>
> Having owned a 720 and 730 in the past, I missed the
> green LED readout and the solid feel of the icom
> switches.  A rig with a band and model switch?  What
> will they think of next?
>
> 73s John NE0P
>
>
>
>
>
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