[ICOM] Icom kind of disappointing at Hamcomm

[Adam Farson]

Hi John,

You can view the preliminary IC-7000 brochure here:

http://www.qsl.net/ab4oj/download/ic7000pre_b.pdf


We attended the Dayton IC-7000 unveiling. This little radio looks like a
potentially worthy replacement for the IC-706 - although I must say I am
disappointed that the final (DSP) IF is 16 rather than 36 kHz. (Presumably
Icom is using a slower DSP chipset to conserve cost and power consumption.)
This shows up in poorer IF filter shape factors (SSB is 1.625 rather than
1.5.) 

The display looks great; the spectrum scope uses the main receiver in a
rapid sampling mode, so as not to disrupt received signals too badly. The
scope display is minute - only about 8 mm high. It resembles a histogram
rather than a spectrogram.

The TVRO capability is somewhat bizarre - particularly for us in Canada,
where cable penetration is nearly 100% and OTA TV is almost non-existent. In
Japan, though, most TV delivery is still OTA. For my part, Icom could just
as well lose the TVRO feature in favour of a faster DSP, ADC and DAC. 

Cheers for now, 73,
Adam VA7OJ/AB4OJ


-----Original Message-----
From: icom-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:icom-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On
Behalf Of John Geiger
Sent: 05 June 2005 20:44
To: icom at mailman.qth.net
Cc: dross at sirinet.net
Subject: [ICOM] Icom kind of disappointing at Hamcomm

Just got back from Hamcomm where I was hoping to see the IC7000 prototype.
It wasn't there-the rep said it was already in Japan.  They also didn't have
any literature concerning it, or if they did, it was gone by the time I got
there on Friday afternoon. 
According to the rep there, it is supposed to hit the market in December
2005, and it is a completely different radio from the 706MKIIG.

Now the $64,000 which I asked Icom "Will it have a better receiver than the
706MKIIG?"  The rep mumbled something about it having 2 32bit DSP chips, and
that was about it.  I didn't ask about the DSP, I asked about the receiver.
My guess is that either he didn't know (more likely), or it doesn't, but he
didn't want to say that.

Anyway, the Icom booth had absolutely nothing about this rig, and you would
never know it was in the pre-release stage by what I saw there.  Glad to
know that Texas scores way below the Dayton treatment.

Did get to see and play a little with an Icom 7800 there.  Very impressive.
What contest was going on this weekend?  In the 20 CW band the 7800 was
picking up some contest with lots of people sending their state.

73s John NE0P
 

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