[ICOM] Icom IC-756ProIII or TS-850SAT???

Wed Oct 24 12:23:47 EDT 2007

(Counting pennies in my pocket to add to the discussion).

Some comments, point by point.

Having had a 756 and 756Pro3 for several years I cannot agree that 100 W on 
SSB are not reachable. My experience is totally opposite.

Sure, the 950 family produces 150 W while the 756s are only limited to 100W.

Indeed, the Pro3 gets warm or even hot if left on receiving for quite some 
time. But the moment a transmission starts, there starts a fan which brings 
the temp to normal very quickly. It might look quite strange but indeed, the 
Pro3 might be cooler during transmission than during receiving.
I am an avid contester, including RTTY. Running the Pro3 for several hours 
with TX most of the time only causes the fan to stay on for longer time and 
sometimes at higher speed. Still, the box itself turns to be cooler than 
during receiving.

The 950 family is great for SSB with its linear natural sound. In the 
meantime in my experience the receiving of CW is not as good. During a 
contest, when you "run" for quite some time, there comes a moment when all 
strong stations are worked long ago and only another layer of "wet noodle" 
guys comes up to call you. Sometimes 2-3 stations like this call you at the 
same time at the S3-5 level. The 950 turns these weak sigs into an unredable 
mixture where you cannot distinguish any particular signal, let alone read 
them. The Pro3 is much better in such circumstances. Each of weak callers 
sound separately and their sigs are easily redable. When I first tried the 
Pro3 in the IARU contest, I was simply amazed how easily it handles weak EU 
stations on CW. I was truly shocked by that.
BTW if you want a Pro3 to sound according to taste, you have to spend some 
time adjusting it and, most probably, you will get the what you want.

I am really not sure what's wrong in the Pro3 tuner. It is silent and quick 
and, I believe, it tunes antennas even quite off the guaranteed range.

There is no intention to say, the Pro3 is the best of all rigs ever. I for 
one prefer IC-775DSP over the Pro3 for weak sigs receiption. But in general 
it really is a very serious performer. Apart of other features, the RTTY 
built-in coder-decoder makes it simply unique...

And back to the original question, TS-850 vs. Pro3. The 850 is a great 
performer with a good proven contesting history. But... A friend of mine who 
used to run a TS-850 for years is begging for something new. The reason for 
that is simple, he is tired to repare it time by time. Any TS-850 in the 
year 2007 is phisically OLD...

Just another opinion.

73,

Vladimir VE3IAE

---

> Having used both a TS950SDX (albeit briefly) and a
> 756PROII (a little more, but still brief) I can also
> say that the 950SDX does 150 watts plus, whereas the
> Icom has trouble reaching 100 watts on voice peaks.
> On SSB it seems to run more like 75 watts or so.  It
> also gets pretty hot, even when it is just sitting
> there receiving. Not sure what it would be like after
> a contest.
>
> The Kenwood also has better receive audio, but then
> Kenwood is known for that, and Icom really isn't and
> the tuner was just mentioned.  The Kenwood internal
> tuner blows away the Icom internal tuner, no
> comparison there.  The TS950SDX has the best tuner I
> have ever seen. I wanted to see if the one I had was
> opened up for 60 meters, so I went to 5.403.5USB and
> hit the tune button. Took a second, and then it loaded
> up the antenna fine.  I thought that 60m sounded quiet
> that evening staticwise, and then I discovered that I
> had forgot to change the antenna switch and it just
> loaded up my 20-6m miniquad on 60m!  The Icom internal
> tuners sometimes have trouble loading up the same
> antenna on 20 CW.
>
> 73s John AA5JG
> --- Robert Chudek <k0rc at pclink.com> wrote:
>
>> Brian,
>>
>> I haven't used a '850, but I have owned several
>> TS-950SDX transceivers. I
>> also have the Pro III which I have been using for
>> the past year. I still
>> have the '950 but haven't done a A / B comparison in
>> real-time. My "feeling"
>> is the Icom has the edge in selectivity, but it's
>> not going to be a
>> hands-down winner in all areas of comparison. I
>> depends upon your goals and
>> operating preferences. If you're a rag chewer, get
>> the Icom... end of
>> discussion. But if you're a contester, there's some
>> trade offs...
>>
>> There are features lacking on the Pro III that I
>> miss (I am a contester)...
>> the first is a true sub receiver. The Kenwood has
>> VFO A, VFO B, and Sub VFO
>> whereas the Icom is VFO Main and Sub.
>>
>> The integrated Icom bandscope is a very nice
>> feature, but I have always had
>> the Kenwood SM-230 bandscope with my transceivers.
>> Color is nice, the SM-230
>> is a true CRT and not in color. The Icom is not very
>> heavy compared to the
>> Kenwood. But the '950 has a built-in 120 VAC power
>> supply which brings it up
>> to 50+ pounds, a real paperweight!
>>
>> I don't like all the fan noise of the Icom compared
>> to the Kenwood. The '950
>> fan only came on when I was running a serious RTTY
>> contest. It seems like
>> the Icom fan is running 75% of the time and it is
>> annoying. I swapped out
>> the Icom PS-125 because it was a second device with
>> a fan making noise. I
>> use a "fanless" Astron power supply instead.
>>
>> The one feature I really find lacking on the Icom is
>> stereo receive. You get
>> both channels fed to you in mono, with a fader
>> (balance) control to set the
>> percentage of mix. The Kenwood has true stereo where
>> you can place audio
>> channels in the left and right headphones. This is
>> very useful when chasing
>> DX who is operating split, whether it be CW, SSB, or
>> RTTY. Even after a year
>> of using the Pro III, I don't like the mono audio
>> aspect of the radio.
>>
>> There are a few important CAT commands missing in
>> the Icom. This creates
>> restrictions on the flexibility of controlling the
>> radio. If you press the
>> Split button, the radio does not tell the software
>> you changed to split
>> frequency operation. If you change frequency on the
>> Sub VFO, it doesn't
>> report the changes. These omissions force you to
>> operate the radio from your
>> computer instead of the front panel of the
>> transceiver, i.e., if you press a
>> button on the transceiver, a command may or may not
>> be sent to the computer
>> to report a change in status. Likewise, you cannot
>> clear the RIT/XIT from
>> the computer, you have to do it on the radio.
>> Because there are commands
>> missing, you need to learn what you can and can't do
>> by pushing buttons on
>> the transceiver.
>>
>> On the plus side, the Pro III has a special RTTY
>> filter that pulls weak
>> signals out of the noise like I have never seen
>> (heard) before. It's
>> incredible. The other digital capabilities have
>> already been discussed so I
>> won't spend time on them. The built-in RTTY decoder
>> on the Icom is novel,
>> but almost useless - you can receive fine, and you
>> can transmit using stored
>> messages, but there is no keyboard interface that
>> allows you to carry on a
>> keyboard to keyboard QSO. For example, you can call
>> CQ, and send a canned
>> signal report, name, qth, etc... but you can't send
>> the other fellows
>> callsign. You would have to program a different
>> callsign each time you made
>> a QSO. It's not impossible, but it's very
>> impractical. I still give Icom
>> kudos for including RTTY decoding in the design. I
>> think it has helped bring
>> more digital operators to the mode.
>>
>> The antenna tuner works fine, but my antennas are
>> pretty close to 50 ohms so
>> I don't know how well it would tune a piece of wire
>> laying on the driveway.
>> The Icom is ready for mobile operation (12 VDC), the
>> Kenwood is not. The 100
>> Watts of output is adequate, although many other
>> rigs are boasting twice
>> this amount of power.
>>
>> There's virtually not filters you need to purchase
>> for the Icom. I spent a
>> lot of money "filtering up" my Kenwoods. An improved
>> roofing filter kit was
>> recently released for the Pro III by International
>> Radio:
>> http://www.inrad.net/product.php?productid=225  I
>> haven't read any feedback
>> to know what kind of performance increase this
>> provides but the company
>> warns prospective buyers that installing this
>> upgrade is not for the faint
>> of heart. You are dealing with Surface Mount
>> Technology components in the
>> transceiver.
>>
>> Someone already mentioned the Icom provides 6 meter
>> capability. That's a
>> great feature and, like the RTTY decoder, should
>> help populate that band
>> with more signals. I ran the Pro III on 6 meters
>> using a 40 meter dipole and
>> the internal antenna tuner. I made contacts with
>> that configuration,
>> although now I have a 5 element 6 meter yagi. A
>> proper antenna is important
>> for chasing weak signals. I am able to A / B the two
>> antennas now and there
>> are weak signals I cannot hear when using the 40
>> meter antenna.
>>
>> That's about all I can think of right now...
>>
>> 73 de Bob - KØRC in MN
>>
>> http://k0rc.spaces.live.com
>> http://czudek.spaces.live.com
>> http://chudek.aberon.net
>> http://www.pclink.com/~k0rc
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: John Geiger
>> To: ICOM Reflector
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 10:20 PM
>> Subject: RE: [ICOM] Icom IC-756ProIII or
>> TS-850SAT???
>>
>>
>> And don't forget the most, most, important
>> difference:
>>  The PRO3 has 6 meters!
>>
>> 73s John AA5JG
>>
>> --- Sandy Taylor <ve4xt at mts.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Hi Brian,
>> > I have the P3 and 850 side by side. I ran my 850
>> > again as a main radio while
>> > awaiting the insurance claim on the Pro to go
>> > through and get my P3.
>> >
>> > The 850 is an excellent, excellent radio, but it
>> is
>> > still outshone by the
>> > P3. The quietness of the P3, the flexibility of
>> the
>> > DSP-based filters, the
>> > spectrum scope, the memory keyer, the voice keyer
>> > with memory, the dynamic
>> > range of the receiver and the available tailoring
>> of
>> > TX audio...
>> >
>> > I was surprised when I went to pick up my P3 at
>> how
>> > much heavier it was
>> > compared with the PRO. The added engineering is
>> > quite evident.
>> >
>> > 73, Kelly
>> > Ve4xt
>> >
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: icom-bounces at mailman.qth.net
>> > [mailto:icom-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On
>> > Behalf Of Brian Mileshosky
>> > Sent: October-23-07 9:37 PM
>> > To: 'ICOM Reflector'
>>
> === message truncated ===
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
> ----
> Your Moderator: Dick Flanagan K7VC: icom-owner at mailman.qth.net
> Icom Users Net: Sundays, 1700Z, 14.316 MHz
> Icom FAQ: http://www.qsl.net/icom/ 