[ICOM] Icom IC-756ProIII or TS-950SDX (was: TS-850SAT???)
Robert Chudek
k0rc at pclink.com
Wed Oct 24 18:23:03 EDT 2007
I'm sorry my comparison did not address the original TS-850 vs Pro III
question.
That said, there has been very good "first hand" operator feedback comparing
the flagship Kenwood with the Pro III. The last '950 transceivers
manufactured use 20-year old technology. My only reservation with the radio
is availability of parts and qualified service people to fix them when
something goes bad. My Kenwood's have made trips to the service bench during
the years I owned them. The failures always seemed to be "storm damage",
where lightning took out the front end or interfaces into the radio. I don't
recall a service job ever being related to component aging failure. But as
time marches on, that probability increases.
Regarding the Icom stereo receive, yes, I went to Radio City in Moundsview,
MN and Dan Fish and I looked through the service manual and discovered the
"advanced technology" being used. I was hoping to find audio on the balance
pot so I could bring it out the back and manage a left and right channel
externally. Well, as has been pointed out, the balance is microprocessor
controlled and occurs at the IF level. That's a nifty trick, but would
require a second (real) sub receiver chain. I'll just have to wait for the
Pro IV to get my true stereo audio I guess! (Hey, isn't that how it
works?... you (and others) make enough noise about it and eventually the
issue is addressed/fixed?)
The fan noise I mentioned is certainly subjective with each individual. The
link to the noisy work environment was certainly amusing, and any IT worker
that spends time in a raised floor server room will be immune to the fan
noise. Right now my station is setup in a spare bedroom. There was no fan
noise until I started using the Icom. So I should have qualified my
statement in a context along those lines.
Regarding the weaker signal CW reception on the Kenwood, it's been too long
since I used that radio in a contest to recall this characteristic. My qth
is in the countryside and I enjoy a very low ambient noise level. I'm also
physically distant (40 miles) from all the contest stations and high powered
AM stations in the Twin Cities so I have less RF pollution to deal with.
That may or may not be an issue regarding pulling out weaker stations. But I
will say when I lived in Minneapolis using the '950, there were DX stations
my DX buddies would be working that I couldn't hear. That was one of the
reasons I looked for property in this area. Guess what? When I got setup out
here, I could hear those stations too. Same radio and same antennas. To be a
fair comparison I should really set them up side by side to do an A / B
evaluation. Maybe this winter.
Someone mentioned the Pro III preamp... actually it is a 3-step amp; Preamp
off, 1, and 2. So the combinations for setting are attenuator and preamp are
nearly exhaustive. When a HF band is first opening, Preamp 1 does a good job
for me.
Another subtlety regarding the '950 and Pro III, I like the digital bar
meters on the Kenwood better. You can use the peak hold feature so there's
no guessing about readings on SSB. Also, you can monitor different
parameters simultaneously. Apparently there was enough backlash of "old
farts" that didn't want to give up their analog meters that the
manufacturers have retreated with this technology on HF rigs. My opinion is
nostalgia belongs on old radios. I'm glad the "green tuning eye" was
abandoned over a half century ago (anyone remember those?).
For a comparison it's tough to beat the features of the Pro III in the
(street) price range of $2,500. I think the TenTec Omni VII is a contender.
I haven't looked at the Yaesu products in a while, maybe there's a current
product that is comparable. For reference, the TS-950SDX and SM-230 station
monitor all filtered up (250 Hz, 270 Hz, 500 Hz, 1800 Hz main RX and 500 Hz
sub RX) was over $5,000 in 1990 dollars. So even with the fan noise, mono
audio, and lack of some CI-V commands the Pro III is tough to berate!
Now you have my 4 cents worth of opinions!
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: Vladimir Sidorov
To: ICOM Reflector
Sent: Wednesday, October 24, 2007 11:23 AM
Subject: Re: [ICOM] Icom IC-756ProIII or TS-850SAT???
(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 ===
>
>
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----
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