Many thanks to Dave Zantow (N9EWO) who notes that Universal Radio is accepting orders for the Icom IC-7300 at a price of $1499.95 US and expects to ship units by the latter part of this month (March 2016).
Several of you have asked if I anticipate reviewing the IC-7300–Icom doesn’t issue many loaners for review, but I will check with them nonetheless.
You know, if anyone ever makes a reasonably priced HF Xceiver (Baofeng are you listening?) Say in the $250 to $300 range, it will be a big punch in the gut for the Big Three. They have turned Ham Radio into a rich mans hobby because the poor man cannot afford their Xceiver’s. I am not a fan of the Baofeng Xceivers because they have enabled the CB crowd to swamp the repeaters. I had one on Face Book the other day tell me: “I am a repeater kerchunker and proud of it”. I explained to him that kerchunking a repeater is illegal and that he is breaking the law. He said: “I dont care because the repeater is always identifying while I am talking.” What a perfectly STUPID comment to make !!! I asked for his call sign and told him I would personally report him to the FCC. You may not like my response to him, but ham radio is self policing. We don’t want it to turn into another CB radio fiasco.
Baofeng owns Tokyo High Power, and has an HF rig in development for a while now (as I understand it).
The hobby isn’t really a ‘Rich Man’s Game’ in my book, because you can get into it so cheaply. My club in Texas just put on Hamfest and we had on our club table a Kenwood TS-520 HF radio on the table that included a turner +3 microphone and AC & DC power cords for $125 – it had been gone over by a club member and was a known-good, tested radio. Add 75 of coax and 60-70 feet of wire and you are on the air for under $200.
Want to go new, want all the bells and whistles? Fine, get an IC-7200 ($800), or a Yaesu FT-450 ($650), coax and a dipole and you’re good to go.
Can’t put up a dipole? Fine, get a zero-five 43′ vertical ($200-300) or a Hy-Gain 6BTV trap vertical for about $250 and you are good for years.
Want VHF/UHF? Chinese dual-band radios cost the same as a name-brand antenna system and work great. Heck, an FT-2900 2m only radio is $119 @ HRO, add a tram 1/4 wave mag mount for $20 and with tax you are under $160 all-in for a mobile.
This is an affordable hobby – it’s the hams that are never satisfied with what they have that make it expensive.
Getting on HF for less than $500 is not hard,
Aesthetically superb looking radio, hope all future users enjoy it! Dashboard is uncluttered and I like the large VFO knob.
Can you use external SDR software with it like the Elad FDM-DUO allows?
No – this employs technology used in SDRs, but is not an SDR radio like a flex, anon, or other ‘true’ SDR.
You can control this with Icom’s RS-BA1 software and HRD, both of which support clicking in the panadapter and picking a freq.
Yes .. You can configure the USB port to output the signal then use HDSDR free software to display it I have seen a demo video. Bonito Software is also working on including the ability to do that in the next revision of their software for the IC7300.
Fantastic Unit!
Huh, looks like a repackaged IC-7000. And that rig has its perks and jerks to it. Hopefully, this will have better RX sensitivity specs with the Preamp OFF. Today, many rigs have their specs with the Preamp ON? Come on… My old IC-745 still kicks butt in RX sensitivity over anything that I’ve tried new from the the modestly priced big three.
I’ve ordered one and am really looking forward to it…
The units have been shipping in several markets, so YouTube is littered with videos of the radio in action – QRZnow.com has a story on the price announcement that includes a short video detailing the use of the panadapter and the touch screen which looks interesting.
Very cool, Ken! Thanks! Please share your thoughts/review once you receive yours.
I’m eager to compare its general coverage RX with some of my SDRs.
-Thomas