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Since this is a special birthday year I thought I would buy myself something nice ham radio related. Now I am retired and on a fixed income so there is no Elecraft K4 in the picture for me. I have a great Icom 7610 and I very much enjoy CW contesting. I have been toying with the idea of operating single operator 2 vfo or SO2V as it is called. The Icom 7610 allows me to operate its VFO A and B on the same band or on separate bands. This is very handy for contesting and I have tried it and became frustrated as you only have one VFO knob on the 7610 and if you forget to select VFO B and spin the dial you lose your VFO A spot. The idea with SO2V is that VFO A is your run VFO and VFO B is your search and pounce VFO. What I needed was a separate VFO physical knob that operated VFO B. 

Icom has the RC-28 and it always seemed a bit pricey to me but heck it's my big 65th so I took the plunge and purchased it. All Canadian dealers had the RC-28 on back order and the U.S. dealer had the Canadian dollar (and a few other reasons) and the shipping cost was just too much to spend. I did read on some of the IO Groups I follow of operators purchasing them on eBay from sellers in Japan. I looked into it and they were in stock also with shipping, and tax and the cost of the RC-28 it was basically the same cost as the Canadian dealers who were out of stock.
I ordered it and in less than a week it was at my door, brand new in a sealed Icom box. Happy Birthday to me! In my next post, I will be revealing my adventure connecting it to the Icom 7610!
 

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