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Icom IC-705
5 February 2020 | by Ray Novak, N9JA came for a visit with a great new QRP Radio that’s soon to be released.
7 Responses to “Icom IC-705”
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WANT!
I’m sure I will be strongly pounced upon, castigated, yelled at, maybe even screamed at…but here goes. What the World does NOT need is another QRP radio. I’m sure it’s all mode, totally magic, computer controllable, even takes itself for a walk in the evening. But good grief….Really? Every manufacturer has got one. The Chinese probably have 10 different models. Everyone is competing with Elecraft…to no avail. Yes. I watched the video. No, I’ve already got two QRP transceivers, and this one is definitely NOT in my future.
Well Dave I tend to disagree with you. This little box has a bunch of neat things it can do that the other half dozen Chineze gizmos haven’t come up with. I will wait until the bloom is off the rose and I expect I’ll have one as a demo/toy. Ray put on the battery pack from his hand held to run it – SLICK. The menu choices/options are like a wishlist of things the rig needs to do. I will lean to go with Ed, after the second batch ships, someone will have second thoughts and I will offer them a way to get some of their bucks back.
73, Larry WB8LBZ
El Paso, TX
Show me a Chinese rig that can do 2m/70cm SSB. Us satellite guys are craving this radio, it would be even better with an internal diplexer…
Let me start off by saying that I have contacted Ray from Icom on a few occasions and he has gotten back to me with a very fast reply. He has been super with the support that I have asked him for I am very impressed with his attention to detail regarding my emails.
I watched the review and was very impressed with the new Icom IC-705 but I did not think it was a fair comparison between the IC 705 and the older Icom rig IC-703. This is a much older rig that truly has been around for a long time and in its time was state of the art from Icom. I did not agree with Ray regarding the lack of an antenna tuner in the new 705…..he stated that with a mag loop no tuner is needed. This is very true but Mag loops are not cheap and lots of portable ops I have read about are using Endfed type antennas. I very much agree with Ray regarding the menu-driven rigs. This was a royal pain and in the past, I too had a menu-driven rig (Yaesu) and it drove me crazy! Most modern QRP/portable rigs these days have moved beyond this issue.
It’s very cool that it has basically the same menu set up at the 7300 and 7610 very wise in that the learning curve if you stick with Icom is next to nil if you have had a recent Icom rig. It’s very nice to see that if you need to change out the battery it is a very simple procedure not like the KX3 that I have where the rig has to be opened up. This is a very promising rig for a QRP all mode operator. Thanks for the video guys it was great and very nice to see the new Icom 705.
73,
Mike
VE9KK
Agreed on the need for the internal diplexer. The simplified access instead of menu-driven approach helps to reduce the learning curve. The size and weight means I can throw this in luggage or carry-on.
I’ll wait a bit for version 1.1 or 2.0
73,
David
AF6VP
Nice rig, but no antenna tuner? Even the Xiegu units come with ATUs. come on Icom, get in the game for the rest of us.