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write your own review of the ICOM IC-706 - All flavors.
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N0YXE
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 20, 2009 06:43
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GREAT CLASSIC
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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This is my second 706. I should never have traded in the first one! The present rig is next to my Pro III and is used as a dedicated Ten Meter FM base and as a Two Meter SSB unit. It works great! This rig is a fantastic classic that does it all very well. It can function as a base or portable unit and will fit in and do just about anything you want to do. It belongs in a museum along with other masterpieces of design. The radio is a bargain considering how versatile and small it is. If it is a first rig, KEEP IT, and never get rid of it, even it you move up. You WILL find a place for it not only in your heart, but for your car, boat, trailer, airplane, motorcycle, wife, child, field day, DX expedition, doomsday survival kit, attic room, ect. Call John Thompson at Ham Radio Outlet in Denver and he'll take of you.
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K6VU
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 18, 2009 16:11
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Perfect Mobile!
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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This is my 3rd IC-706 series radio in the last 10 years, plus I own a new IC-7000. The Mk2G is the winner to go mobile with because the menus are simpler to navigate while driving. I plan on keeping both radios for a long time, as I don't think anyone makes better. The 7000 is like a mini IC-756Pro3, so that's why I keep it in the shack as a backup radio. The Mk2G is a hell of a radio for the money!
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DH4SC
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Rating: 3/5
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May 25, 2009 11:52
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Good but RX should be improved
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I own this radio for about 2 months and Iīm quite pleased with it. It is easy to handle, the menus are well done, no problem to do the setups. The little IC-706 has a good audio with the original mic and puts out a little more than 100W on HF.
But a problem can be the intermodulation. Stations with only 5/7 produce lots of QRM 10kHz up and down. Especially with the preamp switched on. Thatīs NOT OK for a modern TRX. I hope the MK2G was updated by Icom. Maybe you can redce this problem by adding a filter to the rig.
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MI3LVZ
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Rating: 5/5
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May 13, 2009 11:27
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First class
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I have a mk2 (non 70cm's). Superb for portable work with plenty of features to keep any grown child happy.
You wont be disapointed.
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KM5VI
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Rating: 5/5
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May 11, 2009 15:57
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One tough radio
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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OK, with over 400 reviews what can one possibly add about the 706? Perhaps longevity: purchased new with 10 years of continuous mobile service and over 350,000 miles of potholes serving now in its third vehicle, subjected to temperatures ranging from 20 F below 0 to +130 deg F, this is one tough little radio. Failures to date: two microphone plugs and one internal speaker. Unit is still in service and performs as well as when it was brand new.
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VK3NJP
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 8, 2009 06:54
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A legendary do-everything rig
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Purchased new in August 2008 from local Icom dealer in Melbourne, Australia. I also purchased an Icom DTMF mic for it for use with IRLP. I didn't need the extra bells of the IC-7000 as HF isn't my primary band of operation. I wanted a tough multi-band multi-mode rig that could withstand the life of camping and portable work. This is the rig! It's tough as nails. For HF work, I use it with an LDG AT-7000 ATU into an 80m dipole. Otherwise it gets a good workout on 2mSSB & 70cmSSB. I haven't used it on 6m yet. It's an excellent rig. Every man and his dog has got one - now I can see why. I've since bought the separation kit for it with intentions of operating mobile HF soon. It's a ripper! I'll be taking this to my grave!
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K4SFC
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 17, 2009 09:09
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MY FAVORITE RIG
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I've owned new 706's, all models. My favorite is the MKIIG natch, it's the newest. Comment about RX of harmonic freq broadcasts. More often it is the fault of your antenna being too broad banded. Not the fault of the rig's rxvr. You can easily eliminate most of that by using a remote ant coupler at the antenna feed point. Coupler is fed with coax. Antenna hooks directly to coupler. Mine is a SGC-231 over 13 years old.
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K4GLM
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Rating: 4/5
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Feb 17, 2009 08:06
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Reliable, user friendly,shakey receiver
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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A good radio, reliable and easy to use.
The receiver hears things that should not be where it is tuned; image responses from AM stations and SW broadcasters. I tracked down some with a spectrum analyzer, and found images from stations that were not close in frequency or geographic location overriding ham signals nearly as strong as the images. If you are near a big AM station this might not be your radio. I hear a one kW station ten miles away on forty meters.
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KG4ORX
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 14, 2009 21:54
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still kicking since feb 14.04
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I had mine since feb 14,2004 and brought it for 769.00 before they jack up the prices up more and planing on keep it !!!!
73
Jackie
Tullahoma,Tn
WWW.KG4ORX.COM
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K4MSG
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 14, 2009 20:00
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K0KS said it right, it's a "Workhorse" of
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I bought my 706MkIIG new from HRO in 2004. Since then I have used it on all bands and several modes, including HF CW DXing on 40 meters, daily CW traffic net on 80 meters and a handful of rare check-ins to a sideband traffic net on 75 meters; 50, 144 & 432 MHz using SSB & CW for tropo, sporadic E and aurora contacts; 50 & 144 MHz for digital meteor scatter using J6M and FSK441a, respectively; and 432 MHz using JT65 digital terrestrial transmission. Oh, yes, I occasionally like to listen to SWBC.
Do not be mislead by the above. There are a number of things that this rig doesn't do as well as other radios, and operating from a series of menus is something that can occasionally make CW DXing a bit more of challenge, but IMNSHO you'll be hard-pressed to find a radio that does so many things adequately in so small a package. The current (2/2009) new price is too high, IMO - I paid less that $750 for mine brand-new with a free FP remoting kit - so maybe that''s a valid delimiter when comparing with other radios now available.
But for me the bottom line is that THIS RADIO helped me get VUCC on 50 & 144 Mhz and now has me well on the way towards 40 meter DXCC (already have a CW DXCC, done with an IC-735 back in the '90s). I use a simple wire antenna on HF, a Moxon on 50, a 10-el. Yagi on 144, and an 8-el. Yagi on 432, and nothing is higher than 28 feet in the air. To be fair, I did use a 200w amp on 144 until recently and still use a 100w amp on 432.
I've never had a heat "problem" with this radio, although it can get pretty warm in, say, a VHF contest. There is a simple mod to add a small extra cooling fan on the back and I recommend this for high duty-cycle operation at full power output.
My choice of filters is the FL-232 350 Hz filter for CW and the FL-223 1.9 kHz filter for SSB (and I tried other combinations before deciding on this set).
Again, this radio has its shortcomings. The DSP NR does help sometimes but is far from perfect, the NB is marginally useful, the receive audio doesn't sound as nice on SWBC as a good ol' tube receiver (but neither does any other modern rig), and I never use the "spectrum display" (such as it is). Because of all the menus it can take a while to really know your way around the controls and if you don't use something for a long time you may have to go back to the manual to find it. And if you have fat fingers you may have an ergonomics issue.
The best way to view the 706 is as a complete HF/VHF ham station in one tiny box, with all the compromises that can entail. However, if you treat it right and learn to live with it the way it is you'll be a happy camper like me. In terms of overall capability it beats the crap out of anything I used decades ago, and I've always believed that operator experience can make up for a ton of radio shortcomings.
Yes, it is indeed a workhorse.... :-)
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