|
New to Ham Radio?
My Profile
Community
Articles
Forums
News
Reviews
Friends Remembered
Strays
Survey Question
Operating
Contesting
DX Cluster Spots
Propagation
Resources
Calendar
Classifieds
Ham Exams
Ham Links
List Archives
News Articles
Product Reviews
QSL Managers
Site Info
eHam Help (FAQ)
Support the site
The eHam Team
Advertising Info
Vision Statement
About eHam.net
|
| Reviews Summary for ICOM IC-7600 |
|
Reviews: 78
|
Average rating: 4.7/5
|
MSRP: $3,950
|
|
Description: The ICOM IC-7600 has been unveiled at the Tokyo hamfair August 2008. DSP based HF/50 MHz 100W transceiver keeps the best of IC-756PROIII with the look and convenience of IC-7XXX seiries rigs.
|
|
Product is in production.
|
|
More info: http://
|
|
Email Subscription
You are not subscribed to this review.
Subscribe!
My Subscriptions
Subscriptions Help
|
You can
write your own review of the ICOM IC-7600.
|
K0JM
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Jan 29, 2012 11:56
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
great radio
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
|
menu driven..if u dont know what that means..u'll get a 170 page manual with the 7600...to tell u...like eating in a restaurant...menu...find what u want and started menuing...but a few tips..if u want cw for tune up.....the default on purchase is electronic keying...u have to go to the menu and get to strainght keying...and the little knobs for mike and power...get a couple of ideal wire bakelite knobs from grainger..make the hole a little larger ( and sand outside diameter smaller)...and u have a nice larger knob for mike gain and power out..that u can get hold of...so...again wonderfull radio ( if the comutors dont work...turn radio off...like we do with our computors..happy menuing...i love it....k0jm
|
|
SA3AYF
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Jan 23, 2012 04:10
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Magic Machine...?
|
Time owned: 6 to 12 months
|
I live in a suburban area with very high noise levels and interference out of the ordinary.
To make things worse, the landlord only accepts antennas he can not see. You get the picture...
I used to own a IC-756 Pro and it was a fantastic radio, but this is something else!
I can use the filters, the noise reduction and the noise blanker up to the point where my constant (unfiltered)
S9 noisefloor is down at a moore sublime level of S2-3 and I can chase
DX as well as ragchew with my limited resources as I wish and the audio is still fantastic !
It is allmost like magic :-)
The built in filter factory is great, but I belive the real "magic" is
the superb receiver with it's fantastic DSP's.
Regarding transmitting I can only relay the outstanding audio reports I have received on air.
Pricy ? Well, no. Not compared to what you get.
Would I recommend it ? Yepp, without blinking !
Top notch !
|
|
W3ULS
|
Rating: 4/5
|
Jan 21, 2012 13:58
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
An Excellent CW Machine
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
It may be surprising that anyone considers an Icom a near-perfect CW machine, but there you have it. I rate it a "4" because I'm not crazy about the receiver's audio on SSB, particularly with the tiny OEM speaker. For a transceiver in this price category, the speaker should be better. But it's on CW where this rig shines, IMHO.
In today's mother of all pileups on 20 CW for HK0NA, operating from Malpelo Island,I can take the 7600's CW filtering down to 50 Hz and still obtain a clear tone that allows for segregating some of the hundreds of signals in the pileup. I don't know of ANY rig that can do it better.
In addition to its very sophisticated DSP filtering, the 7600 also provides excellent noise reduction, a sterling manual notch filter, and an effective APF. (Incidentally, you will get slightly better close-in IMD performance by using the 6 kHz "roofing" filter rather than the 3 kHz, which is basically a marketing item.)
The IC-7600 has the usual spectrum scope and a dual watch function brought forward from the IC-756PROs. I suspect it's the scope that makes the 7600 a bit pricey, and it's something I can do without, especially with the relatively small screen. But what's an Icom without a spectrum scope?
|
|
K6RIM
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Jan 10, 2012 13:06
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Platinum Standard
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
In my experience, the IC-7600 compares very favorably to the venerable IC-7800, which I enjoyed for almost eight years.
Notably, the excellent RX performance of the 7600 is very close, if not identical, to that of the 7800. I understand that the Sherwood “numbers” are, in some cases, marginally better for the 7800, but in my world (DXing & Contesting), I am able to detect no significant difference.
Other than having a current retail price almost 70% higher than the price of the 7600, the 7800 has three obvious differences from the 7600: (1) a true second RX (2) TX is 200 watts and (3) the capability to attach an external monitor.
Dual-watch in the 7600 is very easy to use and makes split frequency DXing fast and efficient.
The 7600’s display is a bit smaller than the display on the 7800, but it is brighter, and has a wider viewing angle.
APF on the 7600 actually works better than APF on the 7800.
Bottom line: The 7600 is a worthy addition to the shack of the serious DXer/Contester at an extremely reasonable price.
|
|
K9TWO
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Dec 3, 2011 20:06
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Great Rig
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
After having 2 in a row DOA, I contacted my dealer R & L Electronics again. They did not have another rig in stock. They contacted Icom
and Icom emailed me and said they would have a new rig shipped to me Fedex next day. I picked
up that rig and have had it a few weeks now and
have had no problems what so ever. I have to admit that I have not transmitted on it yet
other than use the tuner. BTW, the tuner makes zero noise. All my other tuners except the one in my FT-920 make horrible noise. The 7600 has
some really cool features, However, in the high
static environment I'm in, my Ten Tec Jupiter is
still the quietest rig I have. I am keeping my
fingers crossed since my first 2 7600 were DOA.
I really like being able to listen to two conversations on the same band at once. Honestly though, other than all the whistles and bells, it's no better than my FT-950 or my Jupiter. I am not a contester so a contester might not agree. Is it worth paying $ 2000 more than my FT-950 or my Jupiter, no way.
2 in a row DOA Time owned: 0 to 3 months
I would like to take a moment and clarify some points based on the emails I have been getting.
I don't make a habit of turning off my radios with the power supply. Read my last article carefully and you will see why I did it. However, I have repaired commercial radio equipment since the 1970's and in ALL cases, turning the power supply off is the ONLY way to remove power from the radio. I worked on every brand on the market.
Secondly, I use a Yaesu linear 25 amp power supply that works flawlessly with all my other rigs. Like my FT-950, FT-920, FT-450, Ten Tec Jupiter, FT-897D etc. My antenna is a 32 foot vertical which is at DC ground potential via
a 2.5 mh RF choke that keeps any static build up
off the coax which is only about 30 feet long.
Thirdly, it's not an ESD problem, unless Icom
radios require ESD grounding kits strapped to your wrist to ground in order to use their radios.
Lastly I would never use a switching power supply
on any of my rigs, especially Astron. From years of experience with switching supplies, I just don't trust them after seeing so many issues caused by them. I hope this clears up some of
the questions I have been getting.
In summary, it's not a power supply problem, or an antenna problem, it's a radio problem.
73 Don K9TWO
|
|
W3HKK
|
Rating: 4/5
|
Nov 29, 2011 07:08
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
twice sent to ICOM for repairs in 18 months
|
Time owned: more than 12 months
|
Since I am unable to edit a previous comment, this is an update to my incorrect "2nd rf board failure" comments.
ICOM found the processor was incorrectly communicating, due to an electrical surge ( their guess) or my own tinkering with the install of both HRD and N1MM software (my guess- since the failure of all rf output happened following multiple attempts to install both software packages.)
Repairs consisted of a simple software reboot.
|
|
AD4C2006
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Nov 24, 2011 14:10
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Great radio
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
Been a user of a K3 for three years now and been comparing in all those years many radios against my K3 its been hard because none of the previous radios has been capable of be better.I owned 756ProIII, FT-2000, TS-590 and recently an Orion II.So I get this pretty well designed 7600 that has impressed me of how well it sounds.
First I will like to say there is nothing with the TX audio that even with the stock hand mic it sounds great IF of course you know how to set up properly the TX EQ and the TX bandwith,I am receiving lots of compliments from stations I talk with of how nice and smooth it sounds either with the hand mic or with my Yamaha CM-500 headset/boom mic.
The sensitivity is equal to the K3,no different at all in any band.
The noise floor is in my opinion the same as well,its so quite as my K3 in any band.
NB works excellent,I live very close to a 33K volts power line and sometimes the noise is up to S9 like this morning I could see the peaks of noise all over the 40M and could hear anything but when engaged the NB the band became quite again and best of all,any station I tuned was cristal clear without distorsion.
I have had no need yet to use the NR but in a normal band engaging it it makes it very quite and with aparently about the same qudio quality.
The weakness of this radio in comparison with the K3 is the close freq selectivity.If you are about 1.8 to 2 Khz from a station with S9+ and try to pull a wek one let say of 55 that is mission impossible even having the 3Khz roofer engaged and the DSP set to 1.8 and using the twin-pbt you still will hear the wiwiwiwiwwi from the adjacent channel and the RX will desense.That don't happen with my K3 that is a brick capable of isolate any weak station from a strong one.
Receive audio quality is as good as my K3 and the transmit audio quality as I said before is awsome,in fact it has better modulation that my K3,its a sure fact in spite of the K3 has a better adjustable TX EQ.
My only complain so far as with my former ProIII is the very small controls on the left botom corner below the AF/RF knob,those are common controls to use and should not be that small neither at the position they are,good thing is that now you can push and leave them inside to avoy touching and possibly brake the fragil plastic shafts,Icom should improve that.
Spectrum analyzer works great,now you can see the whole band or few Khz over and below your freq,you can even see your own TX bandwith.
Even the selectivity is not the best on SSB I have to say that in CW it works very tight,using a DSP 350 Hz bandwith I can work weak stations close to strong ones and best of all is that likewise my K3,it has no ringing noise even at narrower BW.Well designed DSP.
If the scale to qualify this great radio was more acurate I would give it a 4.5 but the way it is I definitively give it a 5 no matter the defects I found so far after 2 days operating it.
Couple more things,the S meter is acurate compared with my K3 that surely is well calibrated.Tx makes 105 W in any band.
Thanks Icom for a good quality product.
|
|
K8BZ
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Nov 18, 2011 12:59
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
I can recommend this radio
|
Time owned: 6 to 12 months
|
If there was an option to rate this 4.5 I probably would for what I would consider minor issues described below. I wouldn't be surprised if it would be possible to have these issues addressed in a firmware update at some later time.
I guess it would be meaningful to describe what my standard of comparison is when describing this radio. Previous radios were IC-738 with crystal CW filter. Kenwood TS-520 with optional CW and SSB crystal filters. Before that doesn’t matter because it was back in the day of “rock crushers” such as the B&W 5100-B and Heath DX-100. So the 7600 would be the first “modern” rig I have used with digital signal processing and other modern features.
I used the 7600 with an Ameritron AL-80B and logging software with rig control, as well as MixW digital software for PSK, RTTY, and Slow Scan.
Those who may have used other rigs with digital signal processing, notch and bandwidth filters etc. may be less impressed with these features that I was, having never had them before. But for me to be able to notch out an interfering CW signal with virtually no significant degradation of the desired signal was amazing. Likewise, contesting on CW and SSB with the use of the pass band tuning makes contesting a pleasure.
The PSK and RTTY internal modes are clearly not full featured, but you couldn't expect them to incorporate every feature of the sound card interface programs. It would have been nice to see a serial number increment feature on the RTTY and PSK transmit memories like there is on the CW memories. With a serial number increment feature in RTTY, contesting with the internal mode would be a snap. But without them, contesting on those modes can be very cumbersome. But, it is very helpful for DXers who spot that rare entity for a quick contact for a new country. After spending several months trying to work Macquarie Island for a new country, he was spotted working RTTY split up 10 KHz. I quickly programmed my call in memory slot #1 and his call with a signal report exchange in memory slot #2. Use of the split feature and being able to monitor both vfo frequencies helped make the contact through a pretty good pile up. The RTTY twin peak filters also helped zero in the calling station in the qso through the qrm, so a quick tap of the F1 key to send my call to the dx station on the exact frequency of the previous contact got the qso in the log. So even though you probably wouldn't use them for contesting, they work great for DXing.
The supplied microphone sounds awful but a modified D-104 sounds great. The recorded transmit audio with any mic I have used so far with various equalizer settings also sounds bad through the monitor feature of the rig. I can only assume the transmitted audio sounds as bad. Flat, “tinny” canned audio isn’t going to help add up points in a contest.
The keyer jack and USB keyboard jack in front make the lower left corner of the front panel quite crowded. But the most difficult control to use in that area is the Mic gain which is a seldom needed adjustment. The keyer jack should have been on the rear to clean up the front panel and get that additional "drip loop" out of the way. In my shack the radio keyboard only comes out when needed so the front panel jack for the keyboard is handy. The same jack is used with a flash drive to update the firmware so it makes sense to have it on the front.
I have updated the firmware once to the current version at this time. Following the instructions in the manual and on the Icom web site was straight forward and I had no problem.
I have not had a problem with any rig control functions with Ham Radio Deluxe, or my primary logging program from N3FJP. No electrical problems. I have no issue with the virtual S-meter.
I would prefer the CW contest serial number would allow the option of dropping the leading zeros of the serial number. There is also no option of using cut 9’s (N’s) without using cut 1’s (A’s). I prefer dropping leading zeros and sending T’s for zeros and full numbers for everything else but that is not a selectable option.
The rig has been in use now for about a year. I have had no failures. I have used it for serious contesting, DXing, casual digital with internal modes and sound card interface, computer rig control, and have had no problems.
I have taken my programmable keyer out of service and find the internal memory keyer meets all my needs.
Again, I have not used a Pro-III or Orion or any other full featured radios and can’t say how the 7600 stacks up against them. But so far, I am well pleased and would recommend it.
|
|
DJ4ND
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Oct 16, 2011 10:15
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Excellent Transceiver
|
Time owned: 6 to 12 months
|
|
I have used many Transceivers in the past IC-756Pro 1 year, IC-756ProII 7 years and IC-756ProIII 2,5 years and the IC-7600 one year. Compared with ProIII and IC-7600 is leader. Great sensitivity. I like the IC-7600, and I find the receiver is much more quiet than the IC-756proIII and is the best. Highly RECOMMENDED!
|
|
LB1TF
|
Rating: 5/5
|
Oct 16, 2011 04:40
|
Send this review to a friend
|
|
Excellent Radio
|
Time owned: 0 to 3 months
|
Replaced a 756-ProIII with the IC-7600, and I got to say that I am very pleased with the purchase!
I have owned a TS-480, TS-2000, IC-756ProIII,and some other radios.....this is the best so far :-)
|
|
If you have any questions, problems, or suggestions about Reviews,
please email your Reviews Manager.
|
|
|
|
|
