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Reviews For: Icom IC-910H

Category: Transceivers: VHF/UHF+ Amateur Base/Mobile (non hand-held)

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Review Summary For : Icom IC-910H
Reviews: 74MSRP: 1,500 (Street)
Description:
VHF/UHF Satellite Tranciever
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00744
KB9QNG Rating: 2003-12-13
Wounderfull Radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had my 910 for two years and I love it.
The radio is top shelf,cream of the crop,A1.
W3NRL Rating: 2003-11-20
nice, but... Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
As a dual bander radio yes it works the way it suppose to...it's ok. as for the power on 100 watts, on ssb maybe 70 (2meters) 60+ (70cm) on my radio. i called icom and ask what the problem was they responded that there is no problem...that's the way it is!!!!!
for satellite work (when uo14 was alive) using the normal/rev i found keeping the down link using afc this worked easier and look no hands tracking the bird. like i said it nice but....
DC8QK Rating: 2003-09-15
Perfect Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
100% OK
K9XK Rating: 2003-07-15
Best of few choices Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This rig is aesthetically and mechanically better than any current Icom radio.

I do agree with comments on its questionable adjacent signal rejection but it is a weird circumstance where I have a problem - and I am in a fairly large metropolitan area.

The only thing I can really knock *mine* for and for which it may get sent back to Icom, is that the sensitivity of the SUB receiver is not *quite* as good as that of the MAIN. I am sure it's not supposed to be that way, given that you're often going to need that RX to hear the birds (while using MAIN for transmit). I am still doing testing to confirm this problem.

I also would have liked it to be able to do U/U or V/V instead of only U/V or V/U, but it is not supposed to do that, so unlike many reviewers on eham.net, I have a hard time downgrading the rating based on lack of a feature that thing is not supposed to have in the first place. (like the guy that knocks a '756 Pro II for not covering band that was not even authorized when his rig was built -- you know, that sort of nutty thing)
KJ6QB Rating: 2003-06-26
Great Rig Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have had the rig for over a year now and abolutely love it. I have read some of the other reviews regarding frequency instability and have not experienced any of these problems. Great performance on FM and on SSB. The high power (100W) on 2m is right on que. Tested it with a bird wattmeter and right at 98 watts and stable. Nice tight receiver, but would recommend the UT-106 DSP unit for weak signal work.
NT9E Rating: 2003-04-10
Very capable radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I received mine a couple days after Superfest at AES in Milwaukee. Price was right and wanted to replace my TS-790A. Nothing wrong with the TS-790A (45W 2m/35w 440)but wantted more power right out of the box without adding power amplifiers and patch cords into the signal chain.

Works very nicely as a local ragchew radio on FM/SSB or for contesting. I highly recommend it.

My s/n was 1500+ and I did not have any freq. stability problems.
PA3AOH Rating: 2003-03-15
In general OK, but missing some things Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
First of all i must say that my 910 (a 15xx series)works fine and is on frequency as a rock.
It's mainly used for contest and weak-signal work in ssb/cw on 70cm and 2m. Although the radio's rx doesn't look to good in the QST review, it did not bring me in to trouble sofar and i am living in a crowded area with lots of strong sigs around.
Better equipment would mean expensive hf-rig plus transverter(s). I don't want to spend that kind of money.

On the plus side i can mention:
+ Masthead preamp feed through coax-line
+ Fully adjustable attenuators
+ Dual band tx/rx or rx/rx simultaniously
+ High power output, nice for lot's of tubelinears
+ Controls and size not to small

And the less good things of the rig i my opinion:
- only one (1) ptt-line on a triband rig
- no programmable powerlimit (accidents happen...)
- no safe transverter connection
- dds noise may be a problem in some situations
- more agc switch positions (and off)
- S-meter has same stepsize as the 706

I much more like an S-meter like the ic821 had, it's more convenient in pointing narrow (shf) antenna systems.(Imagine the needle moving like 910 display S-meter does !).

And i haven't planned to buy the 1.2Ghz unit because of the output adjustment trouble i mentioned above. (A few more Watts would be nice).

So, maybe if ICOM comes out with a ic910pro or mk2 or so (hi) i buy that, get me the options in it, but for now i leave the radio in standard condition and wait.
For 95% of the users the 910 is OK anyway i guess.
N6VUJ Rating: 2003-01-21
Great Rig Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is a great rig but try to get a later s/n.

My first one had a lower s/n and was way off frequency and could not be adjusted enough put it on frequency (problem in the master oscillator).

The new one s/n series 21XX works likes a charm.

My 910 did not come with a DTMF Mic so I purchased am HM-118TN and wired a new plug on it and it works well with the 910.

All in all a nice radio.
SV1CON Rating: 2002-12-17
Generally OK , serious problem on 23cm Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
Hello to everybody.I'm an Icom fanatic and I have the IC275H , IC 475H , IC910H , IC706MK2G and IC756PRO2.Till now I was very satisfied with the quality of the Icom products, but one week ago I´ve bought the 23 cm module for the IC910H which has a problem that a friend of mine has too.The first 4 days everything worked fine, from the 4th day till today when i transmit with the lower power, the bar display (which shows in someway the tx power) goes crazy, and there is no transmission! You have to press 4-5 times the PTT and then sometimes it gets back and works for a little while.Some other times you have to increase the power to full and then the transmission begins.Of course if you try to transmit in SSB modes there is no way, when this "transmision freeze" is happening.My friend found out the same problem after a month of use.I intend to e-mail Icom to find out if they know the problem and it's solution.The 910 doesn't have a specific problem when you don't have the 23cm module installed but when you install it then you have serious problems.I think that it needs help and ICOM must be more carefull in the future so we (all the ICOM fanatics) won`t get dissapointed.Sorry for my bad English.73's de SV1CON - George.
DF1AS Rating: 2002-11-10
One of a kind Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I'm using two 910's. One is for 2/70/23 (+amps on all bands), the other one is for 13/9/6 and 3cm (of course with transverters ...).

Since I own the first one for about 1 1/2 year only, I cannot valuate reliability, service a.s.o. My 821H stopped working after only 1 year. Demating/cleaning/mating of all internal cables (especially the flat printed ones) was good for 4 further years w/o any failure. So I know what to do in case the 910 feels sick ...

It is also known that even Icom's DDS does not reach sideband noise specification of good XO's. The good old IC-202 may be better in this discipline. This DDS is a very good compromise. I can tx with up to 20 W on my hor. yagi on SSB and rx relais channels (up 1 MHz) w/o any influence on a vertical, mounted 2 m above the yagi. I couldn't do this with any rigs I owned before (except with my oldtimers IC-215 and IC-202).

For outside band operation one has to read the mods (e.g. @ www.mods.dk) completely! Of course you can adjust outside band power output! If you feel that operation is on the safe side you may adjust to full level (100/75/10 W), but on your risk! The PA circuitries are not optimized outside. I would recommend to set it to 70 % or less, but same as in-band. Then you don't have abrupt power change at band edges!

The receivers work great, even w/ contest conditions. And despite of a 3rd order IP that is still away from the (theoretical) optimum. But weekest point is the phase noise, so more IP wouldn't help (IP-3 inband, IP-2 outband, see below). RX bandwidth is much less than 746 RX or 847 RX, but still to much if you have big FM TX (108 MHz) in the neighborhood. The 746's 2m-RX is the rear-light of all. So, use of a good pre-amp (e.g. with output helix filters) helps to get rid of these troubles.

What I'm missing is:

(1) 3 seperate PTT outputs for each band (there's only one!)
(2) An audio "peek" filter function for the DSPs (does the VHF/UHF amateur need the "notch" filter as a "roger beep killer"?)
(3) Use of "digipots" for ALL knobs, so that audio volume, squelch position, IF shift, output power and mic gain can be stored and recalled from all VFO A/B or memory and memory stack registers.

Last point (3) is a feature that all new fashioned industrial equipment is already using (e.g. oscilloscopes, but also the IC-R8500 can), ham rigs (know to me) do not ...

Despite these few CONs, I guess the 910 is a 910PRO. Trouble mentioned here in the reviews is majorly not by design. Icom's "outgoing QA" guys may not do their best, unfortunately.

The 910 is not the "physical" optimum - but currently the best for me, 5/5 my rate!

73 - Kay-Uwe