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Reviews For: Icom IC-9700

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

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Review Summary For : Icom IC-9700
Reviews: 66MSRP: $2099
Description:
A new release of an old favorite (Icom IC-910H) VHF/UHF All Mode Base Station. Wow - Well worth the long wait!
Product is in production
More Info: http://icomamerica.com/en/products/amateur/hf/9700/default.aspx
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
25664.1
VE4SW Rating: 2022-03-19
Excellent sensitivity Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Great radio for VHF and UHF. Use it for DX, satellites and local repeaters. Never disappointed with great sensitivity for weak signals. It"s all a matter of fine tuning the radio! Some folks unfortunately have no idea on how to do that.
KO4PDI Rating: 2021-12-11
Amazing and i haven't even tried D-Star yet. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I love Satellites and want to talk to the world via them. This was the best radio I was told to do that. So far I am getting better at it. using it manually it works great. learning every day but my first impression is it's great. The 991A will be sold soon and this will be joined by the 7300. Thanks, ICOM.
W8KMA Rating: 2021-12-06
Mine was deaf Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Mine was deaf on fm. Pretty useless to me.. Couldn’t get local repeaters over 3 s units that are normally S9 to 20. Sent it back… The end.
W4ACW Rating: 2021-11-13
Replaced my Icom 820H Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After using it for weak signal and local stuff the past year I like it. It is replacing the Icom 820H. This radio does more than what I will use it for. Well made I feel and actually has a fit and feel better than my 7610 in some ways. I run a 7300 and a 9700 next to each other in the shack also. Recieve sensitivity and audio are good. The transmit audio reports are fine. Microphones on the 9700 is either the great stock mic or a ElectroVoice re20 straight into the radio. Plan on keeping her a while.
N7XCZ Rating: 2021-09-13
no problems Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I read all the reviews here took note of drift issue but still made purchase. I am very pleased in the first 3 weeks of owning the radio I made my 1st EME contact!!!
Also operated the September ARRL VHF QSO party and made several 144 FT8 contacts and 1 432 SSB contact, Also a few Satellite contacts but need to setup a better uplink and downlink antenna system I do not have an antenna yet for 1296 so I cannot really give any input on that yet. I am a Yaesu guy but Icom has the only game in town for this type of rig. Its a pleasure to use and I have no regrets
updated firmware to 1.31 and all is still well, Kind of want a 7600 now Hi Hi

Ed Wolf
N7XCZ
VE4CY Rating: 2021-09-13
Happy Camper Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
I picked up the 9700 primarily for SSB/CW and the digital modes. I've been happy with the performance.

Since I bought mine nine months ago, I've managed to work 16 states on two meters using various modes. (Until recently, I never knew there was sporadic E on two meters. It's rare but fun :).

Sensitivity wise.. All I have to compare it with is my old Kenwood TS-2000. I've never performed any formal measurements using test equipment. But my tin-ear-meter tells me the 9700 is about the the same on 70cm and perhaps a little better on 2 meters.

Haven't done any Satellite work.. Not yet, but that's an option I'm keeping open.

For D-STAR we have a 'full stack' of repeaters locally (23cm, 70cm and 2m). Other than the odd chat with some friends, I don't use D-STAR much. I'm not a big fan of the mode... Because we have local repeaters, I've never bothered connecting the radio to the internet to use the terminal mode.

I would have given the radio five stars, but as is apparent in other reviews here -- it drifts. For SSB/CW/FM/D-STAR you won't notice it at all. But for digital modes with long transmission times (30+ seconds) it's very apparent and annoying.

I use Q65 quite often. I've had friends send me screen shots of my signal on their WSJT-X waterfalls. Instead of a straight up and down line, there was a noticeable curve in my signal caused by the drift.

I wound up buying the Leo Bodnar board and the accompanying GPSDO. This fixed it 100%.... But.. It doesn't seem right that I had to add third party hardware to get the radio working properly.
VE4MM Rating: 2021-09-12
100% Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I LOVED IT SO MUCH I BOUGHT ANOTHER ONE FOR THE LAKE HOUSE!

I bough the IC9700 so I could get into satellite.

Took about a day or 2 to install the M2 beam antennas and associated equipment and I was up and running.

Easy rig to operate.

Needed the extra manual to see how to program memories.

No problem to work the satellites.

ICOM did well!
WM4RB Rating: 2021-09-12
GREAT Radio! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
LOVE MINE!!!! Easy to use. Beautiful radio. I have the ICOM desk mic for it along with 2 matching speakers. A joy to operate.
GW1HNG Rating: 2021-09-12
Worst Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I got my IC-9700 to go with my IC-7300, thinking it would be a comparable radio but covering VHF and UHF with the added bonus of Dstar.

Well do I ever regret that decision, I sold my FT-991 and TS-2000 to fund the 9700, I'm now looking for a TS-2000 and an FT-991 as the IC-9700 is the worst radio I have ever used.

The user interface is crap in comparison with the 7300, you can't swap modes as easily in fact nothing is as easy to do, the speaker volume has to be turned up almost fully before I can hear anything (external speaker is the same), the damned radio is no better on receive than my old TS-2000 was in fact it's not as good.

The 9700 is a real let-down, I love my 7300 and my 7000, but the 9700 is just not up to the mark and it could have been so much better.
N1DZ Rating: 2021-09-03
Fantastic for weak signal DX Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I am using the IC-9700 for over 12 months. For over 40 years I mostly used HF rigs with transverters for VHF and UHF DX-ing. I had a TS-2000 for a short period but this is the first VHF/UHF transceiver I feel that is as good as my HF-transverter combo. I only do weak signal DX-ing. The receiver with preamp is super sensitive. I use a mast preamp for all bands but with ½ inch hardline runs to the antennas the mast preamps make little difference. The radio has great stability. The filters on SSB and CW are top notch and it plays well on the digital modes too. The waterfall display is similar as the IC-7300 which I use on 6m. The layout is simple and it has little learning curve. I use the DX Shop PTT multiplier to drive my amps. This is the only negative as there are no individual ports for each band to drive an amplifier.
I cannot comment on how crunch proof it is with strong nearby stations as I live in an area with few stations closeby.
I rate this transceiver a solid 5 stars.