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Reviews For: ICOM IC-7400

Category: Transceivers: HF Amateur HF+6M+VHF+UHF models - non QRP <5W

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Review Summary For : ICOM IC-7400
Reviews: 48MSRP: 1850
Description:
Transmitting range:
1.810MHz to1.825MHz
1.9075MHz to 1.9125MHz
3.500MHz to 3.575MHz
3.747MHz to 3.754MHz
3.791MHz to 3.805MHz
7.000MHz to 7.100MHz
10.100MHz to 10.150MHz
14.000MHz to 14.350MHz
18.068MHz to 18.168MHz
21.000MHz to 21.450MHz
24.890MHz to 24.990MHz
28.000MHz to 29.700MHz
50.000MHz to 54.000MHz
144.000MHz to 146.000MHz

SSB(2.4kHz)/6dB,3.2kHz/40dB,3.6kHz/60dB,4.3kHz/80dB
CW(500Hz)500Hz/6dB,700Hz/60dB
RTTY(350Hz)
AM(6kHz)
FM(15kHz)


Product is in production
More Info: http://www.icom.co.jp/ham/products/ic-7400/index.html
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00484.5
YU2SRB Rating: 2023-07-14
Deserve respect! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I get IC-7400 and using it as a base station. I am using only SSB mode, without CW or any digi mode.
Radio have super DSP. Great receive, display with BIG sharp numbers and ergonomics. Excellent radio.

This radio is perfect for contests because almost all major functions are at press of button in front of you and no need to dig deep into the menu to change this and that. More buttons means more comfort. This is a big plus also in everyday use because makes things much easier.
Setting brightness on 100% and so far no issues with illumination. Since I am often on 2m ssb activity after a while noticed very slight freq.drift.
I am using mine with Icom SM-30 microphone and results are fantastic.
I have nothing but compliments for this radio!

Best DX!
Marko YU2SRB
2E0EUG Rating: 2018-02-11
Great Radio excellent DSP Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Great radio, picked mine up recently, it had a few niggles but nothing major, the bias was way over a nearly 3 amps, the recommendation now is around 500ma to 1 amp if you dont want that driver to fail, I set mine at 1 amp, I com issued a service bulletin stating the service manual setting was wrong, also fitted a heatsink to the cathode driver so the light can be run on 50% safely, saves the bulb and the i.c.
Meter is bone idle on 2 meters but receive is great, thats all I had to do, nothing major just future proofed, a stitch in time saves 9 as they say, great radio will be keeping mine, prefer it to the 7300, can get to any band at the press of a button and better atu, no exotic fish finder but I really dont care.
OE3HPU Rating: 2017-02-03
Good reliable performer Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Got mine for about 500 € and I am happy to have it again(I owned one earlier). We use it in our club station and it performes very well on HF and it is just OK on VHF ( a little bit less sensitive on 2m compared with others). The TX audio is one of the best you can get,it has a great ATU and the receivers dynamic range reaches 93dB (at 20kHz), which is good . For CW contesting there is a little bit too much DSP garbage around the signal due to the broad roofing filter. In JT 65 it worked very well, phase noise is better than average and I got a lot of good decodes on weak signals using my homebrewed interface connected to the ACC socket on the rear. Noise cancelling tools, NB and notch work great. Never had a problem with the drivers or the illumination of the display as mentioned in other reviews down here. I do not like to give a 5 ,except for the best of the best . My rating therefore would be 4,2.
OH2AUK Rating: 2016-02-20
Component failure Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my IC-7400 abt. 10 years ago. Nice rig, a good performer, but I also have had problems with it. The biggest issue has been the pre-driver IC, but mine is still OK. I also have replaced the ext.sp jack. The original jack is of very low quality and the solder on the board breaks easily. The second problem was a loud crackling noise from the speaker. I found 2 volts DC on the speaker line! Electrolytic C1243 in the audio amplifier was bad!I replaced it and now the rig is FB. C1243 is located very well, you only need a good solder iron (Weller) and regular tools to swap it.
GM8GIQ Rating: 2015-09-23
EXCELLENT ALL ROUNDER Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Have owned various transceivers over the years including FT857,FT897,TS480,TS50,FT817,IC706 but the 7400 outperforms them all.
The DSP and filtering features work superbly well and are easy to use, especially on CW.
Full 100Watts even on 2M.
Only negative I have found is that I had to fit the TCXO option for use on 2m meteor scatter but it is rock steady with this option fitted.

On RX the IMD R3 figure is 97dBm which compares to 103dBm for an Elecraft K3 (Elecraft's own figures).

Outstanding value for money.
IK0YKM Rating: 2015-03-17
Outstanding Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Hi all,
overall considering the cost this is a very good transceiver.
Great DSP, excellent audio both transmitted and received.
Beautiful scope.
EI4KC Rating: 2014-03-05
Great rig Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Have owned this radio since 2008 and am very happy with all aspects of it. I mainly operate cw and the filtering is second to none. Also the built in atu is very reliable tuning my multiband vertical. The only worry I had is the backlight issue but I keep the brightness at 100. Per cent so hopefully no problems will occur.
CT1EWX Rating: 2012-11-11
Good on rx Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Hi
this is my second IC-7400, now I am a fan of cw.
the radio is excelente, solid and compact.
good rx. no need any filters to up grade.
Sérgio,ewx
GW0GEI Rating: 2012-10-30
Great performance and value for money Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Its a long time since I bought my ic7400 new. Purchased nearly a year after it was launched, in the hope of avoiding the initial bugs, mine arrived and then died within minutes - no tx. Returned to icom uk under warranty and replaced in 2 days - fair play. My main band for 20 years has been 6m plus hf contesting and lf dxing. The replacement worked but was drifting on 6m and 2m. After some negotiations and amid reports of many failures at the time, it was returned to icom uk who installed the high stability crystal unit and carried out some factory updates.

Nearly 10 years later and 120 plus countries on 6m, plus lots of dx on 10m and lf bands, it is still in the shack. Ft1k, MP, mk5 have been and gone as main radios, and ft225rd mutek has arrived for 2m recently, but my ic7400 has stayed. For last two years it has been the main radio for most of the time on hf, lf as well as 6m and 2m.

The cw performance is superb (not quite as good a receiver as my ft1ks but better than the ft1kmp and ft1kmk5field), with the dsp filtering. I have used it in heavy qrm cw contests to great effect. Only thing I missed was the second rx of the ft1k which is why I went back to a second one this year as the main hf radio.

Compared on 2m with the mint condition ft225rd mutek front end 2m radio I bought recently it holds its own on a quiet band - have not tried them side by side in a big signal contest environment yet.

Overall, despite the reliability problems with these radios, the cw and ssb audio quality is superb and in value for money terms its very hard to beat. I have looked at buying a pro 111 or ic7600 for 6m of late but I do like the user interface and display of the ic7400 and so I have yet to spend my money on the later models.

The only thing slightly tempting me at present is the new icom with 4m 50w facility as that would save me getting a transverter again for 4m ssb and cw. I will await the test results and early experience reports first and in the meantime the ic7400 continues to give loyal and effective performance as my main 6m radio and backup radio for hf/lf/2m. For the price, and despite the reliability issues and slight head in sand attitude from icom in terms of repairs and ack of design issues, I think a 4 is a fair score.
G4PNF Rating: 2011-12-10
Superb! but some reliability issues. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned the IC-7400 for about 4 years and I can confirm that it really is a great transceiver.

The receiver is excellent, strong signal handling, and the DSP filtering fantastic. I fitted the TCXO because I was noticing some very slight drift, especially on 2 metres but with the TCXO installed it is rock solid across the bands. I love the “user interface” it is a delight to operate and has solid/quality feel about it. The display is superb, very clear and displays all the information I need (without toggling buttons to bring up different items).
I have compared it to two other HF rigs, the IC-7200 and the TS-590s. It does compare very well indeed. The receiver is not quite as smooth as the TS-590 and the NR not as effective but as far as I am concerned is not that far off the mark. I certainly have never found a signal on the 590 that cannot be copied on the 7400.
The transmit side of the 7400 is also spot on. The SSB signal is robust and clean. Using the compression really boosts the signal without adding noticeable harshness or distortion. The audio reports are always highly complementary and it is easy to adjust the TX audio to suit different mics and voices. CW is also very good on this rig especially with the ability to narrow the filtering down to 50 Hz without excessive ringing. I found the original HM-36 mic (Chinese) that came with the rig rather soft and muddy in the audio it produced and initially went over to the SM-20 desk mic which was excellent. But I now use the original HM-36 with some modifications and I think the results are even better than the SM-20. Mods for the HM-36 are well documented and easy to carry out. I not only changed the circuit as suggested but also changed the electret insert.
The inbuilt ATU is fast and highly effective.

There are a few inevitable minor niggles. In particular, I would have liked there to be a numerical indication on the display for the CW keying speed ,mic gain and power level and as has been often mentioned the little knobs for adjusting these items are a bit naff. This is nitpicking though and I certainly wouldn’t mark the 7400 down on these points alone.

Why the 4/5 then?
It would be a 5/5 plus! But I have suffered the same reliability issues that have often popped up on this forum and elsewhere. First, after about 3 years of light use the 7400 developed an intermittent transmitter fault where the max output went down to milliwatts. I had to dispatch it for repair twice to completely solve the problem which in the end turned out to be a failed FET in the driver stages. Than about a year later I suffered the almost inevitable back light failure. I had always run the backlight at 100% brightness to reduce the loading on the hopelessly underrated transistor in the CC tube supply circuit but in the end even that didn’t prevent failure. As the repair is well documented, I tackled it myself. It is apparently always a transistor failure and never the CC tube itself. I replaced the offending transistor but not with the original type. I used the much more beefy BD650 transistor remotely mounted to the side of the screening can. It has been fine since and I run the brightness where I want it to be now at 20%.
So apart from a question mark about reliability this is one really nice radio that I can thoroughly recommend.