| CT4WEP |
Rating:  |
2012-06-25 | |
| Is very "BEAUTIFUL" but It is worth anyting..!! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| I had an ICON 756 PROII for a year and as you all know, the problems of custume, lacking power, heating etc etc ... And now I bought a Kenwood TS-590s and now I'm so happy, it has nothing to do one thing to another, is much better, much cleaner, with much better performance in the RX and TX, which has no comparison possible, also very good and many more functions which the IIP, and yet some say that the PII is compared with K3 please, I think the TS-590s is that they are on an equal footing with the K3 does not Pll. Anyway ...! Plus with all the updates to TS-590s suffered, already has said that many problems such as the power and etc etc .... And since I speak in the Pll updates will always be the same radio, because you never will not pass it, or updates can be made in the OIP. So for all those who have the PII or PIII, unfortunately going to have some problems in manufacturing and there is very little to do to resolve them, can always be solved, but the type or have to go out with little power to not burn, or else they burn to pull it. |
|
| W5VK |
Rating: |
2012-05-08 | |
| Good radio |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I've used this radio for many years and it's always worked as advertised. It's not the greatest CW rig, not the greatest reciever on the market, not the best at anything.... cept it does a lot of things very well, is dependable and very reasonably priced. I've used over 30 transceivers in my ham career and this is as good as I've used. |
|
| KC8HXO |
Rating: |
2012-05-01 | |
| Finally!!!!! |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I sold my faithful Kenwood TS-850s several years back. Have tried more than a few rigs since then, and NONE could fill it's shoes. Until now. Folks, the Pro series will fulfill that longing you have for the old 850.... or 950 ... or 930... you get the picture! I don't operate in contests, but do get on when the band is crowded with stations, and QRN. She handles it well, with judicious use of her various bandwidth, shift, DSP, AGC, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, RF gain adjustments. I think she has found a permanent home, and I can FINALLY stop kicking myself for selling the Kenwood!! |
|
| CT1EWX |
Rating: |
2011-02-24 | |
| My favorite |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
During some yaers of amateur radio,I had the oportunity to have some rigs, the moment I have the ICOM IC-756PRO2, this is the best, not perfect, but very good, my previous radios were, ICOM IC-746, IC-7400, Kenwoods: 140,690,850,870,950SDX,2000,Yaesu:1000MP,(good too) 1000MPmarkv field.
bye, 73
Sérgio,ewx |
|
| K7ZOV |
Rating: |
2011-02-08 | |
| Mine is great |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I have had (2)IC-756 classics, and at present a IC-7200, Maxed out K2/100 and IC-706mkIIG. Over the past 5 yrs I have had dozens of ICOM, Yeasu and Kenwood radios. I do a lot of trading. I wanted a PROII or PROIII and my xyl surprised me with the money to buy one. She knew I wanted to see what was so great about the PROII/PROIII radios and even though she is not a ham she is very supportive of my hobby.
Well I am impressed. Going from the orginal 756 to the PROII was easy. But the difference between the two was major. The filters work great. The TBF really slices the signals out. The sound quality is very good...and I have hearing loss so this is very, very important to me. More so then anything. I have not had problems with close in signals. If I did or do then I would go to INRAD and buy their roofing filter option that is reasonably priced. I don't feel I need it. Oh yes the display is beautiful and the bandscope is far better the the classic. It really is nice to know if the band if active and which way to tune to get to people..hihi
The output being about 70 watts is real with the tuner activated. I checked my 756 classic and found it to be the same. Never noticed it before. I called a friend of mine and he found that his PRO and two PROII's with the ATU activated limited the radio to a bit over 70 watts. He had never noticed it before. So is this a problem. Hell no! People hear me. I get GREAT signal reports on my audio. The receiver is hot. The radio works far better then I ever hoped for. BTW the friend with all the radios keeps his PROII on 24/7 for not only days, weeks, months but years. No issues. I was told by at least 5 people that with the PROII and PROIII sitting side-by-side you really can not hear the difference. And if you can't hear them you can't work them. So for the money as far as I am concerned this is one jewel of a radio and I would recommend the radio in a heartbeat. So if you have an issue and are going to dump yours in the trash, get my address from QRZ.COM and send me your radio. I am sure with a bit of TLC it will be great again. If you see a price from $1200 to $1400 or better and want a great radio grab it before someone else does.
Thank you for time and reading my rambling and impression of one great radio.
73 one and all Harry K7ZOV |
|
| N0UA |
Rating: |
2011-02-08 | |
| Great Transceiver |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and here is mine! I currently own IC-7700, IC-7600, IC-756ProIII, and others. I have owned two each of the IC-756Pro and the ProII radios. I sold a Kenwood 950SDX as I purchased the original PRO many years ago. Each successive version of the PRO line improved upon the previous offering. IMD capability, distortion in the DSP noise reduction, selectivity, features, and more were improved as the technology evolved. Today's versions of the ICOM digital radios are indeed a significant improvement upon the previous releases. Kudos to ICOM for providing these updates and improvements. The ProII has reached a price point that in my opinion offers the best performance for the $$. However, if you want the latest and best try the 7600 or more. All electronics are subject to user, environmental, and just unfortunate failures. That's the way it is. I have experienced outstanding service from the ICOM line of equipment now spanning more than a decade. Yes, mother nature did play havoc with one of my ProIIs (static discharge) but I had the unit repaired and went on. BTW: I have had very expensive GPS avionics in my airplane fail and the repair of that equipment is a whole other deal. Also, I do have a significant ground and lightning abatement system connected to my equipment as well as full-time power management systems.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by N0UA on 2007-08-10
I have owned all versions of the 756Pro line since they first came out. Currently have a III at my Denver location and a II in my KC shack.
At the current price of the II they are a great value. I would not go back to the original Pro due to improved features and performance. Example: digital mode work on the II is much better than on the original.
The III definitely improves on the II but at a cost.
As a comparison to another rig, I have used a FT 1000MP MKV in a situation with local BC stations where the 1000 front-end overloaded and the Pro II did not. The 1000 was unusable without an external BC band filter.
On the Pro series the scope is a fabulous piece of BUILT IN FUNCTIONALITY. Among other things it makes finding stations on "dead" bands very easy. Finding "holes" is also a joy.
Selectivity is outstanding. The digital filters can be tightened down to 50 hz for superb digital (PSK) mode operation.
For cw ops - QSK is great - better on the III (by a slight margin). I drive an Alpha 78 (with the III) on CW and it is a joy.
Service has been great (did have one issue where a
near miss lightning strike took out some diodes - ICOM service was outstanding).
Having 50+ years as a Ham and having owned lots of equipment my personal summary is that ICOM has done a great job with this equipment and the price/performance ratio is great. Your mileage may vary.
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Earlier 5-star review posted by N0UA on 2003-09-22
I have operated two original PROs for about 2 years. Love the DSP, band stacking registers, operation, transverter operation, etc. Purchased a PRO2 this past Saturday and had in on the air with PSK and CW on Sunday. Improvement in the filter selection when in USB-D (digital mode) is fantastic! Selectivity when using PSK is now outstanding. Got great IMD reports with the PRO2 on PSK31. Sensivity seems improved although I never had a problem in this area with the original PRO. I have operated both PRO's on the same band with antennas about 100 feet apart and never had a problem (keep NB off and preamplifiers off or on number 1). Some nits: some modes (USB-D, etc) are not available as commands with computer control (not in the command list). Also, getting to the band stacking registers seems impossible with computer operation. In my opinion all modes, registers, etc. should be accessable with computer controls. Ok yes, I traded a Kenwood 950SDX for the original PRO and never regretted it. Regards
Vince. |
|
| VK7COK |
Rating:  |
2011-02-08 | |
| RUBBISH |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I thought icom had used their brains when producing this radio, call it a dud but the screen no longer works, the dsp is crap i might aswell be listening on my pc-122 and the pwr output doesnt go past 70w, I simply threw the radio in the bin and flushed the pwr lead down the toilet, ABSOLUTE RUBBISH! I went back to my YAESU 1000MP what a delight to use, 5 STAR for that radio |
|
| VK7HDS |
Rating: |
2011-02-08 | |
| Fantastic radio |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| Great radio, DSP is fantastic, TX audio is great and brilliant bang for buck! 5/5 |
|
| N0FPE |
Rating: |
2011-01-09 | |
| good so far |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
| i traded my TS-2000X for a nice ProII. I never used the VHF/UHF part of the 2000 so It was not a big change for me. So far i find the ProII to be a good fit. I am not a contester and work a lot of digitial modes. The Icom works well for my type of operations. |
|
| SM3LGO |
Rating: |
2011-01-09 | |
| Good radio |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
This is a good radio, the only issue is (as many others report here) that the RX can't handle a crowded band with many strong signals very well. In extreme situations it sounds a bit as if you have the RX in the "AM" mode position... It doesn't matter much for me since I seldom do contests and I am never on the RX side of a pile-up. My main source of benchmark is an old Kenwood TS-450 which (although not considered a top RX), IMO still does better with strong signals. (That's on the other hand the only advantage of the 450...)
The radio's handling, menus etc is very easy and logical. The spectrum scope is mostly useful on 50MHz.
And, yes, the radio runs quite hot even in RX position as others have reported. Long RTTY TX makes it _really_ hot.
All in all, I don't need a better radio than this. I would definitely get one again today if I needed a new rig, but maybe not at the full price... |
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