| KJ4AAD |
Rating:  |
2024-10-10 | |
| Steady workhorse |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I bought this radio used. Great radio for field ops. Looking to up grade soon. I do have a question though. I’m trying to get it to display repeater names while scanning. Anybody know how to get the names to display? I have scoured the owners Manuel
Please e mail me at kj4aad@gmail.com |
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| VA3VS |
Rating: |
2024-04-04 | |
| competant |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
i have 2 ts 2000 radios. one i strictly use for 6m. it went south recently, so i looked for a replacement. i saw the icom ic 746pro semi locally for sale, so went off to see it. owner fully tested it for me, a deal was done.
it took no time to set it up for ssb and cw. i also filled up the memory channels with 2m freqs. only had to revert to the manual for 2 items.
on air reports are very favourable using an ic 12 hand mic. i also have the sm8 base mic, but find the hand mic better.
receive is very much like the ts 2000, although a little quieter.
worked my first 6m dx of 2024 from southern ontario, using the pro, with 90w, into a homebru 3 element hexbeam.
if my 2nd ts 2k comes back repaired, im still leaving the 746pro in place. for an oldie, its very competant.
vy 73 de bob.
va3vs |
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| N3TGY |
Rating: |
2023-06-12 | |
| old war horse |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I've had this rig for more than eight years, and it's a fantastic rig, it's on for hours I've worked lots of DX with it both on SSB voice and Digital modes. it's smooth on CW as well. I bought this rig to combat AGC pumping a problem that while working weak dx on psk I would narrow the filters in on the station I was working and the splattering or wide stations with a lousy IMD would vanish leaving the dx station I was working. I was hooked on this rig ever since. it's been a great radio all of these years. ( bought it new ) I don't think I'll ever part with it.
I have to update from my previous review of my Icom IC-746PRO - it's been 9 years since I wrote my first review here on E-Ham. and I thought I'd update because I've heard a few of these great older rigs on the air being operated by newer hams and long-time owners. My IC-746PRO is still in full service on my bench, and it's still a great radio, it needed new lights in the display and now it has nice LED's in there . I had a friend that has good laboratory instruments give the receiver and transmitter an inspection and it was still rock solid for both. I want new hams to think about buying one of these old radios, they are a fantastic rig, it doesn't have a fancy display but it lets you know what is going on with settings etc. the band scope is dated but it still does the trick you just need to be patient with it and learn how to use that function. when the rig was new (real time ) band scopes were only on the most expensive rigs, I now have a real time band scope on one of my newest radios, but it's not a necessity it's just a convenience to the radio operator. I just hate to see new hams pass up a great receiver like is in the 746PRO just because it doesn't have the "sexy" display and scope. my rig has given me excellent service in the almost 20 years of owning it. I still put this rig in the 5 star category. If you can , grab one I believe you'll be very happy with it. BTW I wanted a 756PROIII at the time but bought this because of the VHF capabilities on 2 meters . |
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| W3IRE |
Rating: |
2022-12-29 | |
| Typical Transmit Failure |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
| This is the second 746 pro I've owned. Sold the first one 15 years ago, needed the money. So I buy another one last spring. Works great full power on all bands, but drifts. No problem, that's what the rit is for. So last week I get on 10 meters on local net for two hours. No problem. Next night same net, no transmit anywhere. I didn't change anything from previous night. Everything works on radio except tx. Now I have just a shortwave receiver. Not going to get it fixed. Between getting the tx fixed and the drift fixed it's gonna be at least $400 plus shipping.. Great radio, but beware. These radios are a time bomb. |
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| K8ESE |
Rating: |
2021-06-10 | |
| Best ham radio out there |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| This radio works flawlessly. I have been a ham radio operator since 1961 and had several radios during this time. I have had my Icom 746 Pro for 5 years or so. I like how easy it is to navigate, and I especially like the internal antenna tuner and internal keyer. This radio out classes any ham radio I've owned including Yaesu's and Kenwood's. I have always had great reports on the air with it. |
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| W8SFC |
Rating: |
2019-12-10 | |
| The longer I work with it, the more I like it! |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I bought this used from another ham, who used it for several years. I had just passed the Technician license and was studying for the General... now working on Extra and I have been using this radio daily for well over a year at this point. This is my first HF rig, and it more than meets my needs. At first I had problems because my antenna was not well installed - too close to the ground, but once I got it up about 30 feet, I started hearing stations from the Northeast to Southwest. The receiver is very good and after I learned how to use the filters and other features to adjust the tuning of signals I went from barely being able to hear other stations to being able to get QSO's going with other hams a thousand miles or more away. This isn't the most complicated radio out there, but it is not what I would call simple. My opinion is this radio is a fine first HF rig that an inexperienced ham can grow into and will not grow out of for a long time. It does not have all the bells and whistles of the newest transceivers, but it will do just about everything you need to with an HF radio. The fact it has a general coverage receiver and a 6 meter and 2 meter capability makes this an amazingly capable radio. If you are getting started, having one rig that covers 2 meters, 6 meters, and 10 through 160 meters is a lot of capability on a limited budget. The fact that some reviewers here purchased theirs new and still use them says a lot about how good these radios really are. I will likely not replace this rig, although I may add another at some point. I would encourage anyone who needs a great HF rig as a backup or even a primary as mine is to look at the IC 746 Pro. |
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| W4FID |
Rating: |
2019-06-25 | |
| Only rig I kept 13+ years |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I got my 746PRO over 13 years ago. Used it on SSB, CW, RTTY, PSK-31, FT8 ……… nets, DX, rag chewing -- into an amp and barefoot -- good and poor antennas. It has done everything I ever wanted beautifully. Display was fixed but at a reasonable cost and quickly. 58+ years as ham -- MANY rigs over those years. Ten Tec, Drake, Yaesu, Heath, Globe, Hallicrafters, Johnson ……… been there -- done that. Only ones I enjoyed enough to keep 8 or more years are my S-Line station and the 746. All the rest were various degrees of fun and reliability but were rotated out after a few (or less) years to try something else new. The many years it was "front line" in production and all them out there is testimony to how great they are. |
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| VO1NO |
Rating:  |
2019-06-25 | |
| A lemon |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have owned this radio for 5 years, and I would love to be able to tell you how it performs on the air but I can't - it's spent most of that time awaiting repair. Maybe someday I'll actually be able to use it, but I'm not holding my breath. Unless you get a great deal on it, and have access to a good technician, I would avoid this POS. |
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| KB3GWQ |
Rating: |
2018-05-14 | |
| Excellent rig! Especially for CW and digital use! |
Time Owned: 6 to 12 months. |
I got my General ticket back in October of 2018 after being a (mostly inactive) Technician for 17 years. I was originally looking at getting a used IC-706MKIIG because I wanted 2M SSB as well. After a deal fell through on one a friend suggested that if I wasn't planning to do HF Mobile (I wasn't) then getting a base station would be the better way to go. Otherwise the menu navigation and other features will all be a compromise. I have a friend who also just recently upgraded and she bought a brand new FT-891. I went over to her house to help her setup digital modes on it and realized my other friend was right. Navigating through the menus and just switching bands was annoying. Not having manual frequency entry was extremely annoying. After a month or so of using the clubsite's FTDX-1200 and saving some money I found an IC-746PRO used and snagged it up. The previous owner added a fan kit near the display to help alleviate the burnout display problem (which has never happened to this rig, but was preventative measure).
What I love about this rig:
* RX sensitivity is excellent, practically the same as the FT-101E I use on occassion. Blows the FTDX-1200 we have at the clubsite out of the water in this regard. For some real down in the mud CW the adjustable NR and multiple pre-amp levels is a lifesaver. I've gotten a few DX's complete with this at 119 sigs. It's not going to save you on really really bad QSB, but it's surprised me multiple times.
* I really like how the bandwidth filters are adjustable (except FM/AM, those are 3 fixed ranges, but this is a non-issue imo). I like to set option 2 on CW at 800hz. Sometimes you get some fellows with older rigs or just slightly out of range for 500hz and this helps a lot. You can also set between sharp and soft filters very easily.
* The built-in memory keyer is great and easy to set. My only real nitpick on it is that it's 4 memories. So this can be a slight compromise if you operate as your own call, your club call, and maybe you want to have a CQ CQ DX programmed in there too. It has a contest counter which works as it should, but I don't contest with it. You can even adjust the wait time (up to 60 seconds) between repeating the message. You can press the memory once to just send it one time, or press and hold to lock it in on auto-repeat. If someone comes back, even during full break in you can push a button on your keyer, your mic, or the rig to abort it and go on with your QSO.
* Easy to modify for 60 meters operation.
* Rx audio is good from internal speaker. Tx audio for SSB/AM/FM modes are also very good with the stock mic. A nitpick is that the equalizer is a simple bass/treble. So if you're trying to get that custom sound you may want to invest in an equalizer with your 3rd party mic. Speech compressor works well, is adjustable and TX bandwidth is also adjustable but is fixed values.
* Manual entry is easy to use, and easy to band hop. It remembers the last 3 modes+freqs for a band. Saving frequencies is also easy to do.
* RIT/Clarifier is easy to use. Easy to reset to 0. It's not overly sensitive to over/under shoot like the FTDX-1200 is.
This rig isn't entirely perfect and some of the misc. nitpicks about this particular radio:
* Front keyer jack is electronic only, can not be changed for Straight Key. If you want that you'll have to use the rear jack.
* Memory frequencies allow setting an alphanumeric entry, but this seems to be relevant only when reading them into your PC. The rig will not display them. So it's mostly a useless feature.
* Power, Mic Gain, CW Keyer Speed, CW Pitch are small knobs located near the bottom of the radio. Not a huge dealbreaker, but makes it annoying to find them sometimes if you're operating with low lights.
* CW Keyer speed is not shown on the rig. You'll have to check it on RBN or a PC utility if you want it precise.
* CW Pitch has the same problem. The rig will not show the value. You can run it in a program like Speclab with audio out redirected to your line-in on the PC and fine tune it there.
* Scope is not real-time. There is a second delay or so while it scans. This used to bug me, but just press the TS button near the freq entry and you can scan around very quickly.
* No waterfall display. This is to be expected with a radio of this vintage. I just run audio-out to a splitter with an external speaker and also line-in to a dedicated laptop with Speclab.
* No 440mhz/70cm. Not a dealbreaker, but would probably be the ultimate rig for me if I could also easily hop to my favourite 440 repeaters from the same radio.
* Output power is more like 80-90 watts. This is apparently on purpose from the factory, and can be adjusted to the full 100 watts. But, that's a small gain and not worth the effort imo. Better just leave it be and run slightly cooler.
* Older serial number models may be sensitive to LCD backlight burnout. Especially if Brightness level (NOT contrast) is not left at 100%.
* Older serial number models may be sensitive to ESD for CI-V port and for TX.
Final thoughts:
This is a great radio. 100% duty cycle so you can put it through some serious contest abuse on digital modes. If you have an older model and want the upgrades performed on it check out N1EQ's website at https://www.n1eq.com/. If this thing had the same display as the 756PRO-III, 440/70cm operation, and one more bank of memory keyers this would be the perfect rig in my eyes. But, as it is, it's practically perfect and I see no reason to upgrade. |
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| G7MWH |
Rating: |
2016-10-16 | |
| comparisons |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| I have owned this radio in the guise of the IC7400 now for ? I've lost track its a fantastic radio, have just bought the IC7300 and done a side by side comparison, it does all that the IC7300 does, just mechanically, it resolves a signal just as well, transmits just as well, what it doesn't have is a Spectrum scope, now that does make tuning easier on the IC7300 but that doesn't make the IC7300 a better radio, if you run a spectrum scope on your computer you can see the signals, you just can't touch the screen on the radio and have it tune in for you.but you can on the computer with a control program. do i regret buying the IC7300? no I don't, will it replace the ic7400 no it will compliment it and run along side it. |
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