| KB4YHO |
Rating:  |
2015-12-18 | |
| Hard to beat |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| Built like a tank. Much improved receiver and DSP chipset than the now dated ProIII. Fantastic auto notch too, goes real deep without a lot of distortion. Same with the NR, way better than pervious generations. This is mostly due to the more up to date DSP chipset performance. Build quality and performance remind me of my IC765. These DSP rigs can have a fatiguing audio that many don't like but the 7410 has a definite analog type sound to the demodulated audio that again brings me back to the old IC765 performance. Also is one of the best SWL receivers I've used. Purchased durning Thanksgiving sale for $1279.00 at the local ham radio shop. Money left over for all the roofing filters and to add the SDR interface. Now have a 42" fish finder using HDSDR in concert with HRD to control the rig. Interfaced using just a single USB cable to my home computer/network I can remote in and use my ham station. Total cost was under $1500. Will put this setup against any modern day DSP base transceiver. Would buy again and highly recommend as a great SDR platform. |
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| REMOVED_DG1UN |
Rating: |
2015-10-11 | |
| Great Radio after 1 year, would buy again |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Very nice radio after 1 year. Would it buy again for this money. Well, you get many knobs for your money and it is a pleasure to use this TRX.
Tuner operates well with my vertical antenna.
USB-Interface operates well with Fldigi, but mostly i work in CW because i like to talk with my fingers not to use a computer.
The 3kHz filter is installed, but i think it is not necessary for CW, OK, it is not so expensive. The twin passband tunig works verry well.
Give 5.0 because this TRX is the best you can buy if you do not wont to spend all your money for transceivers. You dont need more functions or a waterfall display and so on.
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| VK5SA |
Rating: |
2015-07-08 | |
| Great bit of kit |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
I have had mine for a couple of years, and bought it after using a colleague's 7600 for a couple of weeks, and balancing the features that I would lose against the money I would save.
It's as good for my purposes as the 7600, but the 7600's band scope was nice.
However, the 7410's USB port gives you the chance to have a better band scope than the 7600.
A $10 DVB-T dongle, a bit of coax, HRD and HDSDR gives you a 2MHz wide panadapter display.
See a signal come up on your PC screen, click on it with your mouse and you're there!
No buffer, no amplifier, nothing else needed.
Just do a Web search on it, and you will see heaps of videos describing the process. |
|
| WA4NUN |
Rating: |
2015-04-19 | |
| Great Radio after almost 4 years would buy again |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
Hard to believe that I have been running this radio now for nearly four years. Being able to hands on operate my final list at a local HRO helped greatly in making my decision to purchase it at 2011 hamfest prices, which today would be somewhat high, but I have had many hours of QSO's that would not have been possible with the old 718's lack of true IF DSP, in addition to the lower noise floor. The large display, lack of deep menus except for serious fine tune adjustments, and hefty case heat sink made this radio my ideal upgrade. I still look at adding a solid state amp and Icom offered a new board fix for the overshoot issue. When it came back from Icom, the ALC was irregular and surging and causing vocal distortion. Resets did not help. Icom was willing to take the radio in again, but I decided to just pick it apart by the book, and found many of the original defaults had changed and within a couple of days of limited operating time, and had the ALC running smooth; all is good and has stayed that way since.
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Earlier 4-star review posted by WA4NUN on 2012-05-21
Fast break CW limited to about 10WPM. Amps are limited to those which will tolerate ALC overshoot spikes. Research from many smarter than myself point to these items as being a hardware fix and not a firmware fix. I knew about the spikes prior to purchase, but I do not do amps, so it was not an issue with me, same with fast break CW. Outside of these two major design flaws, it is a great radio. The filtering is great, the NB is great, the NR is great, the DSP and Twin passband tuning is great. It puts out great audio, and the receive audio is very pleasant and easy on the ears. If Icom would address a couple of design flaws, there is no doubt they could easily control both the budget and mid price market in ham radio gear. |
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| AB3CN |
Rating: |
2015-04-19 | |
| A year later - FB |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| Purchased mine last April from HRO and used primarily for digital modes, SWL, and BCB DX. In digital modes the PBT is my favorite feature especially when an adjacent station is transmitting close by. Quick and easy to squash out the screaming signal with the twist of a knob. Fldigi works like a charm with just the one ordinary run-of-the-mill non-proprietary A-to-B USB cable between radio and PC. No signalink interface needed like I use with my IC-7000. With the 7410's good ears, found out I needed to install 8 snap-on ferrite cores on my washing machine's AC cord...due to the 7410 RX sensitivity. That is a compliment to the 7410. I like the build quality of this radio. Had no difficulty installing the 3K roofing filter other than the chassis cover screws being driven in so darn tight. I also own/use/enjoy the IC-7000 and IC-7100 and recommend the 7410 for shack use due to it's size and weight. 73's to all. |
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| ZL1JOS |
Rating: |
2015-03-15 | |
| It has an internal fuse too |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
I wrote a previous review where I the USB cable interface did not work over around a meter, and that I was building an alternate interface using RS232 and a USB sound card.
Anyway, as part of isolation and VOX I needed a 5v supply on the radio side of the optocouplers and audio transformers. I used an 7805 regulator driven from the radios ACC port. Everything was fine, until I turned the radio on and nothing happened.
It turns out my 7805 had gone faulty, and was drawing WAYYYY too much current, and it had blown a 5A fuse inside the radio ( circuit fuse ). For a moment there I thought it was a warranty job, but replacing 5A fuse ( which is a normal automtovie 'mini' blade one ) brought the radio back to life too. In the process, I discovered the radio has a very large heatsink.
I have to wonder if all radios have such protection?
Anyway I am well pleased it does :)
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Earlier 4-star review posted by ZL1JOS on 2015-01-13
I have owned one from new for about a week or two.
The only problem I have had is with the USB cable control. I bought a 5m long USB A to B cable so I could have my laptop situated away from the radio if need be. At first I thought it must be some kind of proprietary USB cable required, as every time I plugged the cable in, I came up with 'Usb device has failed' kind of errors.
After a bit of googling, And reading the driver install manual, I found out that the USB cable needed to be as short as possible. Well.. ok. So I cut the 5m cable, and made it about 50cm, which fixed the problem.
However, that was a test case, and I wanted to have around a meter long so I could position the laptop and the radio where I wanted it. Nope, too long. At first it appeared to work ok at one meter. However, after failing to decode JT-65 signals, and after looking at the waterfall and noticing that all the JT-65 signals looked as if they were over modulated, I decided to listen to the input ( Select Listen to this device on the Recording Devices in windows ). What I heard was a very patchy pulsed audio.
So, my current setup is using an interface I made for my IC-745 ( which the IC-7410 replaced ), I take the audio from the ACC port, and input into the microphone socket.
However I want to try out a USB hub coupled with a very short USB A-B cable going to the radio. I am wondering if the line levels in the USB line are too low or something, and that a USB hub would sort that out. If not, I will make up a new computer interface, working entirely off of the rear ACC plug, and also a USB-RS232 based CI-V adaptor.
I also noted that the USB cable introduced some noise at the lower bands.
As for the rest of the radio, it is awesome. This is my first new HF rig, and I need to do a proper A/B comparison with my IC-745. However, one thing is clear, the filtering and such on this radio is awesome. I am just learning CW, and decided to listen to some. It sounds good with the default filters, but narrowing a signal down to 250hz or less is impressive. And then just to top it off, applying the noise reduction makes it even better ( even if there is no real noise anyway ). And then, put on some headphones, and it sounds super good, very nice to listen to.
One thing I noticed though is the noise blanker does not seem to work well for the USB induced noise I described earlier, however the notch filter ( manual ) did with ease.
The internal ATU seems to be pretty quick, and quiet. I have a 40m dipole, and despite it being a 3:1 ATU, it somehow tunes up on 80m, 40m, 20m, 17m, 15m, 12m, 10m, and 6m.
The RF Gain / Squelch knob was a bit werid at first, it seems RF gain is at 100% when in the 12 oclock position, and after that it applies squelch ( behaviour adjustable in menus ). This can make a difference when changing between SSB / CW and FM / AM.
I have not really used it much, but the band scope gizmo seems to work ok, and is quite quick.
I still have not explored every part of this radio, but so far I am pleased. The only thing I am not happy with is the USB cable situation. I am not sure if that's a USB specific thing, if its an ICOM thing, or what the story there is.
I will surely do more testing and playing around, and if I find out anything new I shall post an update.
4/5 because of USB cable issue only. |
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| VK3LBT |
Rating: |
2015-03-07 | |
| Impressed |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
Bought this radio new from a local dealer in Melbourne at a very good price, I already own and Elecraft K3 and have previously owned the IC746 Pro which I didnt think a great deal of.
This radio is impressive as the RX band width filtering, Noise Reduction and IF shift when configured just right work very well together and will generally clean up the floor noise and give a good clean RXd signal.
The wide/medium/narrow transmitted audio filtering is exceptionally good and as I use a Heil GM5 Goldline Microphone I set the filtering on "wide" with 100 - 2500 Hz setting and a slight amount of compression which gives just enough bottom end with a broadcast mellow tone to the audio.
I have used this radio on 40m AM with great reports it is a good performer and certainly at this time I will be holding on to it.
Just wish that it had real time scope coverage as the setup in this is similar to the 746 Pro but nevertheless still a good mid range radio.
All the Best
Barry VK3LBT |
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| N0YXE |
Rating: |
2015-02-09 | |
| BEYOND SURPERB |
Time Owned: 3 to 6 months. |
| I have had many different brands of ham gear, but when it comes to sinking down hard earned bucks on HF gear, I would be hesitant to not purchase ICOM. The 7410 is my second major rig for a different room of the house. My IC 756 Pro III is still churning out HF frequencies and I will keep it till the cows roost, the HOA finds my secret antennas, or the messiah recalls all rigs. For 1,500 bucks it is actually a bargain for what it is and how it compares with other systems on the market. While the menu is EASY to work with, I have found that most of the "default" items are nearly perfect. The first impression you get is the great sound and sensitivity. I don't know how Icom could have improved on their DSP and other systems. They all work great. My Pro III is getting lonely, but they make a great pair and having them under one roof is a blessing. I hope you enjoy your IC 7410. Tell John Thompson at HRO Colorado (1-800-444-9476) that Terry, N0YXE, sent you in. |
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| W5BGP |
Rating: |
2015-01-06 | |
| It has just about everything |
Time Owned: more than 12 months. |
| This rig replaced my old Icom 735. I fgured it was time to enjoy some of the new bells and whistles. I have been pleasantly surprised at the capability of this rig both from a receiving and transmitting point of view. I hear stations that I never heard before and I love the fact that I can turn the power down to 2 watts and work QRP with great success. The keyer is fool proof. I also like being able to plug in a straight key in the back for SKCC and have both available at the same time. The fact that each band has three memory frequencies is ideal. I use one for CW, one for PSK and one for the SSB portion of each band. No spinning the dial required. Keep the manual handy as you will find new things about the rig that you have not discovered. |
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| K5UOS |
Rating: |
2014-12-25 | |
| First purchase of commercial transceiver |
Time Owned: 0 to 3 months. |
The IC-7410 is my first commercial transceiver in almost 30 years as an amateur operator. Purchased about 4 weeks ago. The manual was pretty easy to understand and I set the rig up pretty much to my liking within a few days. I have never had AGC, noise blanker, variable bandwidth tuning or optional filters. These features in the 7410 are very easy to use and are essential on 80M. I bought the rig for reliability checking in to our local QCWA 63 net. The noise reduction (NR) feature is particularly useful for removing noise. It is often the difference between copy and no copy.
I honestly don’t have any experience with other transceivers except a TS-830S hybrid I repaired for a friend and eventually kept in a trade. I have used it occasionally.
With that said I am pleased with my first new purchase experience. I wish I could have tried the TS-590SG. I have gotten spoiled by the filters in the 7410 even though I don’t have the FL-430/431 installed. The TS-590SG does have them installed. The internal tuner is nice to have with my 80M antenna.
The only issue I have is the difficulty I have in reading the buttons and knobs. I can see the issues in backlighting them but that would have been a reasonable improvement.
The IC-7410 is a fine transceiver for a first transceiver. The manual is well written and I didn’t have any problems setting the rig up.
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