eHam reviews of the IC-705

The last time I looked there were just 2 reviews, whereas today there are 6 reviews. All are 5 stars, meaning the owners love them. Apart from the price, which is far too high, it has a very good feature set and coverage.

I wonder if anyone has widebanded it for 472kHz yet? There are several mods for the IC-706.

See https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=14776

eHam reviews of the IC-705

When looking to buy new rigs (not very often!) I tend to check out the eHam reviews. Now, people who write reviews tend to be very anti and give low ratings (probably because of a bad experience) or very pro. It is less common to see reviews written by "middle of the road" people. 

I was surprised to read only 3 reviews of the IC-705. By now, I was expecting to read many more. These 3 are all very positive.

As examples see all the reviews for Elecraft K3 and the IC-7300. There are loads.

See https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=14776

eHam.net

This site is very useful, especially if you are after a review. Seeing how others got on with a piece of kit can be very informative.

See https://www.eham.net/

New HF antenna

In my quest for a new higher HF antenna, my attention has been drawn to the Solarcon Imax 2000, which was designed as a CB 5/8ths wave vertical, but works well on many of the higher HF bands even without an auto-ATU. It seems to be well made, if tall. Some have painted the fibre glass to better hide it when erected.

As mentioned before, whatever antenna I eventually choose, I shall need help with erection. Although someone some way away has already kindly offered, it would be great to get help from someone more local. A few years ago this would have been trivial for me, but sadly not now. I feel embarrassed to ask for help!

See https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=1376

eHam

Whenever I think of buying something (OK, not often!) I check the reviews on this site.

It is a good idea to ignore the very bad and very good reviews and look to see what most people think. Often very bad reviews are written by someone with a very bad experience. Likewise very good reviews are sometimes written for the wrong reasons. If there are pages of reviews and most of these are good, it is a fairly safe bet that most users are happy.

In the end it comes down to personal tastes though.

See https://www.eham.net/

eHam.net

This website often has some good reviews and much else as well. If you are looking to buy something, it is worth checking this site first. If people have a very bad experience they tend to say so, but many reviews are balanced and fair.

See https://www.eham.net/

ICOM IC7300 reviews

There are now 10 pages of reviews (93 reviews) of the new ICOM transceiver on eHam.net. Most reviews are 5/5 which is very good. Just a few have had a few niggles so scored it lower. When the price drops, I shall probably invest in one. I am sure the price will fall later in the year, although at the moment they are creaming off sales at silly prices from early adopters.

See http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/12742 .

ICOM IC7300 first reviews

Steve G1KQH has brought to my attention the first reviews on eHam of the IC7300.

Because of the wide front end filters, some have reported front-end overload issues. Software/firmware updates will not fix this as it is an inherent issue with wide front-end filters: nearby BC or amateur stations can swamp the front end and the rig sensitivity nosedives. As long as the overload does not occur it is a fine rig. I can see no good reason why this rig should be any worse than others that use sub-octave filters rather than narrow bandpass filters for each amateur band. Such designs are common nowadays in front ends.

I think sensitivity starts to collapse if the rig sees more than 70mV in the front end. If you have a nearby 1kW station operating in the same band, you could have problems. You might also have problems with multiple very strong BC band stations.

Although without 2m and 70cms, the European version does have 4m, which is good. I still just prefer the IC7300 to the Yaesu FT991. The price needs to drop though!

Eham reviews point to an overload in the front end:

http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/12742

73 Steve
http://www.g1kqh.talktalk.net/

eHam.net QRP reviews

Whenever looking to purchase a new radio or kit, I visit the reviews section at www.eham.net to read what others have to say about their purchases. Occasionally the review average scores are skewed by one bad experience (when the usual score is 1 out of a possible 5 maximum), but overall a good impression can be gathered. For example, the Rockmite scores 4.9 out of 5 with 76 reviews, which is impressive.

Reviews of QRP radios can be found at http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/22 .