There's a market for everything, as has been adequately pointed out. That's the difference between Luxury Items and Consumer Goods. Their owners LIKE them, and that's ALL that matters. But so are Porsche 911 GT3's but that's not stopped the market in its tracks. That's not a description of me at all, but I think a 7800 will still look fantastic in the middle of the desk. I know, the care factor up there in the Untied States is probably less than S1 on the 'give-a-toss-O-meter', but I finally found an Aussie supplier of the controversial IC7800.Īt a mere AUD$15,995 on special ($1500 off!) it's sure to find a home with those who think a pair of IC756's (or FT1000's, etc) just aren't doing the best job of weighing the shack's bench down to the floor. If that desn't work, soon the rig will 'die on the vine' and be available as 'special order only' Go into a RadioShack, without gaffawing too loudly, and ask about thier Amateur gear.no buy-e, no sell-e, it's all economics-simple (some will spend the KiloBucks to have the NEXT BEST THING, others will drool over the store displays, still others will wait till the spring/christmas/father's day/whatever/ sale comes around and then buy.with out the wife attending, of course. Hooray for ICOM and Yaesu, TenTec-please look at the competition and add color TFT screens to your TOL Orion for 3K$, please.īottom line - Economics 101 - If no one buys at 10 kilo bucks, then they try sale/add ons/free stuff to sweeten the shock. We need to get the FCC to remember that THEY work for US, the citizens of the USA, not as the strong arm of the PAC electric companies trying to foist this smokscreen of BPL as a revenue source to fix thier decrepid power distribution system. The real issue every HAM and Egg out there should be concerned about is Ham band erosion and the real threat of BPL. As they push the technology advancement forward, the lesser radios in the line will incorporate some of the goodies (look at Caddillac.now Chevy's have antilock brakes (not so only a few years ago). They didn't intend to make 3 a year of these rigs and be glad to have 'face' bragging rights. it shows that (for ICOM and YAESU at least) Japan believes there is a market for these radios. No they are not kidding-mucho yen went into market research and consumer demand questionaires-and the market said "i want bigger-not smaller-radios of yore, like the FT-1000D and the 781 with all those nice knobs that did something, please applaud both ICOM an YAESU for developing and producing radios that up the technology benchmark to very high levels.
Many contacts were lost because of that and I now use my 756PRO with Digipan (the PRO also has terrible RTTY tuning).Īs I mentioned in an earlier post, the ICOM makes an excellent IF rig for transverters (only requires -20 Db input) and being able to monitor activity with the spectrum scope is like having a $10,000 piece of test gear.Īm waiting for the Yaesu rig that is supposed to outdo the ICOM, AL The only reason I returned the rig was because of very poor PSK31 reception since the receiver had to be exactly in the right spot to receive PSK unlike my Digipan which will lock onto a signal once getting close. I must admit that the 7800 is the ultimate rig especially with dual receivers and just like my 756 PRO being able to create filters for my needs. Help was needed to load it in my pickup truck and also after returning home (it weighs 70 pounds) I needed help from a neighbor. I bought an ICOM 7800 last fall (2004) from HRO and before the purchase I was assured I could return it if not pleased within 30 days and to maintain the packing box, rig etc in perfect condition.
I did only one of the mods that involves a jumper from C1509 to ground, because the other mod that involves a 10uF capacitor is reported to cause modulation issues on FM and AM. There are two published mods that are possible on this radio. Of course, there is no need to overdrive any linear amplifier, however Icom engineers have probably overdone it a bit on the conservative side on this radio (?). This causes the output power to not go above approx 75-80W (PEP) as measured on my LPA-100 wattmeter in PEP mode with 14,5V DC input. This radio is known for a very conservative approach to internal ALC on the power output. I recently bought a second hand Icom IC-7100 HF radio for a reasonable price.