I'm going to have my shack re-done in raised walnut paneling, custom Italian flooring and a new multi-level walnut executive desk with gold and ivory inlays. Nothing but the best for my beautiful, brand new IC-7610. And, almost forgot, a wine cooler for the Dom Perignon. Might even run coax into the shack too.
After watching, I would say if you are used to the 7300, you will feel right at home with the 7610. I do like the sd card and recording feature of the 7300. Being able to work with friend and easily email him the audio of his transmission and let them hear for themselves how they sound is a great feature. Sounds like they have expanded on those features. If my 7300 wasn't just 5 months old (and I had mo money) I would have to look real hard at a 7610. I do like the size and weight of the 7300 though. Being able to put it in your pocket on a whim and hook it to the trolling motor battery on the boat and go maritime mobile is a lot of fun. It will be interesting to watch the SDR path develop at ICOM.
Thanks for the review. I thought it was great that you got right to it and moved along very quickly so I didn't even notice the "ums". Some reviews put me to SLEEP!! I am keeping my 7600 nonetheless....For now anyway...
It looks like Icom took a page from aviation and moved many of the 7600's least-used buttons to menus to free up screen space, which is good. One thing I did not see was a way to rapidly change the operating mode (CW/SSB/etc), though. I'm not sure what use the screen capture on the spectrum display is, though. For me it would gave been more useful if the radio would just jump to the frequency you touched. The 7600 does that now with the external mouse. Things I wish were in the 7600 are and hopefully will be or get into the 7610 are: 1. A setting for hams to select their license classification and the radio automatically sets transmit limiters so you can't accidentally transmit out of band. I programmed that on the 7600 tediously but the red TX light just dims a bit when moving out of my privilege range. 2. Change the operating mode depending on the frequency. Still have a manual override capability but switch to CW in the CW section and SSB in the SSB section. 3. A noise blanker that does better on the newer pulse interference from LED lights and other electronics. The one on the 7600 does a very good job on most of them, like my plasma TV, but others it just won't touch. You can see on the spectrum display that it is pulsed noise but the noise blanker can't fix it. I've got something from 2 MHz to 3.8 Mhz that generates S7 or higher noise. Oddly, it drops off fats above 3.8 MHz. 4. When not in general coverage mode, the radio stops changing frequency at the band edges. 5. Since the 60 meter band is channelized, only allow those frequencies to be displayed and lock out the transmitter if you're not on one of those channels. Too bad it's so much pricier than the 7600. I'm not seeing much in the way of true added value. On the good news side, the 7600 has radically dropped in price on closeouts and used. I've seen them as low as $1,500 used which is a fantastic price compared to new radios offered at that price range.
KY5U - good point. But if someone jumps in on me and tries to change the subject, I interrupt them right back and say "Excuse me, I was talking." I will admit that my SSB QSO's are few and far between, but at work and in daily life the interruption is rude and should not be tolerated, lest it encourage further bad behavior by the interrupting source. My 2 cents.
If you stop talking and make no sound, how are they to know you aren't done? That's the thing - my ex used to accuse me of interrupting, but really she'd just stop talking and, to me or someone like me, that means "it's now your turn." I may have been the only man in America to complain his wife didn't talk enough, and vice versa but that's the way it was.
The answer to this is they were not listening to what you were saying, but only waiting for the moment to take command of the air. Ha, Ha! I am on your side and hate the idioms. I don't think they can be controlled completely by anyone not trained in public speaking. Nice radio Fred, set it up in the camper. JIM
