A little over three years ago, I got a pretty good on a Flex 6400. So, although I’ve been an Icom guy since the 1980s, I bought the Flex and sold my IC-7300.
The Flex is a great radio, but after three years, I got a hankering for a radio with real buttons and knobs. The obvious choice for me was the IC-7610. I’d been thinking of getting one for more than a year now, but got serious about looking for one about three weeks ago.
My first stop was QRZ.Com Swapmeet. I had really only intended to see how much used IC-7610s were going for, but found someone selling one for $2,300. I noted that there were a couple of guys already interested in purchasing it, but I emailed the seller and told him that if neither of them came through with the cash, that I’d buy it from him.
A day or two later, he emailed back saying that both of them decided not to buy it after all, and if I still wanted it that it was mine. I sent him a cashier’s check for $2,378 (shipping was $78), and about a week and a half ago, it was delivered to my door.
Honestly, I was a little concerned about buying it sight unseen. Yes, there were pictures on QRZ.Com, and it did look like a well cared for radio, but unless you can play with it, you don’t really know if there are any problems or not. I was relieved that when I took everything out of the box (which, by the way, was the original packaging) that everything looked to be in mint condition. There wasn’t a single scratch on the radio.
The next day, I crimped some PowerPoles onto the power cable, disconnected the Flex, and installed the IC-7610 on my operating desk. I had to either make or find the proper cables to connect the headphones and key to the rig (the Flex used 1/8-in. phone jacks while the IC-7610 still uses 1/4-in. phone jacks for these two connectors), but once I got those in place, I was ready to roll.
So, here are some first impressions:
- I love being able to use my Motorola speaker again. I wasn’t able to use it with the Flex because the Flex requires an amplified speaker. I chose some amplified PC speakers based on recommendations on the Flex mailing list, but I was never happy with the sound. They’re probably great PC speakers, but for ham radio, especially CW, the Motorola speaker is much better. It has a nice, crisp sound.
- The IC-7610 receiver is definitely quieter than the Flex receiver. I noticed that when I changed from the IC-7300 to the Flex, too. Of course, that may mean it’s more sensitive. I don’t really have the equipment to test that out.
- The Flex bandscope is a lot more flexible than the IC-7610 bandscope. The IC-7610 bandscope has only a select number of spans, while the Flex bandscope span is continuously variable. I really like that feature. On the computer monitor, the display is larger, too. You can hook up a bigger monitor to the IC-7610, but I haven’t tried that yet.
- With the Flex, you can display all of the meters in one window, while the bandscope is in another. The IC-7610 crams all this information into a smaller screen, meaning that you can’t see it all at the same time.
- The Flex has a separate setting for output power when tuning, while the IC-7610 does not. So, if you want to reduce the output power when using the IC-7610, you have turn it down, tune, then turn it back up.
- The Flex has separate outputs for the speaker and the headphones, and you can turn them on or mute them separately. This is nice if you switch often between headphones and speaker, as you don’t have to keep plugging and unplugging the headphones. You can also use the headphones while a visitor in the shack is listening to the speaker.
- The effort to set up the radios with third-party software, such as N1MM contest logging software, is pretty much a wash. I did have to install the Icom USB drivers, but that wasn’t a big problem.
- The SWR meters read differently on the two radios. I’m not really sure why. I should have connected an external meter and compared readings before I disconnected the Flex.
Overall, these are two great radios, but they do offer two distinct operating experiences. I think that as we move forward, it’s the user experience that is really going to differentiate products. They’re all going to offer great performance, so it’s the ergonomics that’s going to become important.
Dave New, N8SBE says
Nice summary of your ‘cares’. I share a number of them, myself. Here is my summary of my Elecraft K3s, numbered the same as your list:
1. I used what was supposed to be ham speakers, the West Mountain Radio shielded/powered speakers for some time, but when I came a across a good deal to get the Elecraft SP3’s, I tried them out. They are not powered, but are pretty sensitive, and have an amazing sound for ham radio use. I agree that speakers designed for communication use are superb for that use.
2. Email lists are full of folks complaining that certain radios are ‘noisy’ or claiming that others are very quiet (but still sensitive). My opinion is that it all comes down to judicious use of the preamplifier and/or attenuation settings, and in particular, the way the receiver AGC behaves (and whether or not the user can even change it’s behavior, beyond ‘slow’, ‘medium’ or ‘fast’). Many folks complain that ELecraft K3s (and before that, the Elecraft k3) are ‘noisy’, but it turns out that the receiver is very sensitive, and one of the first things is to use attenuation on the lower bands, in particular, 40M (10 dB), 80M (15 dB), and 160M (15 dB). I only use the preamplifier on 15M and above. Also, it’s a good habit to have the RF gain turned down slightly on the K3/K3s Finally, the AGC behavior can be ‘tuned to taste’, following instructions that have been posted on Don, W3FPR’s site at http://www.w3fpr.com/. Using these measures can make a ‘noisy’ K3/K3s behave much better, and puts the lie to the idea that some modern receivers are just plain ‘noisy’. It’s usually the default way the AGC is set up at the factory.
3. I really like the Elecraft P3 panoramic/waterfall display. It has plenty of controls for bandwidth, sensitivity, etc. and with the SVGA adapter, it drives an external display. I currently have a 17″ 1280×1024 LCD display, which gives a 2-minute waterfall vs. the 30-second waterfall on the built-in display on the P3.
4. The P3 display can be set for panoramic/waterfall only, or you can add the output from the digital mode/CW decoder along the bottom, and by adding the TXMON option, you can see your transmit envelope during transmit on the top of the internal screen, along with power output and SWR along the bottom of the internal screen.
5, The K3/K3s has a ‘tune power’ setting so you can tune at low power, and it also integrates with the KPA500 or KPA1500 amplifier, by reducing the K3/K3s output power when the amplifier is set to ‘operate’ mode. Typical drive power is about 20 watts on must bands to drive my KPA500 to full power. When the amplifier is set back to ‘standby’, the K3/K3s then resumes it’s ‘normal’ power, usually 100W if you have the 100W module installed (K3/K3s could be ordered as a 10W radio, but most ones I’ve encountered have the optional 100W module installed).
6. One feature I really like on my K3/K3s is that the speaker and headphone outputs are managed separately, such that I can have both the speakers and headphones running simultaneously. I agree that it is a very desirable feature.
7. The K3 had a serial port and line-level audio in/out jacks (with separate level controls for each). Using the KUSB USB-to-serial adapter from Elecraft made the setup simple and quick. The audio isolation transformers were built-in, so no external interface was required. The K3s now has a USB port with an audio CODEC and CAT control,, make setup even easier and eliminates the USB-to-serial adapter, and the two audio cables that were needed for the K3. The USB chipset was standard FTDI, so no special drivers were required, either.
8. “Give a man an SWR meter, and he’ll know what his SWR is. Give a man two (or more) SWR meters, and he’ll never know what his SWR is.” That saying can be used with a number of different measuring devices, e.g. power meters, clocks/watches, voltmeters, etc. This goes even more so for power meters. Unless you are looking at a nominal 50 ohms resistive load, the power shown can go all over the place. SWR meters in my experience, are particularly sensitive to ‘RF in the shack’ or RF currents running on the outside of the equipment cabinet, or the coax shield. If you can place you hand on the SWR meter housing, transmitter cabinet or coax, and see the SWR change you have a common-mode RF current problem.