I met a couple of ham friends for lunch today, and afterwards, we headed over to one guy’s house to take a look at his new ICOM IC-7610 (below).
Of course, I immediately started comparing it to my IC-7300. Perhaps the biggest difference is that it has two independent receivers, whereas the IC-7300 has only one. Mention of this prompted one of the guys to say, “Do you really need a second receiver? Is it really worth the extra expense?”
Having used an IC-756PROIII for a while, I immediately thought of being able to simultaneously monitor the frequency of a DX station and the pileup simultaneously. Another use that came to mind was monitoring propagation on 10 m or 6 m, while simultaneously operating 40 m or 20 m. A third thing that we came up with was monitoring WWV or listening to a broadcast station while operating.
If you have a transceiver with two receivers, I’d like you to pipe in here:
- How do you use the second receiver in your rig?
- How often do you use it?
- Do you feel it was worth the extra cost?
Dave New says
I use the 2nd receiver in my K3S all the time to monitor pileup frequencies when working DX operating split. Also, because the receivers are phase-locked to the same local oscillator, I can operate in diversity mode, with one horizontal directional antenna, and one vertical omnidirectional. On the other hand, because of the way they share certain other common signal paths, you can’t use it to monitor 6m, for example, while operating on other bands.
In my case, my antenna setup wouldn’t support it anyway, because my 6m antenna is part of my 6-band quad, which is fed with a single coax through a remote antenna switch at the quad end.
Rory-N6OIL says
Well I’m a Flex owner and I have a 6500, I can fire up 4 receivers and I have had 4 instances of JT8 running at once, of course, I can’t transmit at the same time but I can pick any slice I want and make contacts with a click of the mouse. I’ve also done SO2R RTTY which is really nice with N1MM+
Stefano says
For contesting purposes: in band S&P while keeping a running frequency. Or, for us Europeans, running iso and split to work US on low bands :) Basically SO2V
Laird Wilcox says
I just came across this site. It looks pretty interesting and I’m glad you’ve taken the effort to put it up. I will probably be a frequent visitor. Thanks
Laird Wilcox, KB0RDL
Rob says
For a long while I used the A receiver for voice and left B on the PSK-31 watering holes. It was easy to switch quickly, and more convenient than using the memory settings on my old FT-450D. But I’ve moved on to other radios, and barely use the B receivers there these days. Occasionally, occasionally will work splits.
ON4FQR says
Hi all :-)
I use diversity of reception with a SDR on low band:
With:
2 different antenna (magnetic/voltage)
Or 2 identical antenna allowing electronic shifting pattern
for:
noise cancellation
Beaming pattern
diversity of space (480m of distance)
diversity of polarization
diversity of mode and filtering
Reception of mutiple band up to the whole HF spectrum
…
John says
For my purposes a second receiver is essential. I love dxing and I will always remember the first time I used two receivers in a pileup. By listening to the DX station in my left ear and the pileup in my right, it was a different experience. My QSO rate improved in pileups immediately.
I sold an IC-7600 and a Yaesu FTdx3000 to buy my used FTdx5000 which has two receivers. Now I will only consider rigs with two receivers should I replace my 5000.
John S. Allen, AA1EP says
Here’s a thought: both (phase-locked) receivers tuned to the same frequency, crossed dipole antennas at 90 degrees to one another, and stereo headphones, to make it easier to pick a weak signal out of the noise and QRM,