The Icom IC-705! HF-UHF SDR Radio - An initial review

[haydenph]

A truly exciting announcement from Icom at the Toyko Hamfair 2019!! The new Icom IC-705 was a topic of discussion and review at a recent experimenters night at our local ham radio club.

Rex VK7MO, Justin VK7TW and Hayden VK7HH gave their thoughts on what this new Icom IC-705 radio can mean for the QRP, microwave or SOTA operators. Some features like a large touchscreen just like the IC-7300 or IC-9700 will appeal to users who already own one or both of these radios.

[awallin]

I wish these ham rigs would have full I/Q input and output, via USB or Ethernet, just like the USRP SDRs, and compatibility with common SDR-software (e.g. gnu-radio).

how hard can that be...

[djacobow]

I suspect these manufacturers see it as a turf thing. Giving I/Q output (and heck, why not I/Q input for tx, too) means their rigs become front ends and half the radio (and associated value) ends up in your computer.

Long term, they can't win this battle.

Related thing in HTs, where no major will put in DMR even though they could do do for, umm, nothing.

[borjam]

At least the Icom IC-7300 can be configured to send I+Q via USB. The bandwidth will be small, though.

[Lord of nothing]

Well for most European who life in an Apartment the should make a "Black Box" without any Physical Input and with an USB and Ethernet Port to put them under the Roof and use it via the Ethernet only.