756 Pro III for SWL?

[SLJ2137694]

I am considering purchasing a high end receiver for Short Wave Listening. I am wondering if a 756 Pro III would fill the need. I may or may not persue a ham license but it would be handy that if I did get one, I would already have a very highly rated transciever in my posession. Any comments or recommendations? Thank You. Steven L Jones

[cpuerror]

Probably WAY overkill!

[gewecke]

The Icom 756 has a very nice receiver! If it's the one I remember tuning around on at a buddy's,then it was very selective in the international s.w. bands,which are the only use I have for h.f. I never transmitted on it though,since it doesn't cover uhf. Like you said,if you get your license then you would be all set!
Good luck with it!
N9ZAS.

[gewecke]

Originally Posted by cpuerror

Probably WAY overkill!

If you ever listened and tuned around on one,you might not think so!lol
N9ZAS.

[eorange]

Originally Posted by gewecke

If you ever listened and tuned around on one,you might not think so!lol
N9ZAS.

Agreed! Don't have one, but played with one quite a bit at the local AES. The filters in that radio are top notch (for isolating signals from the noise), and a few hams have told me great stories about theirs.

You won't go wrong with that radio, and if it inspires you to get your ham license, then all the better.

Erik
KA3FYU

[N4UMJ]

I think you will be pleased with the 756PROIII on SW performance. I have owned the 746PRO and 756PROII and the PROIII has by far the best sounding receive audio. The DSP is superior on the PROIII and I don't notice that digital sound in it as much as I did the 756PROII or 746PRO.

I notice you also own an R75 and putting those two side by side you will be impressed with the AM performance on the PROIII over the R75. The DSP processing of the AM signals really hold up well under fades. I won't say the 756PROIII will outperform a mod'ed R75 with SYNC AM but it's very close.

The fidelity seems much better in the PROIII on the low end audio frequency response. I'm not sure if they designed it that way on purpose for the HI FI SSB'ers but it's really a good performer there. I can listen to Nashville WSM or any of the AM'ers on 75 meters and they are very solid and clear.

I owned an R8500 in the past as well and the 756PROIII HF performance is way ahead of it. For my ears the R8500 SSB was a tad on the fuzzy side but the SSB on the 756PROIII is very smooth and clear.

One thing I use is a good size 4" speaker (Optimus) and it really sounds good with the 756PROIII.

The 756PROIII scope is sort of a novelty for me and if I was a dx hunter it would rank higher but that's a neat feature to use when band scanning.

Good Luck on the Ham License!

Ed

[k6bsr]

I highly recommend the Yaesu FT-450. It is inexpensive($650.00)has a ton of memory channels,computer controllable, has great DSP and is pretty small. I love mine and I had the 756PRO(not the 3) before it. I prefer the Yaesu....

[k4njk]

The Icom 756 Pro III is an excellent radio and makes a great SWL receiver. I'm sure you'd be pleased with its performance. Twos area that might be problematic for SWL are: 1) I believe signals below 1.8Mhz are attenuated to prevent overload from AM broadcast stations, 2) no syncronous detection on AM (a real nice feature to have).