Icom R-8600 / Niggles

[MStep]

A "niggle" is generally defined as:

a) a trifle
b) to find fault constantly in a petty way
c) to spend too much effort on minor details

With that in mind, let me say that after having an R8600 in my possession now for several weeks, it is an absolutely amazing piece of radio gear. Icom really hit a "home run" with this radio, and they seem to be on a roll, with this receiver and the 7300 and 7610 transceivers.

Of course, this is not a perfect world, and indeed, no unit is ever perfect. The 8600 comes pretty close, and hopefully others will contribute to this thread with their minor annoyances in the hope the Icom will improve on future products.

We all know what some of the "big" issues are, such as lack of DMR and Fusion. Let's keep this thread about the little nagging, " BS" type annoyances.

With that in mind, let me present:

Mike's Icom R8600 Niggle # 1

Why no backlit buttons? C'mon guys, I don't always operate my shack in bright light, and I'm sure that there are a few us who might also use the 8600 in the mobile. OK, very few of us. It would be nice to have those operational buttons on the front panel backit, for work in darkened environments.

It appears that Icom has not incorporated backlit buttons into either of those other aforementioned radios, the 7300 and the 7610.

A perfect example of the backlighting which is so helpful can be found on the Yaesu 991/991A transceivers. It's a pleasure to operate those transceivers without having to squint or use a flashlight to see the keys/buttons.

Like a said- in the "big picture", this is just a minor annoyance. And that's one of the ideas that I would hope to have others contribute in this thread.

As I play with the radio some more, I'm sure other minor items will pop up. But I certainly agree with most, that this is likely the best overall wide-band receiver ever made available to the general public.

 

[N9PBD]

I agree, I had an IC-7300, and have an IC-7610, and the lack of backlit buttons is a pain in the butt. Like you, I sometimes like to have a dark shack, and I don't like having to turn on a lamp just to see the front panel buttons on my radio.

 

[fibrofog]

From N9EWO Review :The "P.LOCK" button disables the front panel controls including the tuning knob (white LED when activated). Even better is if you hold this button down for 1 second it will turn off (toggle) the backlight. Very useful if you walk away from the set / room for awhile (without having to power it off).

 

[MStep]

Yes, that's a handy control for getting some of the radio's functions to lock down and the main screen to shut off without turning the radio's power off. But in no way related to the lack of backlit buttons during operation.

From N9EWO Review :The "P.LOCK" button disables the front panel controls including the tuning knob (white LED when activated). Even better is if you hold this button down for 1 second it will turn off (toggle) the backlight. Very useful if you walk away from the set / room for awhile (without having to power it off).

 

[ridgescan]

Well the thought never occurred to me till you mentioned it. Even my little ol' BC785D scanner from 2004 has backlit buttons as well as lit rings for the control knobs so yeah, it is a missed hit for Icom.

But my only small complaint with the 8600 is that the VSC (voice squelch control) that claims to pick up and deliver only sensed voice while squelching everything else, seems more to rely upon forward modulation as though I am using regular squelch-especially in HF with weaker signals. Noise pops indeed get through as usual and it cuts off a lot of initial syllables in voice with signals s5 and below. Kinda disappointing but still what a rig
I've yet to delve out of HF so maybe this thing shines in higher frequencies.

 

[MStep]

My recollection with VSC operation in previous Icom receivers was that it was marginally to somewhat dependable on certain types of traffic when doing certain types of scanning or searching.

For example, I use my 8600 primarily on VHF and UHF until I get my LF antenna back up and running. So when doing searching or scanning, when the radio hits on a digital signal like paging stations or DMR, it may pause for a moment, "realize" that the signal does not contain "voice components" and then continue on without breaking the squelch. This is especially useful during onboard recording or Auto Memory Write scan.

Nevertheless, even when sensing and receiving this voice traffic, the VSC may cause some occasional breakup. At least when using the record function, you have some sense of what the radio was receiving at the time.

Most likely VSC is not as reliable on noisier shortwave frequencies. In addition, it appears to be no more or no less reliable than versions of VSC on earlier Icom receivers.

It should be viewed as one of the tools in the 8600's rather powerful arsenal, to help detect and identify radio communications traffic.

Thanks for contributing to the thread.

Well the thought never occurred to me till you mentioned it. Even my little ol' BC785D scanner from 2004 has backlit buttons as well as lit rings for the control knobs so yeah, it is a missed hit for Icom.

But my only small complaint with the 8600 is that the VSC (voice squelch control) that claims to pick up and deliver only sensed voice while squelching everything else, seems more to rely upon forward modulation as though I am using regular squelch-especially in HF with weaker signals. Noise pops indeed get through as usual and it cuts off a lot of initial syllables in voice with signals s5 and below. Kinda disappointing but still what a rig
I've yet to delve out of HF so maybe this thing shines in higher frequencies.

 

[MStep]

Mike's Icom R8600 Niggle # 2

Loving the Icom R8600, and always making new and interesting discoveries as I operate the receiver.

Here is an interesting observation--- I'm not quite sure to categorize this as an "anomaly" or a "niggle", but I have to believe that this has to be an oversight on the part of Icom and that perhaps it will be corrected in a future firmware update.

The involves the user programmable "Tuning Step". The receiver does provide for a range of pre-programmed selectable steps from 100 Hz up to 100 KHz. In their wisdom, Icom has also provided the user with the ability to program a "custom" tuning step, perhaps for some strange and unforeseen monitoring circumstance.

Amazingly, however, the custom tuning step only provides for a single digit following the decimal point. You would not be able to customize the tuning step to something like the 3.125, or 6.25 or 8.33, for example.

As I said, this would appear to be something of an oversight on Icom's part, and certainly petty, but curious enough to mention it here. Perhaps this is something that they will address in the future. This is applicable to firmware version 1.33.

 

[MStep]

Mike's Icom R8600 Niggle # 3

OK guys--- admittedly, my Niggle # 2 is pretty much operationally insignificant, and presented more as a curiosity item, but now we come to something which is more "on point' when operating a wideband receiver. This affects users who use the scan function of the receiver, and relates to the squelch function.

Each programmable channel "memorizes" individualized settings such as preamplification, attenuation, CTCSS-- pretty much everything which is set in the "Function" menu of the receiver.

One of the things not stored with each frequency is the squelch setting. Of course, this generally has no bearing when using the receiver in VFO mode, as you casually tune around in a common range of frequencies and in a common mode

However, when doing a SCAN, you might encounter, within a single bank, combinations of frequencies, bands and modes that all require varying squelch settings to be most effective, dependent upon a number of conditions. For example, in aeronautical monitoring, you might be scanning combinations of HF, VHF, and UHF frequencies. In addition, each channel will likely require it's own operating mode (AM, USB, LSB, FM, etc.) .And all this, depending on your antenna arrays, time of day, noise levels, and other variables, you would want to optimize each frequency's squelch level independently. Some go as far as having multiple duplicate banks for daytime and nighttime operation.

As far as I am aware, this cannot currently be done on the 8600, as it appears that individual squelch levels are not memorized with the rest of the parameters involved.

One a wideband receiver like of the 8600, one squelch setting cannot work optimally during these types of scans, as I'm sure many will agree. It's the nature of the beast folks that scanning wide swaths of frequencies and modes in a single group is going to provide challenges where "one squelch setting does not fit all".

What is needed here is for Icom to incorporate the squelch setting as part of the parameters being programmed/memorized in the radio on a per-channel basis. I don't know if the hardware can accommodate this in term of infrastructure or speed. Someone at Icom will have to make that determination.

More likely, some entrepreneur with an 8600 control program, will introduce this first as part of their control parameters for computerized operation of the radio.

This testing and information based on Icom R8600 firmware version 1.33.