Well, I decided to purchase the Icom R6. And so far, I just love this unit. Sound quality is excellent (better than the RX-7). It is small just like the R2 and R5. But by far, my favorite aspect of this radio is the impressive sensitivity. I am able to receive from Warren PA North, down to Hagerstown MD, to the south, and from Butler and Pittsburgh to the west, out to Huntingdon and State College to the East. One late evening while I was outside using a rubber duck antenna, & I even received a weather service from Canada for the Great Lakes region. I will have to research that service further, but needless to say this radio is just incredible. Too much to write up at this moment, but allow me to say one more positive: I am so impressed at what ICOM has done here, that I have placed an order for a second R6. I plan to use one unit for simply the local Police, Fire, EMS etc to keep up on the routine and local incidents, it's small size is what makes it here. The other one will be just to listen to the longer distance broadcasts, the enjoyable part of hearing what is going on in other parts of the state--it is just that good. Compared to the RX-7, the R6 has some advantages, but also there are some advantages to the RX7 also, depending on your particular application. Compared to Uniden scanners of which I also have many, including the digital BCD396T, again each one has its strengths. The uniden has great versatility, and ease of selecting banks, and is not effected by locally strong signals, etc. in a dense RF environment. But one thing the Uniden doesn't have, and most important to me, is the high signal sensitivity of the ICOM, the great 'front end'. Also the unit can run on 2 'AA' 2300 batteries for me for 16+ hours, and the low battery indicator hasn't even come on yet!
