R8600 Icom R8500 vs R8600

[Napalm]

The 7000 is generally a good radio although they tend to run hot if you run it on mains power. The heat from the PSU tends to accelerate component aging and drift so they really do benefit from a bit of time on the bench. That said, they are a much more traditional design and construction than more modern sets so are extremely packed inside!

I'm running it off 13.8V. It was burny-hot before that LOL.

 

[G7RUX]

oh its in my plan to replace the caps in the PSU board. I just haven't got around to it. I still work 8-10 hours a day.

Enjoy that one. I’ve done a couple of those and it’s not an easy job, although the parts are readily available.

 

[Napalm]

Enjoy that one. I’ve done a couple of those and it’s not an easy job, although the parts are readily available.

Cheers mate!

 

[palmerjrusa]

The 8500 is quite a tricky receiver to align properly and many I come across have been iffy from the factory. I used to run a set of 12 of them in a VHF-and-up monitoring array and their performance varied wildly from one unit to another. Each one spent a couple of days on my bench rig being aligned and tested and they eventually all performed quite closely with each other and were pretty good. That system was in use for a decade until it was replaced with 48 custom designed SDR receivers.

None of the 8500 were especially good below 25 MHz but I believe that’s mainly due to their architecture, from memory.

I purchased a new, unopened IC-R8500 about a year or so back on ebay (just wanted to own one of the last superhets before SDRs took over).

When you say you often encountered alignment issues, could you elaborate a little further...

 

[G7RUX]

I purchased a new, unopened IC-R8500 about a year or so back on ebay (just wanted to own one of the last superhets before SDRs took over).

When you say you often encountered alignment issues, could you elaborate a little further...

Over a period of 10 or so years I had several brought to me (people knew I had the kit and practice with aligning them) for testing as they were finding disappointing performance when in use. Running through alignments I often found them to be not quite right, probably as to do it really well requires multiple passes on some adjustment sequences and I suspect the factory possibly rushed them.

The issues were usually around mixer biases and IF notches, as well as occasional offsets with the BPF tuning voltages. I always found better and more consistent results by padding the output of the signal generator with a 10dB attenuator to prevent the receiver input impedance from giving mismatches to the sig-gen output.

basically it’s not difficult but just requires some understanding of the design of the receiver and the performance of test kit and making sensible accommodations for the quirks of a wideband receiver; they are rarely 50 ohm input impedance across much of their tuning range.

 

[palmerjrusa]

Over a period of 10 or so years I had several brought to me (people knew I had the kit and practice with aligning them) for testing as they were finding disappointing performance when in use. Running through alignments I often found them to be not quite right, probably as to do it really well requires multiple passes on some adjustment sequences and I suspect the factory possibly rushed them.

The issues were usually around mixer biases and IF notches, as well as occasional offsets with the BPF tuning voltages. I always found better and more consistent results by padding the output of the signal generator with a 10dB attenuator to prevent the receiver input impedance from giving mismatches to the sig-gen output.

basically it’s not difficult but just requires some understanding of the design of the receiver and the performance of test kit and making sensible accommodations for the quirks of a wideband receiver; they are rarely 50 ohm input impedance across much of their tuning range.

Thanks for your response, much appreciated.

Since I lack both the equipment and the expertise to make any adjustements I'll just leave well enough alone for now but make a note of this for future reference😁...

 

[G7RUX]

Thanks for your response, much appreciated.

Since I lack both the equipment and the expertise to make any adjustements I'll just leave well enough alone for now but make a note of this for future reference😁...

Absolutely, definitely a good idea! At least one of the sets I realigned last week had been “adjusted” by the owner…

 

[Napalm]

Well...crap. an Icom 8600 arrived yesterday at the FTW radio room.

So far loving it. The tuning knob has a really annoying "squeak" when rotating it. I'm hesitant to warranty it just for that so I guess I'm going to take the knob off at some point and see what it's hitting. It'll eventually self clearance I suppose 🤣

Little bit disappointed for a $2700 radio but 🤷‍♂️

The R8500 is arriving today also. I clearly have a problem.

 

[Napalm]

Well...crap. an Icom 8600 arrived yesterday at the FTW radio room.

So far loving it. The tuning knob has a really annoying "squeak" when rotating it. I'm hesitant to warranty it just for that so I guess I'm going to take the knob off at some point and see what it's hitting. It'll eventually self clearance I suppose 🤣

Little bit disappointed for a $2700 radio but 🤷‍♂️

The R8500 is arriving today also. I clearly have a problem.

Fake edit: best remote software for the 8600? I see wfview is there but is there anything I can use on an android phone?

 

[palmerjrusa]

Well...crap. an Icom 8600 arrived yesterday at the FTW radio room.

So far loving it. The tuning knob has a really annoying "squeak" when rotating it. I'm hesitant to warranty it just for that so I guess I'm going to take the knob off at some point and see what it's hitting. It'll eventually self clearance I suppose 🤣

Little bit disappointed for a $2700 radio but 🤷‍♂️

The R8500 is arriving today also. I clearly have a problem.

But it's a good "problem"😁...

 

[bearcatrp]

Well...crap. an Icom 8600 arrived yesterday at the FTW radio room.

So far loving it. The tuning knob has a really annoying "squeak" when rotating it. I'm hesitant to warranty it just for that so I guess I'm going to take the knob off at some point and see what it's hitting. It'll eventually self clearance I suppose 🤣

Little bit disappointed for a $2700 radio but 🤷‍♂️

The R8500 is arriving today also. I clearly have a problem.

Why did you buy a 8500 when you bought a 8600? The 8600 will blow the 8500 out of the water. I sold my 8500 to fund my 8600. Think you will see yourself. Good luck with both.

 

[ArloG]

Must be a collector. I would have said he same but didn't want to sound like a. Well, you know.
As for the squeak. I don't know. There is a 3 position dial selector under the VFO.
Georgia Warranty. "i'll guarantee you bought it".

 

[Napalm]

Why did you buy a 8500 when you bought a 8600? The 8600 will blow the 8500 out of the water. I sold my 8500 to fund my 8600. Think you will see yourself. Good luck with both.

Because you can never have too many radios and I love "old" Icom gear.

I have multiple antennas and multiple home made multicouplers for various bands. I have the BCT-15 scanning a list of known milair freqs, I have the R7000 8500 and 8600 ready for monitoring a select few that pop up. Oh and the SDR running SDR# and frequency scanner which scans the whole milair band in about 10 seconds.

 

[Napalm]

Btw the 8500 serial number is "06960".

This thing looks barely used. Someone added a 455kHz IF tap and removed the 9v DC from the 10.7MHz IF output. As well as a COR signal output. Not sure what they were doing with this but it's also unblocked (not that it matters these days).

 

[bearcatrp]

One thing nice about the 8500 is I could select either my long wire or discone for hf. My 8600 won’t let me switch. Was shocked the discone did as good as my wire.

 

[vince48]

One thing nice about the 8500 is I could select either my long wire or discone for hf. My 8600 won’t let me switch. Was shocked the discone did as good as my wire.

My discone was exceptional with my 8600 20 meters on up and was less noise than my Par Endfed.

 

[bearcatrp]

Am using a Par end fed too. Changed out the wire to a spool of wire I bought at Home Depot. Been working fine so far.

 

[ArloG]

One thing nice about the 8500 is I could select either my long wire or discone for hf. My 8600 won’t let me switch. Was shocked the discone did as good as my wire.

Below 30 MHz selecting any antenna is as easy as tapping ANTx on the display. Above 30 MHz it's N Type only.
The same on the 8500 except below 30 MHz it's the wire or UHF port only. Needed a refresher because that's how much of a rest she gets since getting the 8600.

 

[bearcatrp]

When below 30Mhz, can only select the wire, the discone is greyed out.

 

[N9JIG]

Having owned 3 different R7000's and at least* 2 different R8500's as well as my current R8600 I have enjoyed all three models. One thing I liked better on the older radios was the ability to easily tap the discriminator for PL/DPL, DTMF and other data decoding with outboard decoders. Otherwise the R8600 runs rings around them as far as feature sets, sensitivity/selectivity and other performance indicators.

The R8600 is the first Icom radio I have ever had new, all the others had been used so that might have something to do with it all. On 2 of my R7000's I had the EEB performance mods done (I know I am dating myself here) and the other I aligned myself. On the R7000 most of the alignments were straight voltage levels when tuned to a specific frequency, no signal generation was needed. With a dozen of so voltage settings the performance was greatly improved.


* I have had 3 R8500's but it might be that one was mine once before as the guy I traded with may have received it from the guy I sold it to.