Passport to World Band Radio reviews the new Icom 1500

[ka3jjz]

Yep, there's an article on the subject - it's the third item down at:

http://www.passband.com/pages/receivernews.htm

Evidently Larry and his team had some problems installing the software; he did mention that the dynamic range was 'inferior', and while there are only 2 bandwidths on HF, they work quite well (but 1 is much too broad).

It's a shame Icom evidently didn't learn their lesson with the PCR100 and 1000; dynamic range and selectivity are 2 very important characteristics for HF receivers these days.
I would expect the 2500 to perform in a similar vein.
Bottom line, it would appear that neither choice is a real good one for serious HF listening.

73s Mike

 

[DaveIN]

True, icom should step up and do something, but I guess you could get better filters from Kiwa and improve the bandwidth: http://kiwa.com/

 

[ka3jjz]

No you can't do that Dave - this is a DSP driven receiver - no mech or crystal filters in it at all. This review talks about the R1500 and the PCR1500, of which the PC/R2500 is the newer brother.
73s Mike

 

[bobbybeachbum]

Monitoring Times also has a review this month on the PCR1500/R1500. I was kind of disappointed in that they didn't talk about filters. The variable bandwidth filters are one of the best features of my Winradio G-303 especially w/ the advanced digital suite option(Awesome!).

 

[NC0B]

R1500

The roofing filter is unusually wide, on the order of 50 kHz. Thus the wide-spaced dynamic range is not much different from the close-in dynamic range.