R6 v R10

[pb_lonny]

I currently have an R6 but have also been drawn to the R10.

My use case is scanning about 300 frequencies, searching the band and using autowrite a lot.

I find that in autowrite, 80% of what is found is either a near miss, so saving the step either side of the actual frequency (78.6125 when it is 78.625) or other general garbage frequencies. My Unidens might get a few of these but nothing as bad as this. Would the R10 be any better?

The audio on the R6 is also not great, even on strong signals (my UBC93XLT sounds better). Is the audio on the R10 any better?

I am also having issues with it being anywhere close to my laptop, again my UBC93XLT has way less issues but also lacks the autostore feature.

The full keypad, band scope and larger size is sounds good. Would a swap from my R6 to an R10 be worth it?

 

[palmerjrusa]

I currently have an R6 but have also been drawn to the R10.

My use case is scanning about 300 frequencies, searching the band and using autowrite a lot.

I find that in autowrite, 80% of what is found is either a near miss, so saving the step either side of the actual frequency (78.6125 when it is 78.625) or other general garbage frequencies. My Unidens might get a few of these but nothing as bad as this. Would the R10 be any better?

The audio on the R6 is also not great, even on strong signals (my UBC93XLT sounds better). Is the audio on the R10 any better?

I am also having issues with it being anywhere close to my laptop, again my UBC93XLT has way less issues but also lacks the autostore feature.

The full keypad, band scope and larger size is sounds good. Would a swap from my R6 to an R10 be worth it?

The IC-R10 has been out of production for aeons now, I never owned one.

I own the various earlier iterations of the IC-R6 (R2 through R6), gotta admit I love them and think they're great little wide-band radios with good audio and very sensitive.

You'd be better looking for a second-hand IC-R30 (the best wide band handheld ever produced)...

 

[pb_lonny]

Thanks. I used to own an R20 and did have a play with an R30 a while ago. These are outside my budget.

If you could do a direct swap for a R6 for a R10, is it worth it?

 

[palmerjrusa]

Thanks. I used to own an R20 and did have a play with an R30 a while ago. These are outside my budget.

If you could do a direct swap for a R6 for a R10, is it worth it?

Well, since I've never owned an IC-R10 and don't have personal experience re performance that's difficult to answer.

If I recall correctly though, the IC-R10 even predates the IC-R2 and if that's the case the IC-R10 is a step back technology-wise.
I would check out the IC-R10's reviews at eham.net.

I must admit I love the R6 and it's previous iterations and since I own three R6s (Icom released a limited edition of the receivers in blue and red) I might be tempted to give up one of them for an R10 just to own one for the collection.

That R2 is a great little radio, had more fun with that than radio gear 10X the price...

 

[G7RUX]

The R10 is a perfectly good radio but it isn't a quick scanner, isn't terribly sensitive and it doesn't play nicely in high adjacent channel situations. The RF performance of the R6 is considerably better than that of the R10. Probably the only advantage the R10 has over the R6 family is that it can demodulated SSB.

 

[Ubbe]

R10 is a terrible radio receiver, easily the worst scanner I have. It's too sensitive and constantly overloads by any signal. Its squelch function are a disaster. You have to live far from any transmitters to be able to use it. R6 is a modern scanner and R10 are ancient.

/Ubbe

 

[G7RUX]

R10 is a terrible radio receiver, easily the worst scanner I have. It's too sensitive and constantly overloads by any signal. Its squelch function are a disaster. You have to live far from any transmitters to be able to use it. R6 is a modern scanner and R10 are ancient.

/Ubbe

The problem with the R10 isn't that it's too sensitive; mostly it is a little less sensitive than the R6. The issue is that the selectivity is terrible, leading to bad problems with intermodulation.

 

[Ubbe]

The VHF/UHF sensitivity I measured are among the best I've seen. But as soon as I expose it to a bigger antenna it desense and gets real bad. It's usually the case with scanners and cheap receivers that the better sensitivity it has the worse the overload problem will be, that first starts with desense and at bigger signals it gets into intermodulation issues. I would say that its value are $50, that's what I paid for mine incl the programming software. In comparison my Pro2006 has the worst sensitivity of all scanners but have no desense and overload issues at all. Some users says that Pro2006 are their most sensitive scanner but that are only because they have strong signals locally that interfere and desense all their other scanners.

It has some useful features like IC-V control so it can be used together with a Scout40 and similar frequency catchers, and has LSB/USB/CW. Too bad that the receiver are of so low quality.

/Ubbe

 

[pb_lonny]

Thanks all. I will give the R10 a miss then, as it sounds like it is no better than the R6 for what I want to do.

 

[G7RUX]

The VHF/UHF sensitivity I measured are among the best I've seen. But as soon as I expose it to a bigger antenna it desense and gets real bad.

The specification gives the sensitivity as slightly lower than that with the R6 and the dozen or so I had on the bench tested pretty much to spec, hence my comment about the R10 being mostly a little less sensitive than the R6. The selectivity, which is what would cause issues where there are signals on nearby frequencies, is very very much worse with the R10; the filtering is very poor compared to the R6's filtering which is only marginal.

 

[pb_lonny]

Thanks for all the replies. It sounds like the R10 will be "worse" for what I want to do, so based on that I will be keeping the R6 and seeing if I can improve it for my use.

 

[PD47JD]

A little (?) off topic re: R10, but I have one which is missing the two squelch/vol control knobs. Does anyone have any spares? Will pay for whatever they are worth to you.

 

[pb_lonny]

After using my R6 for a few more days, I am really not that happy with it so have just sold it and have a UBC-125XLT on the way.