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OK, I have had mine just over one day. I have not yet put it on the bench for mesurbation, and I have not yet used it under very trying conditions. This is my first impression after maybe 12 hours of use on various bands and under various conditoins.
I am primarily an HF listener, utilities, oddities, and military, but I did not get this radio with HF in mind, I use several SDRs for that (for HF specific receive only SDRs I currently have the WinRadio G31DDC and G33DDC, the RFSpace NetSDR, SDR-14, and SDR-IQ, the Elad FDM-S2, AFEDRI SDR, and Kiwi SDR, I have owned and used many others). I also have dozens of traditional superhet HF radios. For a scanner on the desk I have the BCD536HP, so I did not get the 8600 primarily as a scanner either. I like to look at odd signals in the VHF/UHF range. I got this radio as a general purpose, DC to daylight (yeah, I know both are exaggerations, but still...) communications receiver.
In wideband Icoms I own the R7000, R7100, R2500, R8500, and now the R8600. I own several other wideband receivers from other companies also.
The 8500 was / is a fair HF receiver (nothing to get excited about, but a decent basic performer) and a good VHF/UHF receiver. It has decent analog scanner ability. In the 8600 I was looking for something at least that good on HF with improved analog and digital scanner ability, and a design less than 20+ years old (I think the R8500 was released in 1996).
What I got appears to be much better. Keep that thought in mind, the 8500 was still selling for over $1800 when they discontinued it just a short time ago, over 20 years after its introduction.
On HF the 8600 seems a very good performer. It appears to be outperforming my R-75, and seems to be keeping pace in a general way with my WinRadio G31DDC, a radio I consider to be outstanding. My WinRadio G33DDC seems to have some small advantages, but I consider that radio to be one of the best of any technology I have ever used.
So far I am not at all displeased with the HF performance of the R8600. Wideband radios generally seem a bit of a compromise on HF, this does not seem to fit that description at all.
On VHF/UHF the noise floor is very even and uniform. I have found VERY few birdies.
On both HF and freqs above the frequency calibration seems good, but not outstanding. Discipline the receiver to a GPS 10 MHz source and that statement no longer applies.
The audio from the built in speaker is fair, about what you can expect from a built in. I imagine one of the optional external speakers would be better. The audio shipped out the fixed level AF on the back is outstanding, and I use this shipped to my main sound board to listen or record.
I have only played with it as a scanner for a very short period. I have programmed in all the freqs in the area and it seems to do them well and fast. But really I have my 536HP for that. I do wish the 8600 did more in the way of digital modes.
One of the first things I did in the VHF/UHF realm was to tune to the ATSC pilot of a TV channel in the Los Angeles area (more than 100 miles away). I selected USB and tuned 1 kHz low, placing the pilot tone at 1 kHz audio. Then I watched the energy of that pilot reflected off aircraft landing at LAX. Essentially turning the receiver into a passive radar looking at the Doppler shifted tone. This is a weak signal, and the 8600 did this task as well or better than any other receiver I have ever tried it with.
The 8600 is not perfect, it has some features I do not like, or wish had been done differently.
The 8600 uses the main tuning knob for a lot of adjustments that seem odd to me. I would think dial A or C might be better suited to some of them. For example filter width adjustment, I sometimes like to be able to fine tune frequency while adjusting the filters, not possible because frequency tuning and filter adjustment uses the same knob (tuning by default, filters after entering filter adjust mode).
Speaking of filter width, I think that every mode could use a wider range of allowable filter widths, especially SSB. AM maxes out at 10 kHz and SSB maxes out at 3.6 kHz. Both could be a little wider, I sometimes like a 12 kHz filter for AM, and for various HF oddities, like radar, I sometimes use up to 20 or 25 kHz width on SSB. Since it is all done in software it seems to me the maximum limits are a little artificial. There may not be many people who want or need those widths, but it should be simple to do, so why not allow it?
The waterfall display is surprisingly useful, however it could use more adjustability. For example, you can adjust the reference level, the noise floor of the waterfall if you will, but not the Z axis range. If you could adjust this parameter you could allow weak signals to show greater contrast, and make the waterfall more useful with weak signals.
The display is very good, but why not allow that display to be mirrored on a stand alone monitor? Just plug in a large monitor and see the same thing as shown on the front panel LCD? Icom says there is control software coming, maybe this feature will be included with that.
All in all at this point I am extremely pleased with the 8600. Just thinking out loud here, Icom could drop the VHF / UHF coverage, optimize things a tad for HF (presumably improving the already very good HF performance on the way), and have a very good replacement for the discontinued R-75. You listening Icom? Build one of these for HF only, improve its HF performance just a tad, and you would have a truly exemplary receiver, possibly one of the best hobby level receivers ever made. And I would be among the first to get on the pre-order.
T!
I am primarily an HF listener, utilities, oddities, and military, but I did not get this radio with HF in mind, I use several SDRs for that (for HF specific receive only SDRs I currently have the WinRadio G31DDC and G33DDC, the RFSpace NetSDR, SDR-14, and SDR-IQ, the Elad FDM-S2, AFEDRI SDR, and Kiwi SDR, I have owned and used many others). I also have dozens of traditional superhet HF radios. For a scanner on the desk I have the BCD536HP, so I did not get the 8600 primarily as a scanner either. I like to look at odd signals in the VHF/UHF range. I got this radio as a general purpose, DC to daylight (yeah, I know both are exaggerations, but still...) communications receiver.
In wideband Icoms I own the R7000, R7100, R2500, R8500, and now the R8600. I own several other wideband receivers from other companies also.
The 8500 was / is a fair HF receiver (nothing to get excited about, but a decent basic performer) and a good VHF/UHF receiver. It has decent analog scanner ability. In the 8600 I was looking for something at least that good on HF with improved analog and digital scanner ability, and a design less than 20+ years old (I think the R8500 was released in 1996).
What I got appears to be much better. Keep that thought in mind, the 8500 was still selling for over $1800 when they discontinued it just a short time ago, over 20 years after its introduction.
On HF the 8600 seems a very good performer. It appears to be outperforming my R-75, and seems to be keeping pace in a general way with my WinRadio G31DDC, a radio I consider to be outstanding. My WinRadio G33DDC seems to have some small advantages, but I consider that radio to be one of the best of any technology I have ever used.
So far I am not at all displeased with the HF performance of the R8600. Wideband radios generally seem a bit of a compromise on HF, this does not seem to fit that description at all.
On VHF/UHF the noise floor is very even and uniform. I have found VERY few birdies.
On both HF and freqs above the frequency calibration seems good, but not outstanding. Discipline the receiver to a GPS 10 MHz source and that statement no longer applies.
The audio from the built in speaker is fair, about what you can expect from a built in. I imagine one of the optional external speakers would be better. The audio shipped out the fixed level AF on the back is outstanding, and I use this shipped to my main sound board to listen or record.
I have only played with it as a scanner for a very short period. I have programmed in all the freqs in the area and it seems to do them well and fast. But really I have my 536HP for that. I do wish the 8600 did more in the way of digital modes.
One of the first things I did in the VHF/UHF realm was to tune to the ATSC pilot of a TV channel in the Los Angeles area (more than 100 miles away). I selected USB and tuned 1 kHz low, placing the pilot tone at 1 kHz audio. Then I watched the energy of that pilot reflected off aircraft landing at LAX. Essentially turning the receiver into a passive radar looking at the Doppler shifted tone. This is a weak signal, and the 8600 did this task as well or better than any other receiver I have ever tried it with.
The 8600 is not perfect, it has some features I do not like, or wish had been done differently.
The 8600 uses the main tuning knob for a lot of adjustments that seem odd to me. I would think dial A or C might be better suited to some of them. For example filter width adjustment, I sometimes like to be able to fine tune frequency while adjusting the filters, not possible because frequency tuning and filter adjustment uses the same knob (tuning by default, filters after entering filter adjust mode).
Speaking of filter width, I think that every mode could use a wider range of allowable filter widths, especially SSB. AM maxes out at 10 kHz and SSB maxes out at 3.6 kHz. Both could be a little wider, I sometimes like a 12 kHz filter for AM, and for various HF oddities, like radar, I sometimes use up to 20 or 25 kHz width on SSB. Since it is all done in software it seems to me the maximum limits are a little artificial. There may not be many people who want or need those widths, but it should be simple to do, so why not allow it?
The waterfall display is surprisingly useful, however it could use more adjustability. For example, you can adjust the reference level, the noise floor of the waterfall if you will, but not the Z axis range. If you could adjust this parameter you could allow weak signals to show greater contrast, and make the waterfall more useful with weak signals.
The display is very good, but why not allow that display to be mirrored on a stand alone monitor? Just plug in a large monitor and see the same thing as shown on the front panel LCD? Icom says there is control software coming, maybe this feature will be included with that.
All in all at this point I am extremely pleased with the 8600. Just thinking out loud here, Icom could drop the VHF / UHF coverage, optimize things a tad for HF (presumably improving the already very good HF performance on the way), and have a very good replacement for the discontinued R-75. You listening Icom? Build one of these for HF only, improve its HF performance just a tad, and you would have a truly exemplary receiver, possibly one of the best hobby level receivers ever made. And I would be among the first to get on the pre-order.
T!
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