New ICOM 7300 SDR

SteveJ

This new radio by Icom is certainly a game changer. Flex better watch out.

KY6LA_Howard

They already outsource much of their production to low cost Chinq and likely even more in the future.

KC2QMA_John

That's why I buy USA when ever possible.  Like my New 6500!

km9r.mike

Then they run the risk of having stuff stolen. Short term possibly a good move but not a wise decision for the long term imho. Oh well their intellectual property not mine.

KM6CQ - Dan

I expected Icom to introduce a SDR rig like this. What I did not expect was Icom to refer to it as an "RF direct sampling system" What motivates Icom to be so cautious and not to call it an SDR? Are they concerned their customer base would not approve? I dont know.  It clearly is just another radio with knobs in a box, I did not see any mention of IQ outputs. It can not have VAC's can it? It is a different paradigm for the end user. So I don't think it is aimed at pulling away Flex or Anan customers, even the KX3 (SDR rig with knobs in a box) line can not do that. I do however find my KX3 line compliments my 6500 very well. I think maybe when the K4 comes out, it may be much more expensive then whatever Icom's current SDR equivalent rig will be. That would be a concern for Elecraft. 
These are great times with live in for Ham radio. Lots of exciting choices ahead.

One last thought. I want a Flex 6150 with a built in tuner to replace the Flex 1500, and while you're at it, give it the ability to integrate with a KXPA100. Thank you.

Dan 

Barry N1EU

I'm curious whether a manufacturer will deliver a knobbed radio with a DDC/DUC dual rx engine inside, under $5000, in the not-too-distant future.  The 6700/Maestro is out of my price range.

KY6LA_Howard

You could buy 2 Elad. Or a SunSDR now

Barry N1EU

Sorry Howard, I'm looking to do stereo diversity.  I need a dual ADC rig.

Sergey R5AU

On the locator for devirsity ready are F6700 and Anan200 in my knowledge however  radio's without of knobs
Fully eqipped "suitcases" (classic style) are SunSDR MB1 as i know http://eesdr.com/en/products-en/transceivers-en/mb1-en#photo   and  Elad http://eesdr.com/en/products-en/transceivers-en/mb1-en#photo, but noboday can tell me exactly how the knobs help ? + both with one ADC onboard



 

Bill -VA3WTB

Steve, How has it changed the game? what are your thoughts?

Barry N1EU

How has it changed the game?  By signalling that mainstream rig mfr's are going DDC/DUC now and are willing to bite the bullet and make the huge R&D investment necessary.  Yaesu and Kenwood will follow Icom.

Peter K1PGV

Icom has developed and used SDR technology for quite some time. Note their Eclipse2 line of P25 radio systems.  So this isn't a new thing for them. But the fact that we're seeing ham SDR technology from Icom means that they've decided to broaden their use of SDR in their radio designs, and recognized the advantages -- both from a marketing and a technical point of view -- to bringing this approach to the ham market.

None of the major (by sales volume) manufacturers of amateur radio equipment are sinking the kind of money into R&D that they once were. Not for amateur radio or ANY of their product lines. The way I understand it, there are either very few or NO engineering teams left at ANY of the manufacturers who concentrate solely on amateur radio. Everything does double-duty. The team does a new commercial LMR design, and then move on to a new ham radio design.  Undoubtedly, much of the basic engineering is shared.  I remember one of the manufacturers (was it Kenwood?) explicitly citing this as the reason for the long time lag between ham radio releases.

Again, this is a terrific development.  I think it signals the beginning of the demise of conventional radio design in the ham radio space.  That will be a long process indeed, but one that will clearly come.

When we (Flex users) think of "SDR" in ham radio, we currently think of panadaptors and mouse clicks.  When commercial and public safety radio users think of SDR, they think about features like frequency agility, protocol flexibility, mesh networks, and the vast potential for cognitive radio. They just want to communicate.  They don't care about the technology.  It will be interesting to see of SDR continues to develop in both spaces.

Peter
K1PGV

Lewis Cheek

Well stated Peter.

k0eoo

We can only hope the ARRL will do an unbiased review of the 7300 so the world can see how good/bad it really is....

As all us Flex owners already know, DDC/DUC is the wave of the future in radio because you can design/mfg a cheaper/better radio in that technology than you can with the superhet or direct conversion derivative.

So unfortunately, I see the 7300 signaling the big 3 are tooling up.....

Regards, Dennis, k0eoo

Robert -- N5IKD

I would like to see the magazines and podcasts call them out for this claim. Unfortunately Icom sponsers many of the podcasts, so this may be unlikely.

Bill -VA3WTB

Icom is the first company to make an SDR radio, didn't you know that?

Robert -- N5IKD

There must me some kind of mistake! The Wikipedia article on Software Defined Radios mentions Flex and other Manufacturers, but does not mention Icom.

Walt - KZ1F

#1 people have to pull out their glasses and read the fine print.. #2 stop whining #3 read Peter's first sentence.

Walt - KZ1F

Dan, its their entry model. Wait for their $1,900 model. To be sure, some of you are accustom to the glass control surface, yet you flock to Maestro..hmm. Some of us aren't. That's not a deficiency, Ben and Jerry made chocolate as not everyone likes vanilla. I believe I made the comment months ago, if not longer, that competition is good, it advances the field, regardless of the field. People here are acting like their boyfriend was just insulted.

Neal_K3NC

I suspect this is a trial balloon in the SDR ham market to see how it sells.

I believe there are a lot of tremendous radios out in the market and we are fortunate that any of the manufacturers make models for us (much less break new technology) because this is a teeny tiny market with little or no profit for most if not all of them. The variety provides a wide range of choice which is great because the ham usage is so broad that no one radio could possibly cover all of the bases.

Lets be excited for the guys who only want an Icom and buy their first SDR and not be smug that we have been using it 8 yeards or so, help them just like you would someone with a more traditional SDR. If they like it, they will be on this forum sooner or later!

Bill -VA3WTB

The Ham radio economy in sales is said to be 37 million Bucks.

Neal_K3NC

That is gross I am sure. I know that your ham dealer hardly gets enough profit to spend time selling them. I think they are there to lure people in so they buy the coax and connectors where the markup is 100%.

Peter K1PGV

Worldwide?  That seems like a very low number to me.  Back in 2007, Kenwood estimated the worldwide ham radio market to be worth $139M in sales annually.

Icom sells $61M of equipment (of all types... certainly not just ham radio equipment) in the US each year, out of a total sales volume of $275M.

Peter
K1PGV

Neal_K3NC

I bet compared with maritime and aviation, the ham market barely exists!

Lewis Cheek

Neal is correct in his statement, if the dealer really ( after credit card fees, shipping, etc.) makes 2-3 percent he's having a GOOD day. I worked part-time for a major for 12 years, and there is no money in selling rigs.

KC2QMA_John

Is this the Icom Fourm? I'm sure Icom loves the fact that this is the #1 topic on the Flex Site!

Steve K9ZW

Would think the number given to you is vastly understated.

Add up the ARRL budget, the economic impact of the major ham shows, the public estimates of the major vendors (example AES is listed as a $20-50m/yr, MFJ reported sales of $12.6m five years ago and so on), then the tower folk, service folk, repair people... well you get the idea. 

I have not done enough study to aggregate the various sources, nor have enough data to eliminate the sales duplication of volume reports at production and middleman reseller levels (the markup for overhead and of course profit at the reseller level is the important part in doing the math), so I am not going to venture a guesstimate myself.

Can say the number you were given is quickly arrived at when adding only a small segment of the easily available annual sales data.

73

Steve K9ZW

Peter K1PGV

Nobody questioned Neal's statement.

I'm merely reacting to Bill's quote regarding the size of the global size of the ham radio market. 

I have trouble believing that worldwide, there's less than $40M of ham gear sold per year.  If that were so, I have trouble believing anybody would be willing to do R&D in the space.  There'd be no way to make back your investment.

Peter
K1PGV

Steve K9ZW

Being bumped to the top by having fresh postings does not make a thread #1 - and so what if it was?

It is neat to see the pioneering FRS did - and the brave faith so many had in making pre-order commitments including what was almost a form of "crowd funding" by putting down deposits & payments in full for the Signature series while it was still being developed - that all this is blossoming into a bettering of the herd as a whole.

That other manufacturers are incorporating at the Amateur level parts from similar a pallet of similar technologies as what the FRS Signature Series offers is only natural.

These new offerings are laggard in market entry and overall feature set, but are predictable seeing the success of the Flex-6x00 series. 

With SmartSDR 1.4 and the present feature set available to me from the Flex-6700 (or even the 6300) I'm pretty happy, AND with the scope of what SmartSDR 1.5 and later 2.0 should bring I can say I'm pretty darn excited about what the FRS family of products will offer.

For my 2-cents, until such time as the "big boys" adopt a Radio-Server and separate Client-Device/Software I don't feel much temptation to add one of their partial SDR behind-the-knobs boxes to my shack.  And I can say will all certainty I couldn't see replace one of my SmartSDR driven radios with a IC-7300...

73

Steve K9ZW

Steve K9ZW

Over 8 years ago Kenwood estimated the Ham Radio Market in the $140m/yr range on new sales - Bob K0NR had written about this at http://www.k0nr.com/wordpress/2007/08/how-big-is-the-worldwide-market-for-ham-radio-gear/

Would not be surprised to learn that the USA/NA market is presently around that number.

These are not massive numbers - the USA trade value for just a single building service category can be the $20 Billion range (look at roofing or windows...)

But a $100m+ market is nothing to sneeze about either!

73

Steve K9ZW