What’s Up With the ICOM IC-7610?

First off, I want to say that the IC-7600 has been a great radio for me, and I have no doubt that the IC-7610 is much better. I was thinking about finally taking the plunge and upgrading to the 7610 soon, so I started following the IC-7610 group at Groups.io. There was suddenly a mention of some kind of “change” in the IC-7610 with a new “version.” They call the new version “32” and the existing version “22.” Nobody seems to know exactly what this means. The guys that already have the IC-7610 seem to be losing their minds, to assert that there has been “no meaningful changes” to the radio. So what is up with all of this?

Speculation is running rampant and although nothing seems to be actually known about the “32 version,” opinions and psuedo-facts are all over the map. The first claim is that this is all about those nasty US tariffs, and nothing is really changing except the price. Do we really think that ICOM would go to the trouble of releasing a new-but-identical IC-7610 just to raise the price? If they really need to raise the price, I assume that they would do just that.

Most are saying that the “32” is related to the serial numbers of new radios that will be sold. This is not a new radio, so I would assume that ICOM had some improvements queued up, and have now decided to insert them into the product manufacturing flow. How significant these “improvements” may be, none of us yet has a clue. I made a comment that I will probably wait a bit and see what the changes are. We all know that there are improvements made in radios over time. Just look at the Sherwood Receiver rating tables and you will see that is often the case. Several radios in the table have significant performance changes related to serial numbers.

My comments about waiting to make a purchase were not received very well by some current owners, as you might expect. I have been involved in designing, building, testing, deploying, and maintaining electronic equipment for a long time. Due to my experience, I am going to wait a bit longer, to see what happens with this radio before I upgrade. When I buy a radio, I tend to keep it for at least 10 years. Waiting another few months is not an issue for me.

My wild guess at what is happening – Since everyone is speculating about this, here is my guess, based upon the discussion I have heard so far: This is a normal “refresh” of an aging radio design. The IC-7610 is at least 7 or 8 years old, which means the design is nearly 10 years old. We have heard that there are some obsolete parts issues and I suspect they had some improvements queued-up. Tariffs may (or may not) have been part of what triggered this release. Once the existing “22” stock sells out, only the “32” version will be sold. That may contain some improvements but probably nothing major, or ICOM would be assigning a new model number.

What do YOU think is happening?