Finally Bought an IC-7610 at Dayton

I have been using an IC-7600 for many years and was looking at the 7610 for the past three years or so. I only buy radios about every ten years, and I never sell an HF radio (maybe someday). I finally took the plunge and bought a 7610 at Dayton. It was a tight race with the Yaesu FTDX-101D, which is also an incredible radio, but I went with the 7610. Using the 7600 for many years and the IC-7300 for a couple years made it very easy to transition to the 7610. I was up and running on all modes in about an hour.

I plan to reconfigure my SO2R contest station to use an IC-7610 and an IC-7600. Really looking forward to that. They are so similar that it will probably feel like two equal radios, but the 7610 adds many more features that have not been available to me on the 7600.

Last time I was ready to buy the 7610, I stumbled into the 7610 version 22 vs 7610 version 32, and had to wait that out for a while. I was leaning toward the “32” version, just because it is the newest release, and I buy radios so rarely. In the meantime, I have not been made aware of any actual improved performance in the -32- but I have seen some discussion about the parts supply-chain issues. I saw a couple posts from some 7610 owners, complaining that they had to wait for months, to get a cheap replacement part. I figured buying the 32 version might minimize the chance that i would be in that position, so I bought the IC-7610 version 32. Yes, it was more expensive, but I think it will be a good investment.

I won’t waste your time talking about the 7610 features and how I do or don’t like them or use them. What I will do, is post some short blog entries of each thing I figure out about using the 7610, especially when I run into an issue and have to do some research to understand it. If you are interested in the IC-7610, especially for HF Contesting, please check back.