A look at the new ICOM IC-7760 HF & 6m transceiver

At the 2024 Dayton Hamvention in the USA in May, ICOM gave away some details about a new product called the 'X-60'. I covered this in an earlier post HERE 

In late August 2024, it was finally revealed by ICOM that the new product was the IC-7760, a fully featured HF & 6m transceiver with a 200-watt output power.

As can be seen above, the radio comes in two parts... a control head and a RF deck. These are the dimensions...

RF Deck - 425 × 149 × 442 mm (16.7 × 5.9 × 17.4 in)

Control Head - 340 × 118 × 103.5 mm (13.4 × 4.6 × 4.1 in)

The radio has two receivers which allows for the monitoring of one band while tuning another. The two receivers can also be locked to each other allowing diversity reception. It's possible say to listen to one receiver with a horizontal antenna and the other receiver to a vertical antenna. You can listen with headphones and hear the received signal with one polarization in one ear and the other polarized signal in the other ear.

The rear of the Control Head has a number of connections including a RJ-45 socket to connect a LAN cable to the RF Deck. This could be a few metres or up to 100 metres. The obvious attraction here is that the RF deck could be placed at the bottom of a mast and doesn't need to be inside the house. This obviously reduces the need to run coax cables into the house.

There is also provision for an external monitor to show the displays in more detail if required.

The front of the RF Deck is pretty bland while the rear panel has a host of connections.

The unit is mains powered which eliminates the need for a high power 13.8 volt supply. There are multiple RF sockets as well as multiple other connections.

There's no doubt that it's a superb looking radio with a lot of features but what about the price?

The current guideline seems to be around the $6,000 mark. In the UK, it seems to be about £5,700. WIMO in Germany are saying €6,600.

I suspect for most, this is an eye-watering price that is just way too expensive. After all, it is at the end of the day just a HF & 6m transceiver and any good operator could work 99% of the stations with a radio costing a quarter of the price.

I'm sure there are a minority though that could justify the price for a fully featured radio with a fully rated 200-watt output.

Over the weekend, WIMO Germany released this video previewing the new radio.

Remote Operation... One thing that is not totally clear is whether remote operation is possible? 

The one obvious thought is that someone might want to say put the RF Deck in a holiday home while keeping the Control Head at home and connecting the two over the internet. Apparently this is not possible due to latency issues.

ICOM's solution is to use their Dualwatch compatible IP remote control software to control the remote radio. As the chart shows below, the IC-7760 is a supported radio.

I would assume that this has more limited functionality as compared to a direct connection from the Control Head to the RF Deck.

For more information, have a look at the WIMO video above or go to the ICOM website... https://www.icomjapan.com/lineup/products/IC-7760/

SDRplay announce new networked SDR receiver

SDRplay are well known for their range of popular SDR receivers which cover all the radio bands up to 2 GHz. They have now just announced a new SDRplay nRSP-ST model which can be networked and is intended for remote operation.

The SDRplay nRSP-ST is a 14-bit ADC wideband SDR receiver covers all frequencies from 1kHz to 2GHz, with no gaps. It can remotely monitor up to 10MHz of spectrum at a time from a choice of 3 antennas.

The release price is in the region of $500 which is about double some of their other current models. It is expected that it will be available to purchase towards the end of 2024.

Analysis... This is an interesting development from SDRplay and mirrors some of the trends with other manufacturers of HF transceivers catering for remote operation.

In the case of the new SDRplay nRSP-ST receiver, all someone would need to do is to provide power, a network connection and antennas at the remote location. The concept of remote receivers isn't new but in most cases, a remote computer/PC is required as well as a receiver. In the case of the new SDRplay model, no remote PC is required.

The new SDRplay nRSP-ST would seem to have the same radio features as the RSPdx-R2 model except that it can be connected to a network for remote control.

One particular nice feature is that it has three antenna ports which allows for dedicated antennas to be connected at the remote end. Without this, it would be a case of having just one antenna port to cover all the radio bands below 2 GHz.

It's not hard to imagine how this remote receiver might be of interest to some people. Many live in towns and cities in noisy RF environments and the thought of having a remote receiver located somewhere quiet in say a holiday home or a friends or relatives house is attractive.

This would seem to be an all in one box solution for a problem and I'd imagine people will find all kinds of uses for it.

At about €500, it's not cheap for a receiver but it's also a new release with first adopters likely to be paying the premium price.

Links...

1) Page on SDRplay site for the new remote receiver... https://www.sdrplay.com/nrspst/

2) SDRplay press release... https://www.sdrplay.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/nRSP-STPressReleaseSeptFinal2024.pdf

Addendum...

6100km TEP contact on the 144 MHz band between Spain and St Helena - 25th Sept 2024

A little bit of history was made on Wednesday 25th September 2024 when EA4I in Spain and ZD7GWM on St Helena Island in the South Atlantic managed to complete a Trans-Equatorial Propagation (TEP) contact on the 144 MHz (2m) band.

This is as far as I know the very first TEP contact on the 144 MHz band between these two countries.

José, EA4I in the west of Spain was running 700 watts into an array of 4 x 17-element Yagi antennas. As far as I know, the polarization was horizontal.

Garry, ZD7GWM on St Helena had a much more modest station with just 50-watts from a Yaesu FT-897 into a Diamond X700H vertical antenna.

While many other TEP contacts are made with the Q65 mode due to the TEP spreading and distortion, this particular contact was made with the FT4 mode.

Andy, EA7KBX reports... "A new record was set tonight between EA4I Jose and ZD7GWM Garry - a small group of us have been running TEP tests from Spain to St Helena Island on 2m / 144Mhz the QSO was completed using FT4 at 6,094.22Km !! 

Jose using 4x 17 element beams and 700w while Garry was using a Diamond vertical and FT- 897 with just 50w !! Amazing contact for the record books"

Analysis... 2024 has been a pretty remarkable year for Trans-Equatorial Propagation on the 144 MHz band. For the last few years, there have been many reports of TEP openings from Argentina & Brazil in South America to the Caribbean area.

Some were claiming that it wouldn't be replicated in other parts of the world because the Geomagnetic Equator was too far north but that hasn't turned out to be the case. We've seen regular 144 MHz TEP openings this year from Namibia to Europe, the Middle East to the Indian Ocean and from Japan to Australia.

As long as both stations are roughly equidistant from the geomagnetic equator and the signal crosses the geomagnetic equator at about 90-degrees then a path is possible.

The biggest obstacle is getting someone active at either end of the TEP path. In this case, Garry, ZD7GWM is the only person active at the southern end of this circuit.

I'm sure if the antenna was upgraded to something modest like a 9-element Yagi fixed in a northerly direction then even more 2m TEP contacts with Europe should be possible.

I wonder if there are any VHF DX groups that help out DX stations with modest antennas?

I have a previous post about Garry's set up HERE

For more information about other long distance openings on the 2m band, see my 144 MHz page.