I am now the proud new owner of an ICOM IC-7000! Thanks to my mate Hennie (ZS2HC) who is always keeping an eye out for me. The little radio came up and he grabbed it for me!
Thank you Hennie!
The little radio impresses – All the bells and whistles. Pleb operator is still learning what the radio can do – but it is very impressive. The noise filters and AGC are wonderful – coming from the basic X1M where these are “missing” – you really appreciate the finer things in life.
Now I am not running the X1M down – it is an absolutely stunning radio and still what I will take with me when I climb a SOTA summit. For its weight and total 5W output it is a gem and you can only get to be a full band multi-mode transceiver weighing under 500g by leaving some bells and whistles off.
I also have the old Yaesu FT-707, but that will be getting little work for the next little while 😉
I also recently put up a multiband dipole – a 40m dipole running North / South and a 30m dipole running East / West. Apparently it is not supposed to work. Thankfully no one told it that. Using a home brew tuner I get it down to 1:1.1 on all bands I use. The tuner was built by a pro – Peter Tottle (ZS2ABF). Thank you Peter!