New products at Tokyo Ham Fair 2016 - Part1

Tokyo HamFair2016 in Japan is being held now and some new products are being released there.

● ICOM Booth

> IC-R30 <

A handheld Communications Receiver next model of IC-R20.
This product is under development so the specifications, release date and the price are currently undefined. Digital mode decoders will be available.


> IC-R8600 <

Next product of IC-R8500. The brochure says “A New Generation Professional Spec Receiver IC-R8600 is born”. The main features are
+  10kHz - 3GHz with APCO P25, DMR, dPMR, D-CR for Japan, D-STAR and NXDN
+  Real time spectrum scope and waterfall display
+  Direct PC control and remote PC control function
+  4.3 inch color TFT LCD with touch screen
+  Built in SD card slot which reception sound and decoded logs can be stored into SD cards
+  External speaker with PSU(Power Source Unit) SP-39AD(optional) can be added
+  Firmware upgradable

I don’t know when IC-R8600 is available. The price will be about $2000-2500(tax not included). ICOM has replied to my expectations.


> IC-7610 <

Next of IC-7600(I think). Title of the picture is “HF base station transceiver”. Details are currently unavailable. Someone says “Dual receiving function may be built in”.

● KENWOOD Booth

> TH-D74 <

144/430MHz Handheld DualBander. Details are already published in Japanese(here). The release date is at the end of August 2016. The price will be between $750-800(tax not included).

The main features :
+  D-STAR mode which is fully compatible with other D-STAR rigs such ICOM's (an ICOM staff said on an official streaming program)
+  APRS
+  GPS with Logger and Automatic Time Setting
+  Bluetooth(HSP & SPP), microSDHC and Micro-USB connections
+  IP54/55 water and dust proof of body
+  Color LCD. Blue when APRS mode and green when D-STAR mode

The receiving features :
+  0.1-524MHz wide receiving coverage  with DV/DV fast data/FM/NFM WFM/AM/SSB/CW (only Band B)
+  20Hz minimum step(only for SSB/CW/AM mode, Band B only)
+  internal bar antenna reception (0.1-10MHz, Band B only, internal/external switchable)
+  VxV, UxU, VxU dual band receiving simultaneously
+  IF filters of 2.2-3.0kHz for SSB, 0.3-2.0kHz for CW, 3.0-7.5kHz for AM
+  IF output mode via USB port(band width : 15kHz, center frequency : 12kHz)
+  Audio Equalizer, 5bands (0.4-6.4kHz) for reception and 4bands (0.4-3.2kHz) for transmission

For Band A, only 1.25meter band TRX is omitted for Japan version.

● YAESU Booth

> FT-991A <

Upgraded version of FT-991. The additional features are
+  Realtime spectrum scope, non-stop audio while displaying
+  Display color setting
+  Multi Color Waterfall display. 7 colors can be selected

If you own FT-991 series, the large scale upgrade service will be available by next month this year 2016 in Japan. The additional expense will be about $500-550 (in Japan). The official information will be published soon.


> FT-891 <

HF+50MHz mobile transceiver. Although visitors of Dayton Hamvention 2016 saw it, this is the first time to be shown in Japan.

●Alinco Booth

Have not found any new products but found a nice video.

ICOM adds the last silhouette of new products

As mentioned before, ICOM's official Facebook announces three new products are to be disclosed at Tokyo Ham Fair 2016 and the last picture is here;

They say "In addition to the two new shadow appearances having shown before, we have prepared the one silhouette, the third model, as the last surprise." in Japanese.

The last is also a base rig, must not be a handheld. If the first and the second radios are assumed to be scanner receivers, this may be a base transceiver. The appearance of two insulators is not trapezoid like second new base product, is square. This will be alike IC-7600 or IC-7700.

I suppose the last one is a higher class rig than IC-7300 equipped with direct sampling SDR and so on.

Then the IC-7851 is

As to the insulators, the proportion of IC-7851's to the last silhouette's is strange in case the insulators are same as those of IC-7851. That means the last product seems too big, especially the height is taller than IC-7851. If the insulators are same, the last rig will be bigger than IC-7851. The released timing is not suitable, not present because IC-7851 is the flagship model made by ICOM. The latter IC-7851 means...how strange! I'm struggling with the mystery.




Let's review the first handheld;

The reason this must be a scanner receiver has some shapes of the root of the antenna near the connector. It resembles IC-R20.

No load coils must be built in the antenna because there seems no room to be placed into the antenna. Therefore I bet the first handheld will be a scanner receiver.


The second base rig belongs to the same category of the first handheld and the second will also be a desktop scanner receiver;

The insulators of the second rig is thinner than IC-7300 and is trapezoid like IC-7300.

The two insulators the IC-7300 have are trapezoid but much wider than those of the second new product.

 The IC-8500's are much thinner than IC-7300's. The proportion is almost same as IC-8500 too. Then the second rig will be a latter model of IC-8500.

So, again, what is the third shape? If the insulators are thinner, the rig won't hold the weight itself.





Looking around all of those desktop rigs as above, the shape of the last base rig seems close to IC-7700. In short, I think the third rig ICOM will release this year 2016 is a middle range desktop transceiver, the latter IC-7700.

The truth is revealed at Tokyo Ham Fair 2016.

ICOM shows more than 2 new products at Tokyo HamFair 2016!?

ICOM plans to display more than two new faces at Ham Fair 2016 held in Tokyo Japan.

The facebook page is here. Said before, I assume ICOM will show us handheld and desktop scanner receivers. But they say "Actually, we are going to ready for additional surprise NOT what we already have noticed" as above in Japanese.

They are still hiding some weapons we don't imagine. Scanner receivers, transceivers not ID-51plusII or nothing else? Wanna go to the Tokyo HamFair this year, however I..... Hope you to watch them.

ICOM displays 2 new models at HamFair2016

ICOM tells two surprise is ready for visitors at Tokyo HamFair2016.

On their Japanese Facebook, one new model seems a handheld transceiver or a receiver like this;

The Facebook page is here. They says "Our this-year's surprising product will be the silhouette. This will be the next product of 'THAT'" in Japanese. I want to think this is a latter model of IC-R20 with large LCD screen, M-CELP(vocoder Mitsubishi developed) & AMBE+2 & IMBE digital codec such as BCD436HP.

The antenna base is similar to that of discontinued IC-R20.

Wait, maybe a full keypad version of ID-51 series equipped with 1.2GHz.....

OK, the next new model seems a base transceiver. The Facebook page is here.

A latter IC-7600, IC-7700?

 or an expensive receiver like IC-R9500.....

Um, the shape of the two insulators is too tiny. Perhaps the latter IC-R8500 with SDR like IC-7300!?

The Facebook page says "To tell the truth, surprising is not the one. We'll show you the first look of another new product. This will be the same genre as the previous(handheld) model"  in Japanese. So, these two models are to be whether transceivers or receivers.

Sadly, I cannot join this year's HamFair.....anyone come?.

SONY ICF-5900 5Bands radio

A new radio came to me.

SONY ICF-5900 is first named as "SKYSENSOR" series in Japan. It covers MW(530-1605kHz) / SW(3.9-10/11.7-28MHz) with BFO for SSB/CW and FM(76-90MHz). This looks a first version(seller explains latter version but...). It has been more than 40 years since ICF-5900 was released in 1970s. For me, this model must be one of the vintage radio.

The sensitivity is excellent. FM and MW is especially nice. There's no variable attenuator but it has a DX/Local selector. The band select switch is dull when operating but works. If contacts of the band selector are dull, there are some cases that the radio cannot be received properly on each band. It has backlight switch but no holding on function.

IC-5900 has an excellent appearance. This model is called as a formal final analogue tuning model produced by SONY. Some skill and technique are needed at the use of SPREAD DIAL. I will be familiar with the SPREAD DIAL soon.

Sweet Radio Earphones

Found a nice earphones for Motorola radios.

See datail here.



In English translation mode, the Motorola earphones is translated into "Bonne Maman Cream Caramel".

Some people think Motorola earphones as sweets. What a nice imagination!

Fortunately it's time to have a coffee break.

Cheap Motorola XTNi Black 32309 under lb.18

See the link on Amazon.co.uk and get a cheap XTNi Motorola Two-way radio under £18.

Brilliant design. The green part will be the antenna. And the body will be easy to hold.

I remember the Motorola XTNi Series would be like the nice......

my mistake. Here;

We see details of XTNi series business radios here(pdf) on Motorola Solutions website.

Hara Arena closing by the end of this August

Next Hamvention (2017) will be held not in Hara Arena.

 -   Good-Bye, Hara Arena! Hamvention to Relocate in 2017! - ARRL


In this article, the final event "Comic Book & Toy Show / SA" in Hara Arena is gonna held on August 27th this year, which is not related with ham radio.


The ARRL's article as above tells that Hamvention will continue to hold somewhere around Dayton area from next year 2017. I'm pleased at participating such the memorial Hamvention in Hara Arena. Here are the pictures;

Thank you, Hara Arena!

* 8/2/2016 update : Hamvention2017 will be held in Greene County Fairgrounds and Event Center near Dayton city! See details on here.