What is Special About ICOM IC-705 Ham Radio?

What is Special About ICOM IC-705 Ham Radio?

Today I just checked Google Trends for Amateur Radio and found that ICOM IC-705 is occupying second position and Parks on the Air fourth position. So I decided to check out why it is trending as I was not familiar with that radio. I was surprised to find a page on Wikipedia as well, with an excellent photograph, which I have reproduced here as a   Image Credit: Batchman99 from Wikipedia. ICOM IC-705 is a compact light weight portable ham radio which is suited for SOTA, Parks on the Air and other similar portable operations. It is a HF/VHF/UHF radio which gives 10W output with external 13.8V power supply and 5W output with 7.4 V internal Lithium-Ion battery pack. So it will be popular among the QRP enthusiasts out there, whom I find in plenty posting on portable operations on Twitter.

According to ICOM Americal web page, it has a direct sampling receiver covering 30 kHz to 470 MHz and a built in GPS. So that will be useful for the portable operators to tag their location while on the move. It has coverage from HF to 50/144/430 MHz with D-STAR DV, SSB, CW, AM and FM modes. ICOM IC-705 has a real time spectrum scope and waterfall display. Incidentally, it has a photo share feature to other IC-705 and IC-9700 radios without the need for a computer. “Near Me” repeater search/scan and QSO recording with metadata on Micro SD are other features useful for portable operations. Built-in Bluetooth and wireless LAN connectivity facilitates smartphone linking and remote control. As a disclaimer, I have not used this radio and I am in no way linked to the manufacturer. Just sharing the information which I acquired out of curiosity! Of course, I do use another ICOM radio, ICOM 2730 VHF-UHF Dual Bander, which I purchased some time back.