Icom IC-R72

I came upon this IC-R72, which had never been used, by accident. The receiver is brand-new, although it is at least ten years old. It came from a liquidation sale and was in its original box. The IC-R72 is the direct follow-up model of the IC-R71. It  excels by its good reception qualities and its easy operation. The reception is similar to that of the IC-R71.  What is a bit annoying, is the hissing noise of the NF pre-amplifier. It is hard to understand, why ICOM is not capable of building a better NF-amplifier, which would not be more expensive. Fortunately, you can fight the hissing by using an external NF-Filter, e.g., the Timewave DSP-9. As far as reception is concerned, the IC-R72 is almost on par with the NRD 525G. The IC-R72's strong signal handling capability is very good, but there often is a whistling sound caused by interferences in the closely packed AM bands which is due to too wide an AM-filter. In this case, you can switch to SSB and can listen to the transmission without interference. In SSB, the IC-R 72 is completely in its element. It really sounds superb! One disadvantage is the operation of the IC-R72 when using the internal 230V transformator.  It becomes so hot that you can turn off the heating in your shack. But luckily, the IC-R72 has a 12V connector and so you can operate the radio with an external power supply. All in all, the IC-R72 is a good and easy to handle receiver.

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