Thoughts on the Icom IC-705

At the time of this post, I have been a radio amateur for less than one year. When I started out, I seriously considered purchasing the Icom IC-705 as an all-in-one, shack-in-a-box transceiver particularly suited for SOTA operations. However, I ultimately decided against that purchase and instead bought a (used) Yaesu FT-817ND.

Decisive points against the IC-705 were:

• D-STAR: Digital modes are cool, but D-STAR was less appealing to me than DMR or C4FM/System Fusion. Specifically, I had read and heard opinions that D-STAR is the least active/widespread, and the least technologically interesting of the three. More than these negative opinions, however, I just became much more interested in DMR on the basis of its positive features. Ultimately, that led me to buy my AnyTone AT-D878UVII Plus.
• No autotuner: Not every antenna needs a tuner. In particular, there are many lightweight and compact antennae suitable for SOTA which work well without a tuner. The QRP Guys tribander I use is one such antenna. However, I always considered a tuner highly desireable for my transceiver. Even more so for a QRP transceiver, where one would prefer to really put all power onto the airwaves instead of having it reflect back into the TX. And when one adds a tuner to the IC-705, it is suddenly much less compact…
• Micro-USB: All devices which I would carry where I would carry an IC-705 use USB-C for charging. The IC-705, despite having been released in 2020, still has only a Micro-B USB socket for charging. An additional USB cable would not add much weight and bulk, but less is always more. Furthermore, Micro-USB is terribly fragile and breaks much sooner than USB-C. I have heard that Micro-B USB sockets are easier to solder and therefore replace than USB-C, and I could always replace the Micro-USB with a USB-C socket by myself. However, paying this much money for a transceiver, I expect to have a state-of-the-art socket to charge it.
• Price: The cost-benefit ratio of the IC-705 is not good. Not least due to its very limited availability and long wait times, the IC-705 still retails at the same price as three years ago, just below EUR 1,500. Adding an ATU adds significant cost to that. In conjunction with the above-mentioned issues, the IC-705 was not worth it to me.

Conclusion

I now have a Yaesu FT-817ND and an AnyTone UV-878II Plus. A potential upgrade for HF would be the Elecraft KX2. Although that is significantly more expensive than the Icom IC-705 at the base price, once one adds in an ATU and a few other accessories, the price difference - and the transceiver - becomes a lot smaller, with better performance.