If you have ID-31 or ID-51, the battery pack is same as it’s long life type(BP-272), and the maximum power is 5 watts in case of driving with the pack. ICOM service man said.
A few more details here:
https://forums.qrz.com/index.php?threads/ic-705.671612/#post-5181617
The FT817 was far from my first rig, but it was my first HF rig - more or less by accident as I bought it for VHF! The IC-705 looks a good rig for a Foundation Licensee, portable or fixed, but whether I will get one when the time comes to replace my 817 depends very much on how robust it feels, it will not be easy to match the bomb-proof feel of the 817.
You’d been licenced for 36 years when it came out so hardly going to apply to you!
I’ve often done short activations, of an hour or less, for which even the internal batteries of the FT 817 have proved to be adequate. Using 2.5W of CW extends the life even more, and can be quite effective.
My ideal rig would have a smallish internal battery which would run the radio at full power, and for at least an hour of a typical activation using the most power hungry mode - for me, that would be FM.
The battery pack would be quick and easy to change in the field, and spares would be reasonably priced.
It would also have provision for running off an external 12v supply, which could be used to charge the internal batteries - or not - user selectable. Oh, yes, and it should be possible to leave the internal battery out, and just use an external supply, without leaving any contacts exposed, or the radio less water resistant.
I doubt whether I will be buying one of these new radios, but it does sound very interesting - I look forward to seeing more of it.
Adrian
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The difference how much you pay and a few years is stunning. In Nov 2014 I bought a Motorola Moto-G 4g phone. I now have a Motorola Moto-G6 Play. Last week it was really bright sun on the hills. I had the old phone with me as I bought a SIM to use in NS-land and it had credit on it. I had my phone as well. In the bright sun the Moto-G screen was difficult to read (it was in auto brightness mode) and the super bright sun caused lots of false keypresses. Shading the screen made it work. The G6 Play was clearly readable and there were no false presses. Just 5 years difference in LCD manufacturing. The G6 Play is not a high end phone nor has a high quality screen. It cost me £110 last January. It’s a cheap phone. If you buy some of these £600+ phones the screens are a lot better again. But as I had been working with phone chip companies since 2008, I know what’s in a phone and to me, £150 is about the most I’ll pay for a phone.
So if Icom are selling a portable “adventure” rig they should have put a screen in it that works outdoors as one that doesn’t is going to kill sales more than software bugs, short battery life, bulkiness etc.
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There are two videos from amateurlogic.tv from the Tokio Hamfair (actually from Erii JP3JZK and Ray Novak, N9JA from Icom) which have just been released. One is specifically about the IC-705.
https://www.amateurlogic.tv/blog/
73 Ed.
Well it seems to leverage the very successful 7300 and 9700 technology. It has a lot of features that I would never use SOTA wise. It looks quite bulky and apparently weighs 1kg (but does that include the battery?). The KX2/KX3 uses lots of internal dc dc converters to efficiently use the battery power. Perhaps 705 will do likewise but I suspect the RX consumption will be at least 500mA and maybe nearer to 1A. It has a touchscreen. That rules the 705 out for me, I hate them on modern rigs. My main station rig is a 5000MP so you can see I prefer lots of switches, buttons and knobs! I love my KX2 and I find its user interface lovely to use on a summit, without the need for a touchscreen.
73 Andrew
Hi Andrew,
I’m sure the 705 wont suit everyone - but it’s very nice to have more choice.
Does the KX2 cover 4m, 2m & 70cm? I believe the KX3 can do with transverters but probably not the smaller KX2.
I suspect, at least to start with, the 705 is going to be somewhat expensive. Did I hear correctly that Ray said in the video, that if you take out the ICOM battery, there’s lots of room to install a LIPO battery! The unit, I believe had the ICOM battery installed when someone picked it up and said it weighed 1 kg.
Shame there’s no internal ATU in the IC-705.
73 Ed.
E-ink is very slow to refresh (I think the fastest are 7.5Hz) and they last a limited number of refreshes (3-10 million). Even if you could put up with the 7.5Hz flicker, that’s about 100 hours of operation time before it goes bad.
This! Big though isn’t it.
Well, you sound like you know a lot more than me about it, but E-readers last a bit longer than 100 hours don’t they? The LCD on a KX3/2 is nowhere near as fluid as the screen on the new Icom, but it does a good job whilst drawing minimal power, something that lets these radios with full colour TFT down. Also, the Yotaphone has a unique dual display with e-reader on the back side:
There have been some positive reviews about the idea in general, the only problem is the terrible management behind the company.
73 de OE6FEG/P
Matt
Of course it can … I use it with the Ukrainian transverter for 2m …
http://transverters-store.com/
It is a cheap solution and works
73 Armin
Thanks Armin - those ARE cheap and you say it works, so that’s a good purchase!
I’ve ordered one to add 2m to my IC-7300. US$45 (assembled 10w output transverter and attenuator boards) - great deal!! (US$70 with a nice box and all connectors).
73 Ed.
there are some threads where they talk about a frequency drift. It don’t bother with fm or ssb… but maybe at digital modes or cw… i don’t have any experiences by now. I don’t use data modes and i had no cw qso until now… but i bought a recommended 116 mhz tcxo.
I didn’t fix it til now, but will see what happens in cw…
maybe you need it
73 Armin
On the e-readers the refresh rate is about 0.02Hz, or the time it takes to read a page, and every used Kindle I’ve seen started having issues after a few years.
I guess you could have the same on radios, only refresh the screen when you need to change setting, but that means no S-meter / spectrum scope or anything else dynamic. Changing frequencies would become a challenge if you want to preserve the screen 
.
However, modern smartphone displays don’t have problems with sunlight contrast and they’re cheap and low power. Compared to what it takes to run FIR filters on the FPGA and the panadapter on the CPU, the current drawn by the screen doesn’t matter that much.
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Thanks for the interesting analysis.
ICOM has published the pdf now too in Japanese.
http://www.icom.co.jp/topics/20190902/
You can use google translate.
http://www.icom.co.jp/topics/20190902/img/IC-705_pre.pdf
73 Joe
Wow, well then I’m glad I didn’t buy a Yotaphone.
73 Matt
Icom UK have released an English version now as well.
73, Phil.
From the Icom UK document I see its weight is 1kg without the battery. Ouch, so bulky and heavy then! Nothing about power consumption but from an analysis I saw looks like 500mA+ as I expected.
73 Andrew
I don’t see how this radio is much better than the KX3/FT817’s that we already use in the field from a results standpoint. There are no features on this radio that will allow me to make more contacts than I already do with the older radios.
What I don’t understand is why didn’t they make the radio capable of putting out at least 20 watts, with user control to set whatever power level you want. In this wimpy solar cycle good antennas and more power are really the only way we have to enhance our results, and frankly I see nothing here that will give me the ability to work more stations that I already do with my 5 or 10 watts.
So for now I will just have to lug along the 50 watts amp when the band conditions are wimpy, or a bigger antenna. That always results in making more contacts, especially the s2s kind.
Pete
WA7JTM
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