So ive been seeing a lot of chatter on the reflectors lately about the IC-905 and microwave operating in general, feels like theres a bit of a resurgence happening or maybe im just noticing it more. Also caught wind that there were some pretty decent 6m openings last week across the midwest and I completely missed them because I had the radio off all day, typical.

Anyway curious if anyone here has actually gotten their hands on the 905 or even demoed one at a club meeting or hamfest. The SHF capability is interesting to me but I honestly dont know if Id ever use it practically. Feels like a lot of money for something I might just set up once and then it collects dust. Thoughts? And yeah if you caught those 6m openings last week please rub it in, I want to hear about it.

Ha I totally missed the 6m opening too, had a big family thing going on and by the time I checked the cluster it was already dying down. DX Maps showed it was pretty solid coast to coast for a few hours though, looked like some real Es propagation not just a short skip. Painful to miss.

On the 905, I got to play with one at Dayton last year, a guy in our club brought his to show around. The thing is genuinely impressive hardware wise but you're right that it's a specialty item for sure. Unless you've got a weak signal group nearby doing mountaintop stuff or microwave contests it might sit idle. The 144 and 432 side of it is great though if you're already active on weak signal VHF. My honest take is wait and see if prices come down a bit, the early adopters will figure out all the firmware quirks first anyway.

ok so im relatively new, just got my general last spring, and i looked up the IC-905 after seeing this post and wow that price tag. is that normal for high end vhf/uhf stuff or is that like unusually expensive even for icom? genuinely asking because my reference point is like the cheaper handhelds and my first HF rig which was a used 7300