I’ve been a ham radio operator for decades. Recently I purchased my first brand-new HF rig, an Icom IC-705. It’s my first radio of any kind made by Icom. This first impressions review will be based on about a week of home-office and backyard experimentation.

The IC-705 is designed to run at a maximum 5W of output on an included rechargeable battery, with 1880 mAh of capacity, or a larger version with 3150 mAh capacity. These are the same two batteries that the current Icom handheld ham radios use, which I have never touched. It can run at 10W output on external power. For transmitting, this is low power.

Size wise it’s big for a receiver and ridiculously tiny for an all-band transceiver, at roughly 7.9×3.3×3.2 in and less than 2.5 lbs with the smaller battery. I got several hours of operation out of that battery before it dropped down to about half power and I wrapped up my play time.

It covers all amateur radio HF bands (160M down to 10M) with 6M, 2M and 70cm of VHF and UHF coverage. The touch screen display makes it about as easy to learn and operate as a full-featured radio can be. I have radios with fewer features that are significantly more challenging to learn and use.

The radio is designed to have a single USB cable to operate with amateur digital modes, which is where this radio is meant to shine. In the last few years, amateur digital modes have taken a huge leap forward in allowing very long distance communication with very low power output. It also recharges via USB. Both features are a big deal and will make ti a lot easier to operate, especially, for portable operation.

My first full day of operation was significantly marred by deploying a wire antenna backwards, with the feed point in the wrong location. I had a few SSB voice conversations despite that, but lesson learned.

The receiver on this radio is unbelievably good, and after a few hours invested in reading the manuals and a few more working it, I can say that it’s the best receiver in my arsenal. I was hearing stations clearly from all over the world with my compromised antenna. I doubt that there’s a commercially available receiver at this size that’s anywhere near as good.

The most commonly used applications for digital ham radio operation don’t yet have the right settings for this rig, and I spent some time fiddling with it unsuccessfully. I have some time set aside next week to continue with that effort, and my confidence that I can overcome the difficulties and user-related errors is strong.

Icom’s configuration software is very hard to use, which seems like the industry standard for ham radio. I spent hours figuring out how to import the 70cm and 2M frequencies I usually use into that program so that I could configure the radio with them.

As with all HF rigs, the antenna is a big deal. Build or buy a good one and learn how to get it set up right. I’m planning a couple of homebrew antenna projects to work on soon.

If you’re a ham who wants a rig that can give you hundreds of miles or better of reach on a tiny power budget, you’ll be very pleased with this unit. If you’re a prepper who isn’t a ham, this is a spendy piece of kit indeed, and I’d probably direct you to a far less expensive radio.