From Japan, which has been closely watched by the world's media for the last week since the fatal earthquake, two news came and finally one good one.
The first, the unpleasant one, is that the Vertex factory, which produces devices under the well-known Yaesu brand, is located only 60 km from the worst-affected Fukushima I nuclear power plant, and was forced to stop production on the day of the earthquake. As its executive director Jun Hasegawa stated in the official report, the factory itself was not seriously damaged and all its employees should be fine, the problem is the failure of power supplies and suppliers and the destroyed surrounding infrastructure, the expected resumption of production is expected between a week and a month, but it depends very much on the subsequent development of the Fukushima I nuclear power plant, which, unfortunately, is constantly unable to be brought under control. Fingers crossed.
The second and good news is that in April, the second major Japanese manufacturer of radio amateur equipment, ICOM, announced the launch of a model that had been announced several times KV/VHF TRX under the designation IC-9100. We heard about it for the first time 3 years ago, but business policy apparently delayed its launch until April of this year. In an 11-kilogram box, which seems to have fallen out of the eye of the IC-7600 and the novelty IC-7410 hides a TRX with respectable properties: it contains all KV bands (100 w + ATU), as well as 2 m (100 w), 70 cm (75 w) and even an optional UX-9100 module that allows work even on 23 cm with a power of 10 w. It has two separate independent receivers that can receive simultaneously and RRTY operation without the need for a PC (the keyboard is connected directly via USB to the TRX), support for satellite operation as we know it with the FT-847 (uplink and downlink) and other optional extras (e.g. D-Star DV, Remote control RS-1BA, etc.) The most important thing, namely the price, sellers advise it between 3400 - 3800 Euro.
Dear OM1XQ