QTH.COM Swap Chat

Has anyone noticed the price jump on Icom's IC-706 MKIIG? At most dealers the pricing was averaging $769.00 and now the prices have jumped to $950.00 -- nearly a $200.00 dollar increase. I contacted HRO and was given partial truth for the reasoning behind the jump. I think the 706 Mark IIG has been popular, and has also been a lot more expensive. The radio has stayed for quite some time in a reasonable range, but now has started a sharp rise up.
The reason I was given for the price gouge was the Japanese Yen is higher compared to the American dollar. By the way, is true but only by 12.5%, and that increase has taken nine months to rise. In this case the Radio should have only risen to around the $850.00 range. With our Ham community constantly battling to grow and maintain itself against an ever growing younger population more willing to go to the Internet. These Ham radio suppliers seem to be willing to price themselves and us out of business. If the reasoning is the Japanese Yen, why have other radios of Japanese make not made the price jump???
The real answer in my opinion is that the ICOM Japan made this decision. If you go to the ICOM Japan website and look at the annual report which may yield a clue. It appears that the ICOM America’s profits maybe be down. The report for this year has not been posted, and I would be curious to see what happened.

ICOM has an announcement posted on there website that in the commercial arena that they are partnering with Kenwood. Yaesu clearly has the same exchange rate issue as ICOM yet there products have not gone up. This alone would lead me to believe that was an internal decision with ICOM itself. It sounds fishy to me.

I am sure Yaesu would enjoy your business.

You might also want to look at the IC-706 Mk-II-G price over the last two years. It has steadily declined (I thought they were about to come out with a new version the way Yaesu did with their D models of the 817, 857 and 897). This could easily be a situation where their market share is now at the level they wanted and as such they want the better profit margin.

The IC-706 Mk-II-G has a "list" price of $1200 and once past the initial release has been running in the $900 and some. I suggest not bitching about not getting in on the lower prices.

I can laugh because I got two of them when they were in the $800 range

C Ya
Pat

The 706MK2G was about 700 less than a year ago. So I do not understand your logic. Yeasu had the FT857 for about 630 dollars.


Adios amigo

no no

w0ipl wrote:You might also want to look at the IC-706 Mk-II-G price over the last two years. It has steadily declined (I thought they were about to come out with a new version the way Yaesu did with their D models of the 817, 857 and 897). This could easily be a situation where their market share is now at the level they wanted and as such they want the better profit margin.

The IC-706 Mk-II-G has a "list" price of $1200 and once past the initial release has been running in the $900 and some. I suggest not bitching about not getting in on the lower prices.

I can laugh because I got two of them when they were in the $800 range

C Ya
Pat

I think its because alot of us want to use this radio in the car and it has all the bands to cover 144/440/6/hf all in one rig. its alot better than having to spend alot more to have 2 or 3 rigs and then to buy 2 antennas , its easier to have one rig and one anetnna. so now theres not enough use 706's to go around, even though yeasu makes a rig like this too. most people like to 706 better, i my self like the 706 over the yaesu and i love yaesu, not for the all around band rig ill just use the 706.

but thats just me..

The 706 used to sell for about 750 or so. Yaesu has for about 650.

They may have raised the price to make the IC7000 look more attractive.
Rather than being twice as much as a 706, it is 1.5 times as much(or so-please dont correct my math-you get the point)

Why would you buy the old 706 for a bit more you can get the 7000?

Just my opinion.

I thought about this and I think they have a deal with the FCC, these big companies are banking on a boost of sales if the Code is dropped in the near future. They may bank on if the code is dropped the average guy not in HF right now would not know what the prices are and would not care if they are getting HF privleges and needed a radio, just think about how much money all these companies are going to make off this deal, HF antennas, HF radios, HF Amps, etc, lots of money to be made here if it goes through, and yes we are all going to pay more for a little bit until the excitement settles down................