G4RMT wrote: If the Icom doesn't receive the most common mode, what exactly is it's design philosophy?
If you look at the few digital modes it does have, a large percentage of them are digital modes commonly used in Japan & then of course Icoms own digital mode, Death Star. The worlds most expensive digital digital mode.
The scanner looks to be aimed at the Japanese market & those who want to spend stupid amounts just to listen to death star.
One of the reasons I like the new Network Radios, is they are what amateur radio should be all about, utilising what we can build/make use of/modify & then use for free. They are not about paying to use others over priced ideas.
With Network radio, the limit is a mixture of our imagination & what current technology limits us too. With Dumb Star it's what Icom will allow us to do & what they can make a profit from.
But as I said in a post above, for me one of the biggest potential limitations with the Icom is their history of building p--s poor scanners. The old handies were terrible & so wide open every signal above about S5 gave them grief.
Ignoring the lack of usable digital modes on the R30, this scanner, needs to prove it's better at rejecting unwanted signals than earlier Icoms were. As without that, then even on AM & FM, this is just going to be another crappy Icom scanner.