In October 1986, Mama and Papa Icom gave birth to a lovely, somewhat hefty, baby boy named Ike in Japan. Ike is an Icom R-9000 receiver. Ike is traditional, so he has a CRT (not a Gen X LCD) display!

Poor Mama and Papa Icom live in Tokyo, where rent is high and space is limited. They could not afford to keep Ike, so they shipped him to the U.S. where he was adopted by a loving midwestern family. After caring for Ike during his formative years, Ike's adoptive family decided that he should move to the West Coast and experience all that California has to offer.

Ike's parents spent a substantial period of time searching for a suitable host family in California. Fortunately, Ike's parents met Brian KT6LN, and decided that he would be the ideal guest host for Ike.

After moving into Brian's posh West San Jose abode, Ike immediately felt at home. Ike was hot headed at first (due to power supply issues caused by Designer Icom, Ike's uncle), but Brian arranged for a cooling fan to be installed on Ike to provide adequate cooling. After this, Ike proved to be a suitable companion in the home. Ike still gets a little tricky with his AGC on weak AM signals, but Brian just politely coaxes Ike into doing the best that he can.

Ike is also pleased to have C.J. as his resident "mother" in the home. Ike now speaks Japanese (his native tongue), as well as English, Turkish, and Korean.

Early this year, Ike was pleased when C.J. presented him with a baby sister, named Icom 756Pro2 (her English name is "Olivia.") Olivia does ALL the talking; Ike is more of a listener.