[CQ-Contest] Bandpass FIlters

[Mike Smith VE9AA]

https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=12742
<https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=12742&page=31&per-page=10>
&page=31&per-page=10

 

 

Not for SO2R contesting or imperfect antennas     Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.

 

EditI had an IC-7300

.I just mailed it back to the company I bought it
from. This is the first radio I have ever sent back or traded back in – EVER
in 38 yrs as a ham. I usually know what I am buying, either from private
sellers or businesses and I suck it up if it's not "quite" what I thought.
There were just a couple of things I could not overcome. Whether I am now
being overly critical or what, I don't know. I ordered a 2nd IC-7410.....

 

>From a contesting perspective, it was no good for my particular SO2R
operations. The OVF (overload) light constantly flashed Indicating, "hey,
wait a minute, you have very strong signals nearby and you had better stop
or turn the RF gain way down or risk damaging the rig.

 

Is the radio barn door wide? I dunno. There have been hams in central EU
report the same thing and they think it's due to very strong ShortWave BC
stations on a "nearby" band at 60db/9 in their cases. Something about that
whole scenario doesn't sit well with me. Fair or not fair, my 20 year old
IC-736 doesn't have this, so why should my brand new SDR with knobs radio
have this issue?

 

Worst part about all this was that it was NOT on a harmonic band at all ! !
! ! Ie: I could’ve maybe lived with the fact that if I was on 14MHz
transmitting and the 7300 was listening on 28MHz receiving the overload
being just too much for this thing, but it was when I was on, say, 14MHz,
and the 7300 was on 21MHz

UGH
.None of my other radios have this problem.

 

There were other issues like the antenna tuner would only match SWR’s up to
3.0:1 (as advertised) and not even a smidge higher. (brick walled @ 3.0:1)
(others lamented the same) (you can do emergency mode with 50w out and tuner
will match a 3, 4 or 5 SWR in short order)

 

This was (normally) no problem for the core contesting bands, but it
precluded me from using the rig on any WARC bands where a bunch of my
antennas (ironically enough) had SWR’s just a wee bit above 3.0:1


.or if
it rained and my ZS6BKW\s SWR would rise ever so slightly (due to wet ladder
line) on 14/28MHz, making the rig’s tuner unable to match it, so I had to go
into emergency mode (50w).

 

There were times SSB output for no reason would be ¼ or ½ of the normal
output. (others have reported the same)-apparently software related and you
had to do a full reset to fix (losing any/all settings you may have had). A
reset fixed it in my case, so it's software related.

 

Screen capture (on rig) did not work on my particular rig (a few others have
reported this – albeit not too many) This is a minor quirk, hardly worth
mentioning, but I mention it only to record a data point that there appear
to be a very small # of radios out there that this particular feature won't
work. I tried the exact SD card as outlined in the manual and even went so
far as to try a handful of other cards. It's a feature I probably would only
RARELY use, but if it's supposed to work, it's supposed to work, right?

 

“Monitor” in the headphones on SSB sounded gnarly/nasty with my Heil headset
running through a laptop’s soundcard. I never tried the hand mic (as I would
never be using it)...I was not the only one to report this, however to be
fair, I operate mostly CW and did not try all that long to see if tweaking
soundcard settings in the computer might've fixed this and I did NOT give
the hand mic a try.

 

The “double touch the scope to QSY” thing was cutesy and clunky, not really
QSYing to the frequency close enough to hear the station in most cases on
the first try,. You still had to spin/tweak the VFO. The concept was great
but the way it worked was far from perfected.

 

Even on one dit, the cooling fan sped up to "max?" and then backed way off.
Annoying, but not a deal breaker.

 

The T/R relay is clacky, but I don't operate QSK....if you do, you most
certainly won't like it. Some folks have come up with mods by gooping coax
seal around the relay. I never had the cover off mine, so can't say what
improvements that might have made.

 

I sooooooo wanted to like the $1999 radio+ 13% tax ( I saved my loonies for
a year to buy it) and I am not trashing Icom. I have a shack and closet full
of Icoms, but this radio is not without its teething problems. I have had
almost exclusively ICOMs since the early 90's so I am not a hater, but a
fan. I traded it back in for another Icom (a 2nd 7410) so please don't
anyone accuse my comments as against Icom. They are not. They are only
against the shortcomings of the rig as it pertains to my situation. Probably
most of you will not have these issues unless you have a ham neighbour, have
mismatched antennas and

the other very small things I have outlined.

 

All that being said, it’s probably a moderately good entry level radio for
most folks who do not SO2R contest(or have close neighbours), have only 1
radio, have all perfectly matched antennas and don’t care about screen grabs
(on rig).

 

Screen grabs onto the SD card then looked at on-computer worked 100%).

 

It was definitely quieter than my IC7410 or FT-450at. All other filters,
notch and noise blanker and various functions did seem to work well (maybe I
could even say very well).

 

For my eyes, some of the font on the display was hard to see. I normally
need reading glasses if I am looking at very small font, but can operate my
IC-7410 and IC-746 w/o them. Maybe it was the white font on a black
background, or green traces of the scope. Whatever it was, it was hard for
me to see the smaller details. (that’s more a problem with ME and not the
rig, but at ½ a century old, I probably represent a good chunk of the aging
ham demographic.

 

The scope worked well, for what it was, but would not display the weakest of
cw signals that I could clearly hear in my ½ century old ears, and even make
a QSO
.so I figure a brand new device should’ve been able to do that.

 

YMMV,

 

I would give this rig a weak "4" (if that was possible) or a 3.5 if that was
an option.

 

I bet the IC-7300 Mark II will be much better. I just can't wait for that
day to come.

 

Mike VE9AA

 

 

Mike, Coreen & Corey

 

 

Mike, Coreen & Corey

Keswick Ridge, NB