Walt's Ruminations

More specifically, revisiting the sensitivity settings. See the original hidden menu entry.

I believe I have found the balance in sensitivity settings for HF, VHF, and UHF.

First, HF. I turned the sensitivity up so that for most signal strengths (sorry, best description I can come up with) where I had previously turned the preamp on, I no longer turn it on. At my current setting, I have not noticed any new overload related problems, and activating the attenuator totally solves any that I experience. Actually, I used to run the preamp 99% of the time, and things now are a lot more enjoyable without having to use it nearly as often. I ran the gamut of excessivly high settings to get an idea of where it should be set in my personal opinion.

I did not feel the need to crank the HF receive gain up as much as I did for VHF and UHF.

Now, for VHF and UHF. Really a repeat of what I stated for HF with one notable exception: Intermod. Turning the receive gain up for VHF and UHF, and being able to keep the preamp off has reduced the rude squawks, bleeps, burps and so forth from local pagers and all. If I want to relive the old days, I simply turn the preamp back on for maybe 2 seconds while in an intermod active spot!!

I did take a bit more time tweaking VHF and UHF receive gains than HF. I wanted to find the balance where I felt I did not need the preamp for my normal commuting areas, but I did not want to max the gain setting for obvious reasons. Where I finally settled, I found that the preamp did wonders for weak signal reception in quiet places, but did not add any ease of listening in noisy ones. That actually was a guideline I used for setting the receive gain without the preamp on.

A lot of my travel areas have predictable noise areas where I sat while tweaking the gain in the menu. Since the menu defaults to a preset frequency, it took a bit of trial and error, but I found the magic spot where additional gain did not help me hear what I was wanting to hear any better. However, out away from noisemakers, the preamp works wonders!!!

I am not giving my settings as your settings most likely will be different. I will say that my increase for HF was way less than the increase for VHF and UHF. You can get a bit of an idea by listening to the background noise while making the changes, but you need to actually go and listen to some fairly predictable signal sources to know for sure. Remember that the goal is to simply boost the receive gain up a bit if you feel it needs it without increasing any overload related interference. Your operating locations, and antennas will also affect your final settings.

It is entirely possible that you might find a situation where you need to run the attenuator frequently, and tweaking the gains down may help.

Bottom line, if you are happy with the way your IC7000 is working, have fun and don’t worry about making any changes!

One more warning about making changes: Improper adjustments may make your radio operate in violation of FCC regulations, damage your radio, void any warranties, or mess things up so that you need a service facility to set it right again. These receive settings are the only ones that are anywhere close to safe to try. MAKE ANY CHANGES AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I still enjoy using my IC7000, and consider it the best purchase I have made for my sanity on the road. I do practice safe operating and put driving as the first priority, and using the radio as the second.

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First, the first of several warnings: Using this setup menu wrongly can ruin your IC-7000, or put operation in violation of FCC regulations.

In order to properly use this menu, you need the service manual! It will tell you exactly how to make many adjustments possible in this menu. You will also need some test equipment to properly set up the radio.

I will give some fairly safe adjustments, like setting receive gain that can safely be done. If you go wrong there, you simply will have a horrible operating receiver. The only adjustment in the TX area that may be safe is the “Total Gain” settings for HF1,2,3, 50M, and 144/430M (they use “M” for MHz, not ‘meters’).

Be aware that in the TX Total Gain settings, small changes can make big differences. For example, I set the 144/430M Total gain up a bit so I could bring the microphone gain back down when working other bands. The initial setting was [Hex] 3A, and I set it to [Hex] 40. Folks said I had a lot more punch, no distortion, so I left it there.

A note on the settings, they are in Hexadecimal. Be sure to write down the initial settings before making any changes!!!! That way if something isn’t right, you know where to go back to.

In the RX area, I bumped the HF/50M Total gain up a bit, and don’t seem to have excessive noise as a result. Actually, I don’t use the pre-amp as often! I bumped the 144/430M Total gain waaaay up!! I now almost never use the pre-amp there, and can switch in the attenuator of need be. I bumped it up so far that the attenuator actually brings gain to about what it was normally before bumping it up. It works good on FM, but I haven’t tried it on any other modes at 144 or 430 MHz.

Items to leave alone: All driver idle, PO settings, ALC and Drive settings, S-meter settings, SWR calibration, and anything you don’t know exactly how to do. Remember, many settings take test equipment as well as specific directions from the service manual. Again, you could ruin your radio or run afoul of FCC regulations if you mis-adjust the radio. Also, it may be possible that your warranty would be voided by changing settings here.

Bob Nagy, AB5N has a YouTube video of how to enter the setup menu and what the screen looks like. Note, Bob is the guy that will upgrade the HM-151 microphones that come with the IC-7000′s. I am not related to his business, just have the link!

You will need a shorted 3.5mm plug. A standard mini plug is fine. I actually plugged my 8 Ohm external speaker into the jack mentioned. If you don’t want to watch the video, the jack is the CL-V Remote Control jack as seen on page 11 of the owner’s manual (at least the US version). The jack is item number 5. It is located almost directly above the top mounting screw for ANT2.

One thing he didn’t mention is that to set the Total Gains for transmitting, you will need to push the PTT and then release it. When you save your settings and move out of the gain settings, it will drop out of transmit test mode. While testing my 144/430M gain settings, I spoke into the microphone in a voice a bit louder than normal (trying to imitate speaking over road noise while in motion), and watched the bargraph. My peaks were well below the red zone, so by bumping it up to about [Hex] 40, I just hit the red zone now and then. I decided to call it quits and get an over-theair report from friends who were familiar with my voice. I might could go higher, but as in the entertainment business, I prefer “leaving them wanting a bit more”.

To enter the setup mode, turn the radio off, plug the shorted plug into the CL-V jack, and then while holding the P. AMP and TUNER/CALL buttons down, turn the radio on. You should then see “-ADJUST-” in the turn on screen. To exit, simply power the radio off and then back on.

DO NOT try to adjust the “REF” settings, this is for the master clock, and you can adjust that if required via “OTH” area in normal Set Mode. (A tip on setting this, tune to WWV on 10 MHz in USB, and then toggle between USB and LSB while they are transmitting the tone during the minute. Remember that they don’t transmit a tone every minute. If the tone changes a lot, you can then try to adjust the “REF” in Set Mode and try it again. Do not expect to never be able to hear a change, there will almost always be a small change that you will never be able to get rid of.)

Again, one last time, “DANGER, Will Robinson! Doing this wrong can ruin your radio or get you in deep trouble with the FCC as well as possibly voiding your warranty.

Done right, you can make a super radio even better, but know the risks and be prepared to do it the proper way. It is better to take it to an authorized service center if you have any doubts at all.

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Many people may not realize that there is a TCXO (Temperature Compensated Crystal Oven) toward the rear of the IC-7000. This is the source of much of the heat the radio produces while not transmitting.

Performing the fan modification actually may not provide any benefit. A friend has operated two 7000′s 24/7 for several months for various reasons and neither has as much as hiccuped from heat, even when airflow challenged a couple times by accident.

Next time I get mine close to my bench, I’m undoing my fan mod simply to save wear and tear on the fan. The control panel does get warm to the touch and the fan mod did not cool that down at all due to the construction of the radio.

I still think mine is a super all (almost) band transceiver and enjoy using it every day.

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I’ve used the IC7000 now for several months, and really like it. The receiver is very quiet (except for the hiss from the AF amplifier that is heard in the house), and I often find myself turning the volume up to hear something and then having my ears hurt when I tune across something! As far as I can tell, the receiver is as sensitive as it is quiet in the SSB, and AM modes.

It is a real thrill being able to copy RTTY on the display (don’t do this while driving!) with the built in RTTY decoder. I hope a later model will include PSK31 decoding! The 7000 has a nice waterfall display and an oscilloscope display for RTTY. Of course, the waterfall would be perfect for PSK31.

My gripe about the FM bandwidth filtering setting deviation to 2.5 KHz when set at anything other than 15 KHz stands. FM sensitivity is so much better at a narrower bandwidth like 10 KHz. I mentioned this to a friend with connections with Icom, and hope they will take this to heart. It is nothing more than a firmware upgrade to modify.

The automatic notch filter is super, and the manual notch filtering is also grand. I’ve found a trick to use passband tuning and the manual notch filter to pretty well obliterate interference from stations operating close by in SSB. I discovered that if you have a passband filtering parameter set up as a normal filter, it seems to invert the passband direction when you select between USB and LSB. Pretty nifty!! I wish that passband tuning would be automatically deactivated when in FM, as it doesn’t function there anyway (it has no need to function in FM).

I’m glad Icom decided to have compression turn off automatically when leaving any SSB mode. There’s nothing like having somebody who just operated SSB go to a repeater with compression activated!

If you don’t use certain modes, you can set the menu to not offer them when pressing the MODE switch.

You can also set the master oscillator by the menu. I find the best way to do so is to tune in WWV on 10 MHz, and then select between USB and LSB while listening to the tone (of course, you need to avoid trying to do this during their ‘silent’ minutes). I’ve kept track of my settings and find that they stay right around the factory default, so I don’t go chasing “perfect tuning” as the radio is very stable. Even on the cold mornings, I found it to be pretty well dead on frequency.

The microphone has a very solid feel and the PTT is very solid. You have to get used to the “click” the PTT switch makes, but it never has been annoying in the least.

Enough rambling, but those are my observations up to the present!

I do have one note on the external display: It connects to a standard NTSC monitor. Nothing special is required. The connector is a normal 3.5 mm phone plug. I mention this as I’ve been asked by people seeing ads for “special” monitors specifically designed to work with the IC7000. I tried it here at the house on a 25 year old portable color TV and it looked perfect!

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I forgot to mention some things in the last comments.

Many people who are ham radio operators are also the movers and shakers of today’s technology. Their love and passion for technology drives them to experience it in as many ways as they can. Just like something we take for granted like freeze-dried coffee, which came from the space program, cell phone technology, a lot of computer communications, and many other things we generally take for granted today are the result of ham radio operators.

We may seem a bit strange (my father had a friend that often practiced Morse code by whistling quietly, those around him who knew Morse code knew what he was thinking, too), but, in fact many are the movers and shakers. Bob Heil, the maker of stage and studio microphones is an avid ham radio operator, for example. Many entertainers are also ham radio operators that know how to prove they are technically proficient. Patty Loveless, Joe Walsh are only two.

So you can see that some of the world’s best are hams (maybe in more than one way!).

I love my hobby, and am proud of all the members of the hobby, famous and not!

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