IC7610 In Action!

Well,

By popular request I have put together a demonstration of the IC-7610 in action:

I hope you like it!

TS-890 and IC-7610 Panadapter and Waterfall - side by side

Well,

There's been lots of discussion on the TS-890 vs. IC-7610. So I've done a quick video of them side by side. The settings on the waterfall and panadapter are all customisable so there are many changes from the "out of the box" settings, and the radios are configured how I like them (which may not be your choice).

Anyhow, the reference levels are the same and I've configured the settings to be as similar as I think I can:

And here is the output of the DVI connectors on the radios:

Here's a third video with some more detail:

What do you think?

IC-7610 with Writelog

Well,

I am no contester, but I do like to dabble.

Generally I use WriteLog for Windows as my contesting software application.

I could,t find a way to use my IC-7610 with the software 'out of the box' so here's what I did.

Step 1 - change the IC-7610 so it uses the hex address of the 7850/7851 which is CI-V address 8E, thus:

Then configure WriteLog for one of these rigs:

I tend to manually swap between the IC-7610 and TS-890 (I never run them at the same time) but the TS-890 works as a TS-990 in the WriteLog software.

I've only been dabbling in the JARTS test this weekend, but both the IC-7610 and the TS-890 are a pleasure to use in crowded RTTY band conditions. When I first started dabbling in RTTY I was using a FT-920 - the difference in technology and filter/signal rejection capabilities is simply staggering.

I worked VK early Saturday morning on 40M - it must have been a grey line propagation mode as the signal disappeared nearly as fast as it appeared. I was surprised to make the contact, but it was certainly a good QSO.

60m or 5MHz and all that Jazz

Well,

Lat time you may recall that I mentioned I had constructed two new wire antennas; one for 40/30M and one for 80/60M.

60M or 5MHz is a new (ish) allocation in the UK and I had to think carefully how to make sure I stick to the frequency allocation. We have a bunch of 'bandlets' and we are not allowed to transmit outside these frequencies.

So, looking at my newfangled IC-7610, I can see that is has a feature whereby you can configure user band edges and also set up the radio so the TX is inhibited outside these ranges.

To turn on this feature, we enable "Band Edge Beep" to be "On (USER) & TX Limit" as below:

Once that feature is switched on, you can then select an option "User Band Edge" and enter new band edges for the radio to use:

So in the images above you will see that the item numbers 4 to 13 are the UK allocations (note I have subtracted the SSB bandwidth from the upper frequencies in the SSB segments).

So now, as you tune through the band, the TX is enabled in the bits we are OK to TX and disabled where we aren't:

So above you can see the line round the TX is solid at 5.262 MHz meaning the radio will TX, but at 5.258 (which is below the bandlet) it's a dotted surround meaning TX is disabled.

I've stuck my radio config file here if you want to download it. In the latest firmware you can even just import the band edge settings without bringing in all my other config if needed.

Most excellent - well thought out Icom.