[amsat-bb] New Sat radio coming?

[Kevin]

    I followed the first hint of a Icom IC-9700 and I kept a close eye 
on it and when they added the 10MHz ref in I plopped down some money and 
got on the reservation list for one.  When I received it I found out the 
the reference in is nothing more than like the crystal calibrators of 
old and used for calibration, it does not lock the oscillator like on 
the 7610 or other radios that have a reference in.

    When the radio sits on your desk  it gets pretty warm and then when 
you key up the fan kicks on and on 23cm SSB you can watch it drift 70Hz 
or more and then it slowly drifts  back, not what you would expect for a 
modern radio in 2019, there are rumors that Icom may do a firmware patch 
to run the fan all the time to help with the drift, but a real reference 
in would have fixed this, I did a fan mod to run the fan all the time 
and yes it helps but the drift is still there.

    The more important thing to me though is that my old IC-820 and my 
IC-821 and my IC-910 and my IC-9100 all supported 9600 packet, for some 
25 years Icom has  provided the ability to do 9600 but for whatever 
reason they dropped support on the 9700 and failed to mention it, 
contacting Icom support they acted like they had never heard of 9600 
packet,  It's still being advertised as "All modes including FM, SSB, 
AM, CW, RTTY, Digital, D-Star Digital Voice and Digital Data", the 
digital part after RTTY is 1200 AFSK in Icom's mind, and why I am leery 
when someone says all mode now.

   Don't get me wrong, there will be many people who will use and love  
their 9700 and not notice these issues, and I also could deal with the 
drift  but the 9600 missing is really a burn to me.

   So it's either Icom comes out with a firmware patch to fix the 9600 
issue (losing hope on that one) or I go back to my 9100 (probably the 
best) or I get another 910  or some other 2nd radio to get 9600 packet back.

   73 Kevin WA7FWF


On 5/16/2019 8:56 PM, W3AB/GEO wrote:
> Kevin,
>
> How were you burned by Icom?
>
> Inquiring minds want to know.
>
> ___
> Sent from my two way wrist watch
> 73 de W3AB/GEO
>
> On May 16, 2019, 18:52, at 18:52, Kevin via AMSAT-BB 
> <amsat-bb at amsat.org> wrote:
> >Having recently been burned by Icom I will wait to see that on the
> >Elecraft the Ref In is really for a 10MHz GPSDO lock and not just
> >"calibration" and that the claim "all mode" really is all mode up to
> >and
> >including 9600 Packet.
> >
> >Other than that it looks pretty good...
> >
> >LOL
> >Kevin WA7FWF
> >
> >On 5/16/2019 5:38 PM, kb2mjeff--- via AMSAT-BB wrote:
> >>
> ><https://qrznow.com/elecraft-k4-high-performance-direct-sampling-sdr/>;
> >> https://qrznow.com/elecraft-k4-high-performance-direct-sampling-sdr/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> 73 Jeff kb2m
> >>
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> >_______________________________________________
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