Re: IC-7000 pricing / availability
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Hi Hugh,
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Many thanks for your comments. I rather suspect that the analogue RF/IF section of the IC-7000 will resemble that of the IC-703 more than that of the 706. The 703 uses a very clever, mostly relay-RF-switched RF preselector involving the ATU, the transmitter LPF bank and a diode-switched RF HPF bank behind the two relay-switched networks. This gives the front end very good strong-signal handling. The 1st mixer up-converts to a 64.455 MHz 1st IF, and the 2nd mixer down-converts this IF to 455 kHz in one step. Thus, the 9 MHz IF stage and filter are eliminated. I believe that Icom chose this IF arrangement as a prelude to an IF-DSP design. All that will be required is to add a 3rd mixer to down-convert the 455 kHz IF to 36 kHz to drive the ADC. A roofing filter will replace the current FL-65 ceramic 455 kHz SSB filter. Even if the IC-7000 does not have a built-in ATU (which I do not believe it has), the relay-switched transmit LPF bank and diode-switched HPF's will still provide good RF preselection if the filters are properly designed. With proper layout, shielding and decoupling, the 100W PA should not affect the DDS synthesiser. My only experience with Yaesu gear is with my Quadra amplifier, which is still chugging away like a faithful Energizer Bunny after more than 6 years of flawless service. It interfaces nicely with Icom exciters - it is already on its third! Cheers for now, 73, Adam VA7OJ/AB4OJ -----Original Message-----
From: Huze@work [mailto:hduff@...] Sent: 30 March 2005 11:14 To: ic7000@... Subject: Re: [ic7000] Re: IC-7000 pricing / availability Hi Adam. US$1100 seems more reasonable to me. Like everyone else, I'm anxious to see this little beast ! I will probably try one out when they become available. With any luck the IC-7000 will be based on the faithful and robust IC-706 platform with the obvious circuitry changes to accomodate IF DSP (way cool ! ) and the other updates. And hopefully they will do thorough testing before releasing it for sale. That would be in contrast to Yaesu's recent trend of rushing new products to market and letting us Hams be their Beta testers :) I personally believe that they have reached the elastic limit of miniaturizing a 100 watt rig. Having a 100 watt transmitter a few inches away from a VFO sythesizer is tricky business, with greater chance of stray RF, ground loops and the like. The FT-100 and FT-857 surpassed the limit in my experience, and it evidently resulted in all sorts of problems. (I owned both and had problems with both, as did many others.) And how small do they need to make a mobile rig ?... The user interface is getting silly. If you have anything other than slender fingers you are in trouble. Reminds me of the calculator watches that required you to use a pen to poke at. I'll be content if the IC-7000 is of a simlar size as the IC-706. 73 de Hugh VA3TO Adam Farson wrote: Hi Hugh, Yahoo! Groups Links Scanned by WinProxy |
Adam Farson