After working so many folks using an IC-7300, I decided to try one. Somewhat to my surprise, I really like it. As some have said, it is probably destined to become a classic - the 21st century equivalent of the TS-520.
I was pleasantly surprised at its audio quality on CW but do miss the audio peaking filters on my FT-DX10 and KX3. Fortunately, a simple and inexpensive resonant tube sitting on top of the rig makes the tuned signal “pop” out of the noise and helps to make up for the missing filter.
In an earlier blog entry I documented my experiments with external resonant speakers. One that I had built had a small speaker in a PVC base with a 2 inch “street 45 elbow” of PVC and a short piece of PVC. I took the speaker off and set the rest on top of the IC-7300 speaker grill and was surprised at how much difference it makes.
There is one drawback. To keep the size from being unwieldy, the resonant pitch frequency is higher than I would prefer. I found this configuration to work best at about 670Hz. I haven’t tried lengthening the piece of PVC in the elbow but from my earlier tests, I’m guessing it would have to be substantially longer to reduce the frequency significantly.
The PVC I used is marked 2” and the piece extending from the elbow is 2” long. You may want to start with a longer piece and shorten it to tune to the frequency you want. The most accurate way of tuning is sitting on your radio as it will be actually used. I used the “dB Meter” app on my iPhone and tuned through the pitch frequency while watching the for the peak.
