NARC Field Day Exclusive

Beta Test of The ICOM
IC-775 HF Transceiver

by Ed Deichler, K2TE

This year's NARC Field Day group had the privilege of using a brand-new, first-in-the-country ICOM 775 HF transceiver that features built-in DSP. Thanks to the persuasive powers of Chris, KA1SIE, with the home office, HRO was kind enough to loan NARC the new rig just in time for Field Day. The NARC 80 meter crew headed by Mike, NE1V, had the honors of using the rig for the contest. Although we used it the whole weekend, I would say we only took it through about 10% of the paces it is capable of performing. A much better test would be to put it side by side with the 781 on 20 CW or SSB during the contest. My assessment below has to draw from memory on the rigs I reference since I don't have copies of the manuals for them.

Chris loaned me the manual on the rig a few days before Field Day so I could see what was in store. I have used the ICOM 765 several times and have also operated their top of the line 781 (although not for a couple of years now). I tried to remember the front panel layout from when Chris brought the rig to a club meeting a couple months ago. It has most of its receiver functions laid out on the left side in much the same manner as the 765, so it was easy to see what features it has. Most of its commands are variable, such as the AGC, noise blanker levels, CW pitch (which I really like), compression, RF/AF gain, RF power, and mic gain.

The rig has a push-button pad just to the right of the main tuning knob that is multifunctional. The buttons are highlighted to select the ham bands instantly, a feature that I believe is on the 781. The pad is also used for selecting memories. It wasn't clear to me from the manual, but I think there are about 6 memories per band. This seems to make more sense to me than having 100 memories in a rig. Even a serious contester rarely uses more than a dozen at a time because he has to remember what he has programmed to avoid jumping to where he doesn't want to be. The rig has a nice feature that lets an operator select several discrete split frequencies above his transmit frequency. The frequencies can be in 1 KHz or 5 KHz increments. I believe smaller increments are possible. The advantage of this feature for a DX pile up is that the DX station can keep a rhythm of marching up or down from his operating frequency and steadily grab stations. It also forces stations to listen and spread out; all too often folks find the answering station and "gang tackle" the next call.

The rig has an interesting set of alternative modes call push (P) mode and hold (H) mode. Some of the functions are selectable for the P mode and some operate in the H mode. For example, the built-in keyer can be used in the P mode to program canned messages that the operator then plays back by hitting the appropriate key on the pad. For those of you who use a Morsemaster, this is a neat feature that allows you to send things like signal report and state for most of the contests. The H mode requires the operator to hold a push-button down for 2 seconds to select the mode. I didn't have a chance to see which modes were selectable for the H mode.

Our on-the-air experience with the rig was limited to 80 CW during the contest so it was not possible to check out the dual-watch feature. The beauty of dual watch asserts itself during a large pile-up with a DX station working split. The rig contains a large secondary tuning knob on the far left that allows an operator to vary the split frequency while simultaneously listening to the DX station and stations replying to him. I have used this feature with a 781; however, a separate tuning knob is not available on the 781 and one has to select the alternative VFO for tuning. At any rate, we found the rig to be very smooth on 80. I thought this band would be a good test because of its high noise level during midday and the very strong local signals at night. Thanks to the built-in DSP in the noise reduction control that is automatically activated at a certain setting, we didn't miss any calls due to noise bursts. The selectivity of the rig includes selectable filters in the 9 MHz IF and the 455 KHz IF. Selecting both filters provides the narrowest bandpass (I don't remember what it is). Most of the time we ran with just one of the filters in. At times, I wondered why I was not getting any answers to CQs after a few minutes. I disabled one of the IF filters and found out why: a very strong station was just below us, indicating that the filters have very good skirts to provide very good bandpass filtering. The full break-in keying has a very smooth tone to it. Normally, I find the rapid switching between transmit and receive between characters to be very distracting. We did not notice any interference from the 75 meter station which would have been very strong. We did experience interference from the 6 meter station that operated from tower 2. (The 80 meter station was also located at tower 2.) Discussions with folks after the contest disclosed that the 6 meter station used a transverter that operated in the 20 meter band; it may be, therefore, that we were getting some mixing product. It will be interesting to see what the ARRL lab tests show for out-of-band rejection characteristics.

Alas, all rigs - or maybe all operators - are not perfect. One annoying thing Mike pointed out to me is that the AGC works backwards from what one would expect. When the indicator light for the AGC is on, the AGC is off, which intuitively feels wrong.

Would I buy the 775 ? At an estimated $4000.00 price tag, no. I think the rig is a very good value at this price given the horrible rate of exchange between the dollar and the yen. From a performance standpoint, it may be as good as the 781. To be objective in such a comparison, side-by-side measurements should be done in a lab and followed up with some on-the-air checks. The 775 probably has a capability that the 781 doesn't - extensive control of its functions through software. In any event, it will be interesting to see what the ARRL lab reports in a few months.

Back to In this issue...