Icom 765
Hi Valter/Novakor,
In response to the request regarding Icom rig owners....
I have managed to secure a beautiful late model IC765 (serial number 004171) and have been putting it through its paces. This particular rig has been fitted with 2 x SSB and 2 X CW filters at the 9 Mhz and 455 Khz IF stages. I have to say that I am primarily a CW operator, however, I have been running the rig on 40 metres SSB during the evenings and the received quality of SSB transmissions is nothing short of "superb". I use a Heil Proset headset with the HC5 insert and have received excellent audio reports from a number of stations worked. With regard to the ergonomics of the front panel: I am left handed but find the control functions are very practical and the features have been sensibly thought out with no additional "white elephant" gimmicks. The IF shift and Notch filter adds a great dynamic in QRM and again has demonstrated that this rig was correctly labelled the ICOM Flagship for many years. Whilst operating CW, the narrow band filtering appears to make signals "jump out" and permits the selection of the wanted CW signal in the midst of pile ups. For the first time since I have been in this QTH, I am now hearing VK's & ZL's at a level never achieved before. I do not think propogation conditions have necessarily improved dramatically since I acquired this rig, it is simply down to the low noise threshold of the receiver and the excellent onboard filtering. Something else that I really do like about this rig is the onboard electronic keyer; it is the very best that I have ever used. I like heavy weighting on my sent characters and this is the first rig that has given me that biasing feature. The AGC action, AF/RF gain control and 3 levels of control of attenuation provides me with a terrific number of options to resolve very weak CW signals and I have been completely won over by this transceiver. The wideband AM on this transceiver is also very very acceptable. I monitor the BBC World Service as well as a number of other AM stations and the received audio is once again superb. Yes, there are a number of listed problems but the fixes are relatively simple to implement. I have not, to date, been on the receiving end of any of the problems these rigs supposedly show. From what I can see, there has been only one modification applied to this rig but I will be implementing the "pass band tuning" mod shortly. The large dial readout, positive feel of the VFO dial and the overall appearance of this rig means that I would be very very hard pushed to get rid of it. Memory functions are simple to use and, for me, it is a great, non complicated, non processor based rig with no bells n whistles to make one a "slave to the tool". Would I have gone through the whole process of acquiring an IC765 again. Oh yes, and I would thoroughly recommend this fantastic rig to anyone as it represents to me that good old fashioned "ham" rig which would realise everyone's perception of what amateur radio is all about. I hope this contriubution will be useful. regards Will/GM0HKS
