[Elecraft] Re: IC 703

Fri Apr 25 12:37:01 2003

Hi Wayne, Trevor and the other interested OM.
I had an 703 on my desk 3 weeks ago to write a review for FUNKAMATEUR
Magazin. It was directly from Icom and as far as I know it was the first
rig in old Europe :-) In Germany they start selling May15. (thas what
they are saying)

Receiver current is 530mA if you start with default vaues, BUT if you go
to the menue, swith LCD Backlight to automatic and LED to half power, it
comes back with 370mA with no signal and 380 mA with signal.
It was hard to believe, but the RX is excellent. The internal Tuner AND
the frontend is switched by Latch Relais. They use Amidon Rings in the
frontend and it was the first RX without intermodulations early in the
evening at 40m since I tested my famous K2. The NR fuction of the DSP is
working very good and so does the passband tuning. 
Lowes TX power of this particular rig was 0,5W at 1 A, at 5W it was 2A
and at 10W it was 2,5A

I only found 3 disapointing things: 

First it is not homemade, therefore one is missing 3/4 of the fun he
could have.

Second Sideband rejection at this rig was not as good as it should be.
Early in the morning with low traffic in the bands I tried to call a
very week stn on the wrong sideband :-( To be honest I must say that I
could not hear the rejected sideband on an full traffic band.

The 703 is relais switched. Thats good for receiver figures, but the
RX/TX Relais is so loud that I switched to semi bk because I lost fun on
QSOing due to the loud relais. (very similar to the SG2020)

73 de DL2FI, Peter
*************************************************
DV Berlin im DARC e.V.
www.dl-qrp-ag.de
www.qrpproject.de

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] 
> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Wayne Burdick
> Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2003 6:57 PM
> To: Trevor Jacobs
> Cc: Elecraft Mailing List; [email protected]
> Subject: [Elecraft] Re: IC 703
> 
> 
> Hi Trevor,
> 
> My understanding is that the minimum active RX current drain 
> of the IC-703 is more like 450 mA, about the same as the 
> FT-817's. (The K2's minimum is 60-70% lower, and the K1's is 
> 90% lower.) Of course the IC-703 doesn't have an internal 
> battery option, so I suppose it's an apples/oranges comparison. 
> 
> I don't know what the IC-703's RX performance is like. 
> Similar to the FT-817's, probably. 
> 
> The IC-703 *does* have a larger VFO knob than the FT-817   ;)
> 
> 73,
> Wayne
> N6KR
> 
> Trevor Jacobs wrote:
> > 
> > No exactly TFR! 300mA minimum current draw. I guess if 
> you're Arnold 
> > and can haul around a big gel cell then that's ok ;-) They also 
> > mention thet "Contest QRP is Sweet" but fail to mention if 
> it's full 
> > break in without a relay! That's gotta be my biggest gripe with the 
> > FT-817. Since I built the K1 the 817 has been off the air. No 
> > comparison at all for CW.
> > 
> > 73's Trev KG6CYN
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