[ICOM] ICOM PROIII saga update

[Earl W Cunningham]

I recently sold my Pro II and replaced it with a Pro III, so Steve,
NL4Q's comments on distortion products were interesting.

So far, to my ears at least, the audio out of the Pro III is cleaner on
CW than it was with the Pro II.  There have been postings here in the
past about the "rumbling" audio on the Pro II, and mine was no different.
 This manifested itself when I would use narrow CW filters (I usually use
50 HZ BW for digging those weak DX signals out of the noise on 160m) and
the CW pitch set to 300 or 350 Hz (my preference).  I was delighted to
find that the Pro III does not have this problem, and received CW sounds
crisp and clear all the way from 500 Hz BW down to 50 Hz.

The Pro III transmitter still has the same key click problem that the Pro
II has, but that is easily corrected by going into the menu and changing
the CW rise/fall time from the factory default of 4 msec (really 2 msec
on a 'scope) to 8 msec (really 4 msec).  With it set like that, I've
already gotten unsolicited reports on how clean my CW signal sounds.

The preamps in the Pro III are redesigned and do indeed act different,
but I only use them on 10m.  Whether they're better or not, I can't say
yet.

The Pro III's NB seems to be a bit more effective on line noise..

The supreme test will come during the CQ 160m CW contest in the end of
January.  With the Pro II, I had to crank in 12 dB of front panel
attenuation to get rid of the 3rd IMD "bleeps and bloops" during that
contest.  My FT-1000MP (no roofing filter mod) needs about 6 dB of
attenuation to get rid of them, while my Elecraft K2 is clean without
having to use any attenuation.  Hopefully my Pro III, with its 15 kHz
roofing filter and other improvements that Icom incorporated into the
radio, will perform better in the IMD3 and BDR departments.  I won't know
that until the aforementioned contest comes to pass.

So far, I'm pleased with the new radio

73, HNY, de Earl, K6SE