[ICOM] Another R-7000 question

[Frank A. Ellis]

Hi Ron,

Actually, I did do a Kiwa audio re-cap once. It was
for a customer job, though, and not for my personal
radio. I really didn't notice a whole lot of
difference, but then again (In all fairness to Kiwa) I
only did an hour or so of bench testing and a little
bit of on-the air testing, after the mods were done.
Again, in all fairness to Kiwa, if it had been my
personal radio, and I would have had a good bit of
experience with the specific radio both before and
after the mod, I might have had a different opinion.

Kiwa's claim is that their capacitors have "improved
sonic characteristics" which means that certain
consonants, for instance, which may sound mushy on the
pre-mod radio, will sound harder and more crisp
(therefore more intelligible) after the mod. I
understand that they hand pick the capacitors for
optimal attack and decay characteristics to improve
the audio. The improvement is something that would
have to be measured primarily by the listener's ear,
and is very subjective.

If your R-71A has lousy audio, it may be a sign of
early VCO trimmer failure, especially if it seems to
be raspy, and more prevalent on some bands than
others. The VCO is split into 4 frequency ranges, has
4 trimmers, and each trimmer capacitor will affect one
range. 

Regarding R-71A audio in general, I have listened to
about half a dozen R-71A's and they all sounded great
to me, but of course that's subjective too.

73 Frank W3UHF




Frank, wow! Great info. You really know your Icoms.
 
As a side question:
 
I mentioned that I have an R71A. Although there is
very limited overlap 
of  
coverage, I tuned to some of the,er, dialogue on
26.185 Mhz. Switching 
the same 
 antenna and with both radios using identical
speakers.
 
The R71A's audio quality is poor compared to the
R7000. I  understand 
that 
Kiwa has a capacitor 'kit' to help with the 'wooley'
audio, Have  you 
ever done 
this mod?
 
thanks,
 
ron
 
N4UE

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