[ICOM] Another R-7000 question

[Bonddaleena at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/8/2005 7:36:30 PM Eastern  Standard Time, 
w3uhf at yahoo.com writes:
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

__________________________________________________
Do  You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection  around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
----
Your Moderator: Dick Flanagan K7VC,  icom-owner at mailman.qth.net
Icom Users Net: Sundays, 1700Z, 14.316 MHz
Icom  FAQ: _http://www.qsl.net/icom/_ (http://www.qsl.net/icom/)   


Frank, the R71A's audio is pretty good actually. It was just when I did the  
A / B comparison, did it's audio seem lacking to that produced by the  R7000.
 
When I bought the R71A, I was assured that the radio was "100%". I was in  
the process of moving, so my shop was all boxed up and I was living in my  
motorhome. I was VERY disappointed in the sensitivity, considering everything I  
had heard about this radio.
I sent it to Scott Malcolm at MTS and told him to 'go through it'. He found  
a few bad parts, a transistor and a handful of caps. It works really well. 
Kiwa  said that their 'fix' doesn't solve all the radio's audio problems, some of 
 those are a design issue. I just wanted to know if the improvements were 
worth  the $.......
 
Think I'll try one, just for grins...
 
 
thanks again!
 
ron
 
N4UE