[OKDXA] 7700 product review on the ARRL web site

[Jay Bromley]

Hi Guys,

For those that are not on multiple lists or check out ARRL's web site from
time to time, under the product reviews "Short Takes" in the October 2008 is
the latest product review, the Icom 7700.  Early bird version of the up
coming QST.

It was a good read, but the author was making comparisons to the Pro 3, that 
rig
really isn't in the same category as the 7700.  Also some insights from a
contest operator's perspective (NN1N) side of the house was also good.  I
kept wondering when or if they were going to say anything about the CW 
break-in,
finally NN1N made a one sentence comment.  It is good by the way.

A few guys have emailed me and asked or wonder why I didn't post on the list
 my reply to Coy question on the K3.  I have a way of getting carried away 
with my personal
opinions on rigs.  I have rigs from just about every camp and know a great
many of the service and sales people so I didn't really want my email to Coy
going world wide after letting my mouth fly off.  Those that know me don't
have to wonder or ask, hi.  I didn't know there would be this much interest
in current rigs.

Let me sum it up this way, if you are going to run a multi-multi high power
contest station your needs are going to be different than say a DXer with 
one good
tower, rig, and high power.  Most will never use the dynamic range of the
current crop of gear, so to me it boils down to what are you going to do
with it.  I am learning all the time, the last two days has driven me crazy
on my own 7700 and why I was seeing spurious signals on PSK receive.  Turns
out that even though I was in the Data mode and that bypasses the mic
pre-amp, it does NOT bypass the EQ on receive!  UGH!!  My Microkeyer II's
internal USB sound card didn't like that one little bit.

At the same time I was disappointed in the 7700's TX IMD performance the
ARRL lab measured.  Since I have now counted about a half a dozen menu
setting that might cause a low number and my own ignorance showing for two
days, it got me to wondering not in the ARRL lab gear, but in the rig's 
setup
 they tested  These are not simple rigs any more.

For the record the current crop of gear I have in the shack is a Pro 3,
TS-480, one K3/100 loaded, one unbuilt K3/10 unloaded and the 7700.  There
have been loads of FT1000, TS-850s, TS-870s, and TS-950sdx in here.  They
are all good or great rigs, but I would match up the rig to the individual
or situation instead of saying this one is the greatest thing since sliced
bread, etc.  In Suriname we took K2/100s, we used the legal limit, bandpass
filters and had very close antennas.  These rigs were the proper gear to
have down there.  At no time did we have interference from the run rig at 
1.4 KW.  The
amp was an Acom 2000, the mult radio was on a 10 element log periodic, the
beams less than 40 feet away, this was not a good deal at all.  This would
not have been a place to have two IC7000s, but I was sure wishing I had one
or the 746 Pro/756 Pro 3 after the contest for RTTY.  So I didn't get to
play on digial while down there.  Not that the K2's can't do digital, we
didn't have them setup for it before we left.

Anyway I didn't mean to bypass the list per-say, but I write totally
different in private than I do in public.  These emails have a way of
floating around.  If you have a question I do answer them honestly as I can.
I could go on forever and this would be a good topic to after the OKDXA net
or any time on 80m.

For those guys that do run the big contest stations, they sure don't need my
advice anyway.  We have some great members in this club and some very good
engineers, so guys tap into to their knowledge.  I sure do every chance I
get.

Many thanks!

73 de jay/w5jay..