On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:12:41 GMT, John Proctor
wrote:

I know there have been a few posts regarding this radio but I need some
real user experience with this radio. The good , the bad and the ugly!

We have one on Lionheart with the AT-140 antenna tuner. Unscrew the
cover on the antenna tuner and remove before you install it. Unsolder
the STUPID control wire pigtail Icom left sticking out with that tiny
UNPROTECTED board connector on it from the soldering rings on the main
board inside the tuner. Mark the color code on the inside of the
cover with permanent marker so it'll be there forever. Take this
pigtail with you to your local electronics cable supplier and buy the
appropriate length of the same diameter FOIL SHIELDED cable so your
new control cable will fit properly into the weather stuffing tube in
the tuner that stupid pigtail came out of. After you get the tuner
and radio installed and the new control cable pulled between them,
feed the cable through the stuffing tube and solder the control cable
to the soldering rings the old wires came from, observing color code
of course. Leave the foil shield open on this end and taped off so it
doesn't touch anything. Dress the cable just like the original stupid
pigtail was dressed and put the box back together so it's watertight.
There, you've eliminated the WORST of the bad connectors. You'll find
a matching STUPID connector on the main radio chassis to connect the
other end of the control cable to. After it fails a few times and you
get fed up with wiggling the flimsy connector around to make it
control the tuner, have your techie replace it with a REAL connector
and plug.

Make sure you mount the main radio somewhere DRY where no salt has a
possibility of every getting near it. Ours is hidden behind a panel
at our nav station behind the remote control head. The idiots at Icom
used a ham radio for this main chassis. COOLING AIR IS SUCKED INTO
THE BOX TO COOL THE INTERNAL HEAT SINK on the final power amps. SO IS
SALT AIR/WATER and anything else that can get sucked into the box.
The box, obviously, was never made to go in a BOAT, like the box the
VHF radio M602 or 502 was which is SEALED with an EXTERNAL HEAT SINK.

Some stupid uses a BNC connector to connect NMEA data to the main
radio's NMEA input so the DSC will get position data. Of course, this
UNBALANCED input pretty much guarantees your NMEA network will be
trashed by the RF energy on the ground of the HF transmitter any time
you're on the air. Nothing like connecting NMEA B (-) directly to the
transmitter to insure interference, is there? The BNC connector is on
the OTHER end from the antenna, power and control cable, so make sure
you mount the radio where the speaker plug, BNC NMEA cable and main
control head cables will fit comfortably sticking out. Ours is
mounted SIDEWAYS behind the panel on a sheet of plywood.....(sigh)

Electronically, it's a great radio and a great design. The receiver
is HOT...amazingly sensitive...to every electronic noise source on the
boat. Like all Icom products, the noise blanker is USELESS. If you
set it way up, the noise is still there and the audio distorts. The
transmitter is rock solid, even on RTTY at 100% duty cycle. 150
watts, flat across the bands.

Operation is a learning curve, especially for the non-radio-operator.
HF operation isn't for the CB novice on any radio. ALL the ITU
channels are there and the channelized mode notes what channels are
what, basically, as much as you can. Of course, with most all the
coast stations now dark, like WCC, WOM, etc., public correspondence
channels are dead. What a shame just when the radios got better....


Specifically ease of use, reliability and ease of use as an amateur
radio solution. Most commercial marine boxes seem to be a bit kludgey
for use as an amateur box. The M802 seems to answer the 'ham band'
solution well but I can't seem to get much info on that mode of use.

In channelized mode where it displays the ITU channels, it's about as
easy as multi-band, multi-mode HF can get. For the amateur, press the
RX button to put the radio into band/frequency mode where the two big
knobs are much friendlier for ham radio use.

To convert it to ham radio, hold down MODE and TX buttons and press
number 2 button and it will transmit from 1.5-30 Mhz, continuously.
Unlike the old radios with clipping diodes, wires, and other ways
around the FCC type acceptance, you can SWITCH IT BACK, by doing the
same thing, when the ham leaves the boat, putting the radio back on HF
MARINE ONLY transmit to keep the unlicensed from getting off the ITU
channels and into trouble. My captain is not a ham so I must restrict
his transmits. This radio makes that very easy.....MODE + TX + 2
toggles the mode.

Once the radio is in the frequency mode, the left knob moves the
cursor across the frequency numbers and the right knob changes the
numbers under the cursor. Luckily, the numbers are COUPLED to the
number to the left of them, which makes the right knob right into a
VFO knob. Unfortunately, it's in 100 Hz steps, which is kinda clunky
for modern technology. There's gotta be some compromises. With all
those MEMORY CHANNELS, just assign yourself a block of 50 for ham
radio use. Make a memory in the middle of each SSB portion of each
ham band and use these memories as band switching, then move the big
knob at 1khz or 100hz rates to move around the bands. Use other
memories for your fav net freqs or sked freqs for direct access, even
in channelized mode. Works great, and MUCH easier than the older
radios.

No keylines for external linear amps on the ham bands....but the tuner
wouldn't take it anyways so we're QRP at 150W....dammit.

You need a SECOND receive antenna to connect to the SECOND antenna
connector so the DSC scanning receiver can continously monitor all the
DSC frequencies for digital selective calling and your MMSI calls.
I'm using the solid handrails around our Amel Sharki ketch, which
aren't grounded to anything. Any old ungrounded shroud you can get an
extra nut on its chainplate bolt will also work fine. It's just a
receive antenna and the longer the better.....

The AT-140 is a pleasure. We have a 55' long insulated backstay that
comes down into the center cockpit right next to the mizzenmast base.
The AT-140 is mounted on top of the aft cabin just aft of the
mizzenmast step on top of the aft cabin with a short wire to the
backstay. The former owner never changed out the METAL CABLE holding
up the main boom which shorted out his HF signal to the mainmast
unless the boom was way outboard, but we changed that to LINE and got
the metal cables away from the antenna. I'm S8 on 20 meters in Japan
from the marina slip. The signals on 40 meters, nearly the resonant
freq of the 55' long backstay are great! And this tuner will tune
this backstay all the way down to the BOTTOM of the 160 meter ham
band! Simply amazing....at full power. Signals on 160 are "fair"
with such a short antenna. I'm going to add more length with an
extension from the top insulator to just above the point where our
mizzen headsail connects, giving me another 15-18' of length to the
radiator horizontally from the top....(c;

Make a nice QSO from VK3 to W4 lands, boat 2 boat, eh?.....

73, Larry W4CSC
Charleston, SC, USA
be glad to swap info through
organs at myrealbox dot com
if you like.


Thanks for any input.

John Proctor
VK3JP
S/V Chagall

--
John VK3JP

Nice to see you, again, John. You'll love the TINY, FRAGILE connector
pins Icom gives you to connect your tuner control cable to the main
box with NO EXTRA PINS in case you break one. There are FOUR wires so
you only get FOUR pins in the 6-pin connector.....not 6. They must
cost $AU1 per thousand? Thank Icom like I did in my nasty email after
working with them. You get ONE SHOT to do it right. SOLDER the wires
as these pins are real SOFT and the crimp WON'T HOLD.

NNNN

AR




Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....