Project 775

[pjxii]

Josh, I can't believe how well you've gotten to know this transceiver! Thanks for all your work, it's greatly appreciated

[Josh]

Thanks, kinda a icom rx nut from way back (arigato Inoue-san!) and they all seem to share a lot of the same design philosophy so you get to know part numbers, expected gain, etc. Started out with an R70 in '89 and a few months later with a 751. Had 735, 745, 751 and 751A, 765, 761, 756Pro and ProII, and lastly the 775 for tx, R70 and several R71s plus the R7000 for rx.

I wonder why the Italian HAMs who devised the 775 mod pdf don't recommend replacing the 3sk thingy with the bfr thingy for lower nf in the IF amp if you splice in a inrad roof. Pretty sure you can come up with an additional 3 or 4db gain with the inrad roof filter amp (let alone a spot on alignment) so could make up for the lost gain. I'm in a quandary over mine, should I forsake the am rx side and mod for ssb work or leave it possible to rx wide sigs like am and fm? This thing sits on ssb all day day in day out and I've several other rigs that sound better on am.

[pjxii]

I wonder why the Italian HAMs who devised the 775 mod pdf don't recommend replacing the 3sk thingy with the bfr thingy for lower nf in the IF amp if you splice in a inrad roof. Pretty sure you can come up with an additional 3 or 4db gain with the inrad roof filter amp (let alone a spot on alignment) so could make up for the lost gain. I'm in a quandary over mine, should I forsake the am rx side and mod for ssb work or leave it possible to rx wide sigs like am and fm? This thing sits on ssb all day day in day out and I've several other rigs that sound better on am.

Can you give me details about that mod regarding the Inrad roofing filter, please? 

Personally, since I have other receivers that sound great on HF I'm not worried about how AM sounds on the 775. I would think that if you aren't using it for AM or FM tx optimizing it for SSB would be the way to go.

[Josh]

Here's a link to the pdf on the mods, I translated it into English and it came out very well;
https://www.filemail.com/d/vdwnpnjhonrxdbl

You can open a pdf right?

[pjxii]

Yes, got it. Thank you!

[Josh]

Sometimes one comes across a bad FL80.

These filters are found in the 751, 751A, and 775 as well as other Icom rigs, and any that have a FL80 installed as an option.

The FL80 was sold as an upgrade option for any rig that had a FL30; same pin out, IF, and similar bandwidths but the FL80 skirts went deeper and steeper than the FL30.

A simple way to check for a bad filter is to note the passband response of the rig in ssb mode, then flip to the other sideband and note the response, they should be similar if not identical. Perform this test with no optional filters enabled or the results will be for those filters and not the FL80/FL96 pair.

A bad filter will display a markedly asymmetrical response, I note in most cases usb is pinched while lsb is fine to a bit too bassy. Never seen a bad FL96 or FL70, but surely it can happen, almost always a bad FL80 is lurking in that Icom.

A specific part in the FL80 goes stale over time and changes the passband. For all I know there's only xtals, caps, and inert gas inside one. A HAM opened one to fix it and found a bad silver mica cap (dread silver mica disease!), replacing it brought the filter back into spec. FL30s also fail in a very similar manner, some even stop working altogether.

The FL70, wich matches the illustrious FL96 in bandwidth as well as steep and deep skirts, is a choice option to replace the FL80, unless one wants a narrower passband.

The shame of it all is Icom went with plug-in optional xtal filters in the rigs newer than the 765 series, meaning Icom don't make a pin for pin solder in replacement for the FL80, one has to use up an optional filter slot to run a Icom narrow ssb filter if so desired. And the solder pins of the current plug in filters do not match up with the traces/holes on the circuitboard, so one is obliged to use jumper wires to splice in a newer filter.

[Josh]

Monitoring weak (realllllllllllly weak) cw sigs has allowed me to test if an 80Hz filter helps or hurts weak cw signal detection. Some weak sig cw enthusiasts say "find your weak sig, then open the filters up wide".
That may work for some ops but when I tried that on some truly weak cw today they melted into the band noise and the cochannel crap, enabling the 80Hz filter made them pop back into detection, time and again on every sig coming in.
And they were just at the perception level in the 80Hz filter.

I don't recall the narrow filter I normally set in the 756 Pro2 (100Hz) being as effective, mebbe it has more ringing, will have to compare both rigs at the same time same signal.

The diff is the 775 has high quality matched 500Hz xtal filters in the 9mHz and 455kHz IF strips that then feed the dsp demodulator/filter unit.
The 775 has 5 frequency mixes/conversions from antenna jack to audio out. A ADC16071 16bit adc does the a/d conversion in the 775.

 The Pro2 has a several kHz wide 455kHz IF ceramic filter it passes all sigs through prior to the mix down to 36kHz and right into the adc and dsp. The Pro2 has 3 frequency mixes/conversions from antenna jack to audio out.
The DSP in the IC-756PRO/756PROII employs a 24-bit A/D
converter. The logical value of the dynamic range of a 24-bit A/D converter is 144dB, however the actual value of the analog performance is smaller than this and performance may differ considerably, depending on the type of A/D converter used.

An interesting effect I noted with the dsp filtering in the 775 is you can open the IF filters wide as in ssb wide and the dsp filter does almost as good a job despite no longer having the protection afforded by the preceding narrow xtal filters, despite being a 16bit adc.

[Josh]

Was wondering how to fill the option filter slots for the 9mHz and 455kHz slots. Already have narrow filters to pass anything 500Hz and narrower.  Wanted something for wide ssb, but Icom branded filters for such are rare or unobtainable.

Then I recalled I have a FL-33 6kHz wide xtal filter I can splice in the 9mHz slot, but what about the 455 slot?

Hoarding parts saves the day once again!

Back in the 80s a customer (I used to build and sell ambc and 160m tabletop loops) gave me something from his Icom IC745, a small pcb with caps and xformers that held a 455kHz ceramic IF filter in the slot of a 455kHz xtal filter.
To install a optional xtal filter, you remove this pcb/filter assembly and discard it.

The caps and xformers on the pcb are to match the different in and out z of the filter itself to the IF circuit as it expects to see a xtal filter in that slot, not a ceramic with different characteristics. Mismatches lead to spurs, attenuation, and uncharacterised bandpasses as well as loss.

Much rather have a FL-257 3.3kHz wide xtal filter but those are rare and costly.

So since I have the pcb to swap in a ceramic filter, as well as several ceramic 455kHz filters to choose from, I decided to run with that.

The filter of choice is a Murata CFR455H, a 6kHz wide, 9 pole, metal cased affair that is perfect for wide ssb and narrow am, this will match up with the FL-33 for use in hfbc am listening too, not just ssb.

Best part is all are Icom original parts, continuing with my all-Icom parts theme/fetish.

[BoomboxDX]

Thanks, kinda a icom rx nut from way back (arigato Inoue-san!) and they all seem to share a lot of the same design philosophy so you get to know part numbers, expected gain, etc. Started out with an R70 in '89 and a few months later with a 751. Had 735, 745, 751 and 751A, 765, 761, 756Pro and ProII, and lastly the 775 for tx, R70 and several R71s plus the R7000 for rx.

Not a ham here, obviously, but I see the famous IC-701 is missing from that list of Icoms. What's your opinion on that? I remember seeing the ads for it when it was a new thing, and it looked so cool. Almost made me want to become a ham to get one.

Interesting thread also.

[Josh]

I never got to play with a 701 but had its power supply and wish I'd not bought it. You see, the 701 rig itself does psu regulation internally, the psu has none. Not knowing about the missing regulation I paired that psu with a TS440 and let some smoke out as the psu was sending more volts than the TS440 likes.

The 701 put Icom on the hf map for the most part and was a good seller, still used by many ops. Haven't seen one for sale in years oddly enough.

I doubt Icom looked like this back when the 701 was king;
http://wiki.oevsv.at/images/5/56/Icom_factory_tour_2010.pdf

The kanban and kaizen of Icom;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx1br6CvJNc

[BoomboxDX]

I read somewhere -- probably one of the ham forums -- that the 701 has some issues that have to be fixed when bought used. Some part that's hard to obtain, or one has to come up with a workaround. I don't recall what it was...

[Josh]

I've never heard of any common issue with the 701, the 720A however has a few that must be remedied before they take place, or hard to find parts will be needed.

Seems an internal rotary relay (used to switch front ends) has far too much tension on a spring and causes the part to beat itself to death, reducing the tension eliminates the problem.

I can remember crap like this I heard decades ago, but not what I had for lunch yesterday.

[Josh]

Breaking Quarantine

I found someone local to bead blast and powder coat the 775s poor cabinetry. At first I tried to find my goto place where I'd had a Romanian AK74 blasted and powder coated several years ago but couldn't remember where it was, mebbe they gone under. But fb, as much as I dislike anything zuckerberg, revealed a proprietor with a home blasting/coating shop, called and made arrangements for said blasting/coating.

Ran into a snag as the inside of one cabinet half has a large sheet of what I assume is sound deadening material of a synthetic felt nature, glued firmly over a substantial area of said cabinet. It also had a clothe-like sound passing baffle over the speaker port. Both of these would be ruined by the heat of powder coating, or misapplication of the bead blasting process.

So it was decided to simply glass bead the exterior of the cabinetry, the insides of wich are coated in a type of bluing or similar that is conductive, where powder coating is usually a insulator. In consideration of the above, spray bombs were the only recourse.

So while the cabinetry was undergoing the bead blasting, I vetured forth to Lowes only a few miles away and found they were indeed doing business during thapocalypse. Got some dark grey texture finish rustoleums and went back to the bead blasters.

Blasting took off all exterior coating and greatly reduced the apparent scratches and all traces of rust and corrosion! Inside, the cloth materials were unhurt.

Took all home and set up operations in the porch to keep dust and pollen off the surfaces post and ante spraybombing runs. Cleaned the surfaces to be painted with alcohol to remove any oils or other crap.

Holy crap this stuff is vile smelling. Spraying a few light coats, varying the pass direction and angle of attack made for a nice uniform coat, and the longer it dried the better it looked. I didn't like it at first when it was still wet, but now think it looks great, something Inuoue-san might be proud of.

Anyway, it looks like something the factory would have done, can't wait to put it together with the less blemished front panel and see how it looks.




73's and best regardses!

[pedafo]

Just found this interesting forum / discussion group and as I was wondering how to fill the option filter slots for the 9mHz and 455kHz slots as well.

As I would like to "improve" my Tx/Rx audio on SSB having the 3.3khz wide SSB filter FL-257 availabe at my desk I wonder if it would be worthy to go ahead with the FL-96 stock filter replacement for the 455khz IF and try to replace de FL-80 with the FL-70 or FL-103 on the 9mhz IF.

Would one expect the FL-257 be efective for better audio intelegibility on RX and TX (when installed on the FL-96 slot) even for dx? or for dx it would be better install the FL-44A instead pairing it with the stock filter FL-80? 

I read a 775DSP thread on eham stating a "neat mod for the IF board that opens up the restricted transmit audio a bit. This is done by replacing the soldered-in stock FL-80 and FL-96 filters (2.4 and 2.8 kHz, respectively) with the FL-103 and FL-257 (2.8 and 3.3 kHz, respectively)".

Also someone shugested "On the reciever end of it i took out the FL-222 1.8 455khz SLOT and replace it with the FL-257 3.3khz" but this suggest that it would be only on RX side thus not improving TX side.

Will thank you in advance any thoughts you may share.

73 pedro