Icom IC 7300 Hidden Ability - Check this Out! | Ham Radio
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- There is a feature on the IC-7300 that is worth checking out. Peter G3OJV describes his tests, and how the results may help owners of this very popular radio.
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Its nice they included this. In general, an antenna tuner that can match a 3:1 mismatch on a lower frequency can match much larger mismatches on higher frequencies due to the linear relationship between frequency and reactance. That means that the limiting factor on higher frequencies is not the tuning range of the unit itself, but the voltage rating of the capacitors. That's why the power has to be decreased if you tune a larger mismatch than the unit was designed for.
That was a great explanatory comment. Thanks.
Peter, you always give practical ideas. I used your idea with my random wire (35.5 ft) and 9:1 with great success using the IC7300 in emergency mode and have made many qso's while traveling. You are a true advocate for ham radio. Thank you.
Thanks so much.
Wow, something learned. I'll have to try this at our Scouting JOTA this weekend. Thank you!
Was not aware of this feature. Thanks for posting.
Always a treat watching your helpful and informative presentations, Thank You
Glad you like them!
Great video with a very useful tip. Peter you do a WONDERFUL job calmly and clearing explaining things. I felt like I was watching a well produced documentary on the BBC. Bravo!
Many thanks fir those kind words.
Peter, brilliant I didn’t know about that feature. When something says emergency, it means stay well alone. Thanks
My pleasure.
Icom 7300 is a great radio Peter. Best regards from Manchester, Connecticut. WU1Z Joe
Excellent ! Thanks for posting this .
My pleasure!
Thank you for this video. I have used the Emergency Mode on my IC-7300 when operating mobile in my car but have always been a little nervous thinking that I might be harming my radio by operating it so much in Emergency Mode.
Hidden from those who didn’t read the manual.
What self respecting radio ham ever reads the manual? 😂 Only kidding. However, I have encountered individuals who truly seem to believe that referring to a manual is a sign of weakness.
What ? There was a manual ??😅
For Yaesu FT847 & FC 20 ATU owners try this
The fix is on in one of the menus in the Yaesu 847. After this mod the 847 will tune up to a 7:1 insted of 3:1
The first thing you need to do is get into the service menu. You do this by holding down the three buttons on the mic and turning on the radio.
The first menu will be Fm-51 do not change that one. Rotate the sub-tune knob until you see the menu that says SWR 3.0 to the left this you will see two small numbers or numbers letter combination. Rotate the MEM/VFO CH knob until you see 9A then push the menu button and you are done.
Continued brilliant content. Thank you.
this is a nice trick for the 7300. I run 50 watts or less with mine. I got a tube amp if I want more. for portable use like POTA this is great . I have used a 9:1 random wire antenna and it tunes all bands. with end fed half wave with 49:1 you only get some bands and with emergency mode you can tune over 3:1 SWR. like using 17 and 12 meters . when tune for 40,20,10. etc. depending on cut length of wire. This trick is in the extended manual not the paper one. you do the same in menu to turn off E mode. 73's
Thank you for this video it helps a lot. Greetings from Croatia!
Glad it helped! Great to hear from you.
I'm looking for a new radio and the IC-7300 is top of the list. Thank you for the videos about this radio. I like the way the menus are interactive rather than a simple list. The size of the radio is important, I don't want to be fiddling around with tiny buttons. Apart from that, Icom or Yaesu are both very good. It seems to me that if you have been using your IC 7300 in "emergency mode" for a couple of years without problems then all is ok. Perhaps it's a selling point for the USA where emergency communications forms part of the Ham culture.
Enjoyed the clip and equally as much all the comments some quite funny. Shame others don't read them they wouldn't have to ask the same questions over and over
Many thanks.
Great tip. 😊
vry interesting & tnx; & btw, I've been using the modified version of the G5RV for many years now, the ZS6BKW & it works great with my 7300's internal AT!🤓🇺🇸
Thanks so much for this information. Brilliant!!
Glad it was helpful!
I tried a G5RV and didn't like it much. I Put up a 80M dipole and fed it with 450 ohm twin lead and tune it with a
"true" balanced tuner. A BT-1500A replica I build to be exact . Much more satisfactory performance even with an amp. Then went one step further and put up a horizontal closed sky loop fed with twin lead ladder line at 40ft cut for 160M. Tunes great, a top line antenna and now my go to antenna for any application! Cheap, easy to build, low noise, if you have the space to pit one up! You can still find old Johnson Matchboxes that work quite well with these at reasonable prices!
Very Good! Thank you
Informative video as always Peter 😊 I am a bit radical with my G5RV half wave. It is sited 20feet off the ground in a Y configuration with the feeder horizontal to the antenna. It tunes, 10,20,14 without issue on Dx 10 and earlier in the week I worked Tokyo and West Coast USA on 90w so can confirm it works 😊73
Well done.
@@watersstanton Thanks Peter, in my case necessity due to domestic considerations leads to some interesting experimentation. I also find it is 2 s points quieter than my end fed. 73
Good video as always Pete - will have to give the emergency mode a try de M7CCQ
Have fun
I had a Yaesu FT-991, and on my Off
Center Fed Windcamp WA4 multiband
antenna which didn't tune all inclusive
bands because of a 3:1 SWR range.
Also my Yaesu FT-891 with the Yaesu
FC-50 Tuner has similar results.
I have the switchable MFJ automatic
Antenna Tuner Extender in line which
helps the matching to some extent.
Now with my Yaesu FT818nd and an
external AT-100 Tuner and a separate
Micro 50 watt multiband amplifier,
running 50 watts, I believe it is able
to tune the antenna on all bands,
I presume because the external
AT-100 Tuner has a wider SWR range
matching ability, and that is with
the amp only accepting a 2:1 SWR,
or lower.
I don't know of these two full size Yaesu FT'991 or FT-891 transceivers
have a similar feature to help SWR
matching as the Icom IC-7300 does?
73 de W2CH Ray New Hampshire. 😊
Thanks for this video. There isnt much info on it and people seem to be all scared of this mode because of the "emergency mode". People always talk about how great the g90 tuner is but in reality just turn on E mode for the 7300 and you get the same tuner ability + 30w more power than it.
You are correct. 73 Peter
Thanks for Sharing Peter. I was wondering if you tried reducing the power first with the Power Control and then trying to use the tuner? Does the Emergency Function simply reduce maximum power?
No you need to switch to Emergency mode/
Appreciate your sharing your thoughts and experiences. I am considering purchasing a ICOM refurbished 7300 with a 2 year silver warranty. I do have an automatic antenna tuner and old manual tuner.
73 Steve AA4SH
Go for it Steve!
Can I ask where you are purchasing your ic7300 from
Thanks for that info .
Im gona have a go at this ! Thanks peter 👍 and as for limited 50 watts ! Im at 10 watts anyway ! 73s M7 CYC 😅😅
Do you have the voltage of the power supply set to the high end of 13.8v+15%? Just looking at the voltage meter on the panel looks like you're near 16v. I find that my 7300 is occasional dropping to 12v or 11.8v for voltage with my linear astron power supply set to 13.8v with the standard length of cable from icom. Was this the intention?
Thank you for the information and I will try to use my 7300 on the bands I can't tune on.
Please do.
I wonder why they included the emergency feature to operate the IC7300 at a much higher SWR and just didn’t include as standard inside the antenna tuner. My only assume is that it puts a lot more stress on the final output transistors, the capacitors and inductors in the auto tuner. This maybe this is OK for a short time, like an emergency but if used constantly it will cause prematurely age the components causing reliability problems in the long run, even though it is operating at half power.
I would guess the screen SWR indicator is disabled in this emergency mode. I suspect an inline SWR meter would show the same mismatches as when not in emergency mode and thus inefficient transmission, with considerable reflected power, hence to 50W limit to protect the PA from overheating.
In-line S-meters always read true VSWR.
i`m so excited...
Good to know. The IC-7300 is an amazing radio. I have bought and sold a few of them. I'll try other radios, yet I keep coming back to the IC-7300. What does that tell you? They are hard to beat in its price range! 73!
Good one!
Wow, that's incredible. I would certainly take 50w on those bands rather than Zero! I've worked the world on 10w, so 50w would be a welcome boost!
WOW new inspector gadget jeje
Interesting option. Thanks for sharing. Very strange that Icom call this feature 'Emergency Tuning'. If I used a half size G5RV, I would definitely use a remote aerial matching unit between the line isolator and the ladder line. This would remove the losses on the coax due to to high swr. You could also use full power from the radio.
Yes correct. But not everybody wants to use, or can afford a remote ATU. The VSWR losses maybe less than you think. There are several calculators on the internet.
Peter, my preference is to use thick well shielded coax connected to a quality waterproof balun mounted near the antenna terminals. When disconnecting the balun from the backyard dipole, there is no sign of unwanted signal via the coax line connected to my Icom R8500 or 8600 receivers. I use RG6 Quad Shield 75-Ohm coax for my HF and VHF SWL work. The extra coax shielding makes ferrite chokes unnecessary at my receiving location. Not happy with relative thin diameter coax wrapped around a toroid ferrite. The balanced twin lead and coax in your TH-cam video is also exposed to the large amount of rain that the UK typically experiences. A properly balanced receiving antenna (dipole, Yagi, log-periodic) with quality waterproof dipole terminal balun mounted as far away from the house and street power line noise sources is optimum for maximum practical SNR. The vertical axis noise floor on receivers like the Icom 7300 spectral display will be usually lower with high-end properly balanced antenna receiving systems. Horizontal polarisation also helps increase SNR. There are always better ways to do things.
Thanks for sharing but however thick or however shielded you4 coax, may be. There will alway be common mode currents flowing. R3member, common mode mode current has nothing to do with coax shielding. 73 Peter.
Hi Peter !! Thanks for the video !! I have a G5RV Jr. and I would like to install the same configuration that you use, what model of cable to the radio do you have? and what length? Thank you and 73!!
I use RG58 coax. The length is not critical,. I guess mine is about 115 metres, but never measured it! Hope that helps.
Another great video, Peter. I also use the IC-7300 as my primary rig I will definitely give this a try. Would reducing the output power to 50 watts allow the standard mode tuner to work? I'm thinking that it would not. Might have to give the Emergency mode a try. Thanks.
No you must change ATU mode
The radio drops power to 50 watts to protect the internal tuner. By entering emergency mode, the firmware is set up to allow the tuner to use component values pushed to the limits of the tuner. These types of auto switching LC tuners usually have built in self protection to prevent an inductor or capacitor from seeing too high of a voltage. If the radio ran at the full 100 watts, it would most likely smoke the internal tuner. so, by dropping the RF power, they can "fudge" the ratings a bit to allow for emergency use into a marginal antenna.
In Emergency Mode, can you select less than 50W power?
I use a random wire, around 30m, with a 49:1 balun. In the shack, I initially use a manual tuner (Kenwood AT-230), to adjust my compatibility with 5W CW, followed by the rigs ATU. This gives me all the bands I want, 160 to 10, and I also seem to get excellent reception. Any comments on this setup regarding the security of my rig? There is no evidence of RF in the shack.
Some amplifiers are also happy to get 50W (maybe they even can't take more) so emergency mode could even be considered as a power reducer
Yes agreed.
I had upgraded to the latest firmware for the IC-7300, V1.41.
You are using firmware V1.30, as in the video at 4:40/9:10
Will this method be appropriate for the latest firmware ?
I appreciate your videos.
Thanks Stan
ZZZZz
Yes it works with all versions.
I love the 7300, your LCD has a line in it at the top, which is a known fault. Still a great radio though!
Many thanks.
I sure do like the Icom ic 7300 and i can't wait to order one here soon. I got to save my pennies for one. 🤗
Keep saving!
I heard about this but totally forgot about it.😊
Hello Peter, thank you for that information, I can now tune all bands except for 30m & 60m, I am using a ZS6BKW as inv vee at 40ft so happy enough with that and as you say, 50w is ample power. However, how would I reverse the Emergency Tuning should I need to? 73
Just go back into emergency and you can switch it back via the reset procedure. Make sure you have a line isolator at tx end as this will help matching. Use a ferrite core with a around 8 turns of the coax around it.
Hi;
I have seen thet your 7300 display has a white line, Do you know if it is easy to change the display for a new one,? I know someone who has that problem, it is not a serious problem but it would be good to change it
Regarding emergency operation, I will tell you that really 3dB less power is not a serious problem because it is only 1/2 "Santiago" on the s-meter, and as you say, it is possible to work in other bands
In any case, I do not understand why ICOM did not put an ATU that can work with 4 or 5 SWR, for 100W. I think that the voltages generated could be alleviated with some better relay that is not much more expensive.
Sorry for my bad english
Have you been inside an ic-7300? The toroids are tiny and they get very hot, exactly the same as any balun which has much larger toroids. An ATU is simply lots of different sized baluns used in conjunction with each other until there is a good swr match. It may be using 1 toroid or 8 toroids or any combination of several to achieve a match. However, they are tiny and heat is a big issue at 100w. The 50w restriction is not for human safety, rather mechanical safety.
THank you for your answer
A small resistor can allow you to do this at full power level as well, which, for reasonable antennas (ie, not exactly half-wave), you can operate at 100W just fine and not have to reboot into "emergency" mode. Google for pc5e 7300 atu mod, you will see. The mod doesn't change the SWR metering, only the threshold of which the radio will not attempt to tune. One little resistor later and you can run that built-in ATU anywhere. Just be sensible about it and don't torture the radio where it truly should not be used.
Please remember that this is coupling the radio into the antenna. It is not changing the antenna in any way and hence not "tuning" the antenna.
It's always best to have a resonant antenna on each band but if this extension to the default matching capabilities of the 7300 lets you get some power out on a band that otherwise you couldn't - go for it. 73 Ed
Many thanks. in fact it is matching the reactance present at the end of the coax , not the antenna.
Still hard on your finals - It rescales and a 1:1 is actually now a 4:1 + and the reduced power is to help protect the finals.
Can you achieve the same by simply reducing the o/p to 50 watts, or does the emergency mode activate some other changes, possibly the tune up power applied during matching.
No
Normal mode will match 3:1 and emergency mode will match 6:1. That said, the toroids in the ATU are tiny and they will get very hot if the antenna is far out of tune. There is a reason why it's limited to 50w when matching 6:1 and its not for your safety.
I can
@@neilcoley9464 I have manually turned the watts down to 1 or 2 and made it tune a large mismatch but the losses would be very high besides running very low watts. Almost no signal will radiate off the antenna at that point. Best practice is to work on the antenna to be resonant at the desired frequency instead of transmitting with a poor swr.
@@aarongriffin81 nice
I don't own an iCom or a base station of any kind, however this might help me one day.
I think when you go to Emergency it drops the RF output power to 1/2 so your tuner is able to compensate for a lower power RF on transmit. Maybe? Check your RF output power with it on Emergency.
Yes you are correct. The power drops to 50W.
Voltage 16Volt on the 7300? 🧐
I wish you had an outlet in the states.
Ah - nice thought !
What voltage you pumping into that 7300? Showing over 16V in the display
Must turn it down!
I changed the ATU in my Yaesu FT-450-D from a 3:1 TO a 7:1 VSWR (now tuning anything) by following the ½ page of instructions (changing internal settings) found on the internet. Ron W4BIN
Interesting that such an adjustment exisrs.
👍Thanks for video Peter. I had spotted that Emergency Mode option in the menu but never tried using it. Wrap that SO239 with self amalgamating tape and insulating tape and it will last the winter no problem. I was curious to know what type of core you used for the choke on the co-ax? Taking a punt it's a FT240-43.
I used cling film last year and it worked fine. Yes I use that ferrite core.
I enjoy your videos Peter. Emergency mode 50watts and lineloss reach much further than a reciever. I've tried to tell my hammates not to overthink things to get on the air. Any sort of antenna is better than no antenna as long you can match it. The satisfaction of working DX with "scrap" is priceless.
I have $5 of speaker wire and a decent mfj tuner that got me over 5000 contacts. Those dummy load long wire boxes also do pretty well. 😂
Yes you are right.
This "hack" might also come in handy for Field Day.
Yes indeed.
I notice that you have the screen fault on your 7300; do you know if it easy to rectify?
I believe it requires a replacement screen
Would you get the same result if you just reduced power to 50w and stayed in non-emergency-regular mode? 73, KB3NG
No you need to change the ATU mode.
Add some window line to it can also change it
Hi! I've noticed, that power supply voltage is 16V! Is that ok?
No I must turn it down
Your voltage is of the scale.
Τhere is a white horizontal line at the top of the screen. Is there a problem or is it normal?
It's a problem. Icom got a bad batch of screens and it happens to 1 out of every 1,000 radios from the reports I've seen online. My IC-7300 done the same about 6 or 7 months after I had it. Sent it in for warranty repair.
My isolator is behind the radio?? Is this wrong?
Might want to update the firmware to 1.41.
50 watts is more than enough for FT8/FT4 and even some CW ops.
Yes.
Hmm it's a compromise having such a nice radio it's best to not to have resort to emergency mode really though...
No, compromise other than power limitation. Forget the word “Emergency.”
@@watersstanton the compromise is half the output power yes. If you've got 100w most would want to use it
I wouldn't call it a "hidden" ability as it's well documented in the manual. Then, again, how many hams actually read the manual? 🙂
Precisely.
oh dear, is the screen broken? is this a commone fault? I have a 7300 too. I see a white line where there shouldnt be on the screen?
Screen replaced now.
Peter, have you ever thought of lending your voice to ASMR videos ? LOL.
Thanks for sharing this, but the Emergency Tune function isn't "hidden". It's right there in the manual and menu. I use it sometimes with my 7610, but normally don't need it (I have an external high-power LDG tuner). I find it useful most when running FT8 or WSPR in the field when my antennas are far out of tune on certain bands, or like your G5RV, isn't resonant on the band at all. BTW, there is NOTHING wrong with non-resonant antennas. I've been using them for years with outstanding results. There are special cases where non-resonant antennas actually have gain over a standard resonant 1/4 or 1/2 wave antennas (the Extended-Double-Zepp is one good example that I use a lot). The only "trick" is to use feedline that isn't too lossy into mismatches, like twinlead.
I think the hidden part is that Icom decided to call it “emergency” whereas it is simply “extended capability.” Thanks for sharing.
@watersstanton Perhaps somewhat misnamed. But OTOH, they could've called it "Changes tuner into a mode that allows it to match 10 to 1000 ohms but reduces power to 50W" and someone would complain. Just how hams are, I'm afraid. 🤣
👍👍
I've noticed that in a few radios I'm ke5glw
An iron ferrate terminate for the antenna will give nearly 2x the signal capture than most antennae I have found. Plain old protein from household food is comprised almost entirely of ferrate iron. Connect 62 feet or more of heavier gauge copper wire into a jar of any peanut butter which is high in iron, run the cable out a window and place the jar at least 8 or 10 feet above ground or on the roof. You will be amazed with the result.
This feature also limits the radio to 50 watts out.
you need a new screen in that 7300 Peter.
Yep, but it seems to worry others more than me! 73 Peter.
16 volts!!!
So basicaly instead of mesing around in menus selecting Emergancy and having to rebbot the radio, just drop the power to 50W on the bands that wont tune and they will tune.
No, no no! Just turning power down has no affect. You need to go through the reboot procedure.
@@watersstanton Interesting, what a silly way of doing things on icoms part. good info though for people with that radio.
Good video!
I've never understood why any operator would want to "run" or "transmit" with a full 100 watts of power out in the first place.
Here's my automobile analogy; drive at top speed, (pretending we have pristine road conditions and superiorly tuned suspension), still, you're running it hard at which the vehicle won't last very long before a major malfunction. It's like traveling with the "cruise control" on rather, at a much slower speed, like 50 or so miles per hour, and maybe less favorable road conditions but still, the vehicle will still last and run longer than at full speed. And atmospheric conditions are a whole other animal in of itself.
Before I got my Tech Plus license here in the U.S., I worked DX across N. America from Akron, Ohio to Alaska with 12 feet of gashed-up RG-213 coaxial cable connected to a 102-inch steel whip that was lying on the balcony floor of my apartment underneath the railing with an old SommerKamp 10-meter radio that was struggling to transmit 12 watts out! I think sometimes that operators want to run the full 100 watts to satisfy their ego, which is a foolish waste of a radio.
KD8EFQ/73
100w out of the ic-7300 is like a governor on an engine. It is nowhere near red-lining an RPM gauge nor is it shortening the lifespan of the ic-7300. It's one of the most common HF radios and if people were happy with 3dB less they wouldn't buy the ic-7300. That's a full S unit difference and many contacts are made at or near noise level and an extra S unit makes all the difference. That said, using the emergency mode and forcing it to tune a very high VSWR is much harder on the radio than running 100w on a resonate antenna. Don't believe me? Tune any antenna with the ic-7300 that has about 3:1 swr and then check the tuned swr's. Hold the ptt while modulating at 100w for the demonstration and watch the swr climb. What's happening? The very very tiny toroids used in the built-in tuner are getting extremely hot and they lose efficiency when hot and the tune is lost resulting in climbing VSWR's. Any balun not made for QRP has large toroids to avoid getting hot. The only wear and tear on the ic-7300 is when you tune a way out of tune antenna. As the video stated, icom suggested the emergency mode reduced power was simply to avoid voltage issues but infact the tiny toroids tuning a 6:1 mismatch at 100w would melt the insulation on the magnet wire used n the tiny toroids.
The normal person avoids the emergency mode and their 100w is NOWHERE as harmful to the ic-7300 compared to the 50w using emergency mode matching a 6:1 SWR.
It's ok for 'emergencies' but tuning a very poor match WILL make the tiny toroids very hot. The video states he has used emergency mode for years and thats fine until the ATU fails. You rarely hear about an ic-7300 fail but emergency mode is rarely used, I think those instances are related. @@_NeuroTech_
The engineers who designed these rigs took this into account. All 100 watt rated ham rigs use a PA capable of at least twice rated output and they run them at half power to preserve linearity and the life of the PA. So running them at 100 watts is actually "loafing along" and not straining at all. An example of this is the old Kenwood TS450SAT. They were a 100 watt rated rig. They ran a pair of 2SC2879 finals. One 2879 by itself is rated at 100 watts but Kenwood ran a pair for 100 clean watts of power without pushing the devices. Had they elected to use a single transistor, pushing it to it's full rating would make the IMD suffer and it would not pass FCC certification for spectral purity.
First, thank you all so far for the replies. It seems as though I haven't gotten the notifications that I signed up for this channel which thus why I'm responding now 10/22/2023.
And thank you more so as I feel more confident about TXing at 100 watts with my Icom 7300. I wanted to "baby" the radio upon experiences with other transceivers in the past that seemed to cook the finals upon TXing at full power.
The SWR reading did not register any SWR whatsoever in emergency mode. this tells me that in emergency mode, this circuit is disengaged thus preventing the CPU to control the output and equally not displaying any SWR on the screen. Therefore it is not tuned to 50 OHMs it is merely transmitting into a mismatch. Emergency mode is for an emergency only where you may need to comunicate regardless of a matched antenna only, as described in the manual. You therefore did not see a match, you saw nothing as the SWR indications had been disengaged and would be transmitting into a bad load. Icom had reduced maximum output to 50 Watts so the radio can survive this, not for continued ops as this video would imply.
Yet the tuner tuned.
Sorry, but wrong. If you move the frequency up the band the VSWR meter rises. And of course the ATU tunes as you would have heard in the video.
My God !! What amateur radio has come to.
Tuning a coax with a horrible mismatch is useless..
You may be surprised at how small losses can be on even 6:1 VSWR with moddedst coax lengths. Check one if the calculators on the internet.
There is going to be a lot of loss
There is always loss with VSWR , but way less than many think.. Check the free web calculators.
'Hidden' feature? Not if you read the manual.
But many don’t.
I am so done with Icom & IC-7300. Watch sized backup battery, horrible touch screens and crazy menus that leave you clicking like the Federal reserve printing money.
Maybe you have a different version to the rest of us!
Guess it takes all sorts.................
I'm getting all of those bands w/o tuning? HyEndFed EFHW 200 PEP 40/20/15/10 but also get 30/17 and 12...