Pandia is out of the water... I wanted her to stay in, but... the anti-fouling paint is essentially gone, the painter forgot to apply primer on top of the gel-shield before rolling on the copper-stuff...
No comment... thus, Pandia is out of the water for winter, giving me the chance of doing some work on the hull and on other part otherwise difficult to reach.
All right, now, what's that to with radio? Well... what about installing some aerials in the rigging?
Hard cut here; the exercise motivated me to wire up the recently obtained Icom IC-M700TY for the first time. The radio is superb! Never before I had the privilege to experience a noise blanker that actually works, well, the radio has got one. The squelch (on SSB!) works well, it's just a switch, I will have a look at the schematics, my impression was, the squelch seems to be dynamic, flip the switch and after a certain while the receiver is silent. The AGC is very effective, it cannot be influenced. Therefore I think, the radio is (w/o mod) not really suited for QRSS. The radio is controlled by a "high precision" TCXO, whatever that means. Said TCXO however is about four times the size of a TCXO in an amateur transceiver.
Downside, one needs to know the frequencies one wants to operate on. We amateurs tend to flip over a range of frequencies and see what's on. Well, spinning a knob in order to scan the band is a no no with the IC-M700TY. Actually, scanning is, compared to more modern professional (marine) radios, not an option to this radio. Thus, know what you want and which qrg to want it on.
I assume, the IC-M700 is ideal for modes such as PSK31, Pactor, etc. and further for nets and similar channelized voice operations.
