Thursday, May 03, 2012

New (old) rig - an IC-725 for the shack

Just had good reports for my first contact with a new rig in the shack. The Icom IC-725 was spotted on eBay last week and I was the only bidder at $220 which I think is a pretty good deal.


The transceiver has a few minor issues: half the dial light is out, it's a little off frequency and there's a bit of corrosion here and there.

After a little cleaning up I got on air on the Kandos net, VK2ARK, hosted by Tom, at 4pm eastern time. It's a friendly and lively net and they've been kind enough to respond to my calls on a QRP rig in the past. I got good reports including one from Mildura almost 1,000km away.


The IC-725 seems like a good entry level older rig. Although it doesn't have any bells and whistles like DSP or different filters, the AGC has two time constant settings (much better than the still in production IC-718 that has only super-fast AGC).

Update

I've opened it up and moved it pretty much on to frequency (by ear using the 3.699 VK2WI beacon). The dead dial lamp has been removed - it's a tiny 12V incandescent lamp. The hole is too small for any of the LEDs I have laying about.


The lamp is inside a yellow rubber holder. Those ruler gradations are half millimeters, it's pretty small.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice catch at that price!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Peter Marks said...

Yep, just had a contact with Mal, VK2BMS who critiqued the audio and comments that bass is a little lacking - but that's probably my microphone.

I took the cover off and released a dead spider but otherwise all looks pretty good.

This is a great basic rig and I'd recommend it to anyone.

Peter

Unknown said...

I have been running a ic 725 for around a year now. they are as tough as old boots seems to do the job I want. bought mine similar to you on ebay mine had a wasps net in it. a great starter as an fcall now I've up graded its still doing the job I dont think I'll sell it when I up grade radios just keep it for emergencies. and mobile etc.
only running a simple g5rvjr at 5 meters and I can work most stations I want lp US mini pile ups etc it just gets heard thats why i like it. good luck with it.
cheers
steve vk3meg

Peter Marks said...

Thanks Steve,

Yes, very happy with mine. I've had a couple of shots at getting it on frequency and it's close now but not perfect.

No wasp's nest in mine, just a little surface rust.

It's my main non-qrp rig now that I've attached a noise reduction speaker.

73's

Peter

Anonymous said...

Interesting,
I also got a very used IC-725 @150 euro. SSB is not working, CW is ok. Attenuator is also not ok.
Noticed one can ajust R208 for QRP. In my case I got output from 1,5W minimum. Receiver is good especialy with CW filter.
72, Luis CU2IJ