6325 kHz  AM  [2016-05-21/1500-1530z]

MFSK-32 @ 1510 Hz

OLIVIA 16-500 @ 2200 Hz

RSID: <<2016-05-21T15:00Z MFSK-32 @ 6325000+1510>>


Hello and welcome to DigiDX 14, a weekly review of the latest shortwave
and DX news broadcast mainly in MFSK32 mode. This broadcast includes
shortwave news, a review of the Icom IC-7300 direct RF sampling
transceiver by Thomas Witherspoon and an over-the-air QSL card.

While this broadcast on 1500Hz, a shorter version of the text from
today’s programme is also broadcast in Olivia 16-500 mode on 2200Hz.
To decode both streams either record the programme and decode twice or
open two instances of your decode software and centre one on 1500Hz
MFSK32 and one on 2200Hz Olivia 16-500.
 

DigiDX weekly schedule:

Sunday 2130 - 15770kHz via WRMI (Okeechobee, FL, USA)

Sunday 2330 - 11580kHz via WRMI (Okeechobee, FL, USA)

Monday 2000 - 6070kHz via Channel 292 (Rohrbach Wall, DE)

Any changes to this schedule or extra broadcasts will be listed on http://www.digidx.uk

If you enjoy DigiDX and find the service useful please consider donating
via our Patreon page. Any money donated will go towards paying for
airtime to keep DigiDX on the air to Europe and North America.

Every donation will help no matter how little - https://www.patreon.com/digidx

Thanks very much to listeners Mike Stapp, Mark Braunstein and Richard
Langley for contributing to the Patreon campaign.
 

Latest Shortwave News:

Voice of Hope Launches

Further Mighty KBC changes

RAE Argentina reorganisation

Radio Canada International requesting reception reports.
 

Voice of Hope Launches

The religious station Voice of Hope has started transmissions from its
new Zambian transmitter station. Los Angeles based KVOH acquired the
Lusaka site in 2014 from Christian Vision to expand its service beyond
the current California transmission site and test transmissions took
place in March of this year on 6065kHz.

The Southern African site has 12 buildings on 150 acres of land housing
two 100 kW Continental shortwave transmitters and two high-gain TCI long
range antennas to beam signals over all of west, central, and southern
Africa.

The initial schedule of Voice of Hope via Zambia will be on 9680kHz
between 0500 and 0800 UTC Monday-Friday and at weekends between
1200-1700UTC. Voice of Hope intent to add additional times are
frequencies in the coming months.
 

Further Mighty KBC changes

Last week on DigiDX we mentioned a cut to the length of the broadcast
from Mighty KBC from 3 hours to 2 hours (0000-0200 UTC Sunday) from the
15th May. Unfortunately this is being cut again to one hour a week from
0000-0100 from the 5th of June.

The broadcast will continue to be on 9925kHz and irregular broadcasts
some Sundays to Europe on 6095kHz will also continue.
 

RAE Argentina reorganisation
 

The English service of Radiodifusion Argentina al Exterior (RAE) have
announced that it is reorganising its programmes and that, from the end
of May, it will broadcast seven days a week instead of only from Mondays
to Fridays. However it is not clear if this will apply to other languages as well as
English.

RAE in English currently broadcasts to the following schedule:

 9690kHz 1800-1900 - 35 degrees

11711kHz 0300-0400 - 335 degrees

15345Khz 1800-1900 - 35 degrees

All from the General Pacheco transmitter site near Buenos Aires in
Argentina.
 

Radio Canada International requesting reception reports.
 

DigiDX has had news over the last few weeks regarding Radio Canada
International returning to shortwave via ShortwaveService in Germany and
their Kall Krekkel transmitter.

Regular listener of DigiDX Richard Langley has written to Marc
Montgomery, the host of RCI’s The Link programme (which forms the
English part of the shortwave broadcast) and Marc has said that RCI
welcome reception reports and programme comments from listeners on
shortwave. The email address english@rcinet.ca has been suggested as the
best address to use.

Richard also says (via DXLD) - “Might not be a bad idea for those in
Europe who have listened to the broadcasts (or others elsewhere using a
remote receiver in Europe) to send them a brief note of encouragement
indicating that it's great to have them back on shortwave”

The schedule via Kall Krekkel in Germany is :

6005 1430-1530 Radio Canada International French Saturdays

7310 1400-1430 Radio Canada International English Saturdays
 

Thank you for listening, please send reception reports to
reports@digidx.uk. This is DigiDX signing off......

A review of the Icom IC-7300 direct RF sampling transceiver

In August 2015 at the Tokyo Hamfair, Icom debuted a new type of
transceiver in their product line––one featuring a direct RF
sampling receiver. Essentially, it was an SDR tabletop transceiver.

At about the same time that the IC-7300 started shipping around the
world, Icom pulled their venerable IC-7200 off the market. Yet the
IC-7200 was established as a well-loved product, due to its highly
sensitive receiver, its relatively robust front end, and its quality
audio. Moreover, it was simple to operate, which made superb as a Field
Day or radio club rig.

Therefore, even though the IC-7300 promised much more versatility than
the IC-7200, for its price point it had a tough act to follow.

So, of course––even more so than with any other radio Icom has
introduced in the past few years––I was eager to get my hands on a
IC-7300. I’m very fortunate that my good friend, Dave Anderson (K4SV)
was one of the first purchasers of the IC-7300, and that he didn’t
mind (after only having the rig perhaps one week!) allowing me to borrow
it for a several weeks for evaluation.

Note: I should state here that since this rig was loaned to me, I
evaluated it based on the firmware version it shipped with, and made no
modifications to it.

This review primarily focuses on the receiver’s performance,
functionality and usability.

Introducing the Icom IC-7300

In recent years, the “big three” ham radio manufacturers have been
using color displays, and––Icom most especially––touch screens.
While I’m no fan of backlit touch screens in mobile applications, I
think touch screen displays make a lot of sense in a base radio. If
carefully designed, a touch screen can save an operator from
heavily-buried menus and decrease the number of multi-function buttons
on the front panel.

The challenge, of course, is making a display with intuitive controls,
and one that is large enough, and with sufficient resolution, to be
useful to the operator. In the past, I’ve been disappointed by many
displays; the most successful have been incorporated in DX/Contest-class
(i.e., pricier) transceivers, meanwhile, entry-level and mid-priced
transceiver displays often seem half-baked. While the graphics may be
crisp, spectrum displays at this price point are often too compressed to
be useful, and if not a touch display, force the user to pause operation
in order to find the correct knob or button to change settings. In such
cases, I find myself wondering why the manufacturer went to the expense
of a color display at all––?

But what about the C-7300 display? I’m thoroughly pleased to report
that Icom did a fantastic job of balancing utility and function in
design of the IC-7300’s color touch display and front panel. There are
number of ways you can chose to display and arrange elements on the
screen–since I’m an SDR fan, I typically chose a display setting
which gave the waterfall the most real estate. Of course, one can chose
to give the frequency display priority or a number of other
arrangements.

User interface

I can tell that Icom built upon their experience with the
IC-7100––their first entry-level touch screen display transceiver.

I was able to get the IC-7300 on the air in very little time. Within
five minutes of turning on the IC-7300, I was able to:

change the display to feature a spectrum waterfall; change the span of the
waterfall display; adjust the TX power output; change the filters
selection and the transmit mode; change bands and make direct-frequency
entries; adjust notch, passband, and filter width; adjust AF and RF
gain; set A/B VFOs and operate split; change AGC settings; turn on Noise
Reduction/Noise Blanker, and adjust compression. Basically, I found that
all the essential functions are clearly laid out, accessible, and highly
functional. Impressive.

The IC-7300 ships with a manual–– aptly titled, the “Basic”
manual––and a CD with the full and unabridged operations manual. The
Basic Manual covers a great deal a lot more than the manual which
accompanied the Icom ID-51a. If you read through the manual, you’ll
readily familiarize yourself with most of the IC-7300’s higher
function operations, and especially, you’ll be able to adjust the
settings to your operation style. The Manual is written in simple
language, and includes a lot of diagrams and graphics.

If you’re like me, you will find you’ll also need to reference that
unabridged manual, so hang on to the CD, too.

Still, I imagine there’s a large percentage of future IC-7300 owners
that will never need to reference the manual––especially if they
don’t care about tweaking band edges or similar settings. Yes, believe
it or not, it’s that easy to use.

Operation

While I spent a great deal of time listening to CW and SSB in various
band conditions and at various times of day, I spent less time on the
air transmitting.

With that said, all of my transmitting time was in CW since the IC-7300
mic was accidentally left out when my friend loaned me the rig.

I’m please to report that CW operation is quite pleasant. All of the
adjustments––RF Power, Key Speed, and CW Pitch––can be quickly
modified using the multi-function knob. While in CW mode, you can also
toggle full break-in mode, which is quite smooth, via the function
button and touch screen.

SSB functions are similar. While in  SSB mode, the multi-function knob
allows you to change the tx power, mic gain, and monitor level. The
function button opens an on-screen menu with VOX, compression, TBW, and
the monitor toggle.

Here’s a short video I made with my phone while I made a few
adjustments to the IC-7300:

Of course, my smartphones’s microphone can’t accurately reproduce
the audio from the IC-7300, but you probably get the idea.

The only annoyance I noted––and perhaps I’m more sensitive to
this, being primarily a QRPer––is that the 7300’s cooling fan
starts up each time you key up. It even comes on when transmit power is
at its lowest setting. I find this a little distracting in CW.
Fortunately, however, the 7300’s fan is fairly quiet and operates
smoothly.

Receiver performance summary

I enjoy producing audio clips for readers to compare and comment upon.
Each time I’ve done so in the past, I’ve had listeners argue the
virtues of a particular audio clip while others have the complete
opposite reaction to that same clip. Not all of us prefer our audio
served up in the same way. No doubt, there’s a great deal of
subjectivity in this sort of test.

I’ve had the IC-7300 on the air every day since I took possession of
it. I’ve listened to SSB, CW, and lots of AM/SW broadcasters.

And here’s my summary: the IC-7300 is an excellent receiver. It has a
low noise floor, superb sensitivity and excellent selectivity. I even
slightly prefer its audio to that of my Elecraft KX3, and I’m a huge
fan of the little KX3.

I’ve written before about how difficult it is to compare SDRs; the
problem is that there are so many ways to tweak your audio, filters,
AGC, noise reduction, etc. that it’s hard to compare apples with
apples.

In the audio samples above, the IC-7300 and WinRadio Excalibur were both
set to their default audio settings. In SSB and CW, the IC-7300 excels,
in my opinion. CW seems to pop out of the noise better and SSB is more
pleasant and interpretable. The Excalibur has a better audio profile for
AM broadcasters, though. Its default audio simply sounds fuller–more
robust.

The audio from the IC-7300 on AM sounded absolutely flat. However, if I
tweak the audio of the ‘7300, adding more bass, it instantly sounds
more like a dedicated tabletop receiver.

I should also mention that while the IC-7300’s built-in digital
recording is a fantastic and effective feature, it doesn’t produce
audio true to what’s heard through headphones live. This iis especially the case
when you add more bass and treble response as in the RRI
example above. When the audio EQ is set to a default flat, it’s quite
accurate.

To be clear: for broadcast listening, I’ll still reach for my SDRs
(the Excalibur, FDM-S2, TitanSDR and CR-1a).

If, however, I have limited space and/or budget for multiple receivers,
I’d be quite happy using the IC-7300 as a broadcast receiver on the HF
bands.

Speaking from the Shortwave Radio Listener (SWL) perspective, meanwhile,
am I pleased with how the ‘7300 handles the broadcast bands? Most
definitely.

And as a ham radio operator, am I pleased with the IC-7300’s
receiver––? Absolutely.

In short: the IC-7300 seems to have some of the best all-around receiver
qualities of any transceiver I know under $2,000.

Summary

Every radio has its pros and cons. When I begin a review of a radio, I
take notes of my initial impressions. Here’s my list for the IC-7300:

Pros
 

*Excellent sensitivity and selectivity
*Excellent, highly-customizable RX and TX audio
*Color touch screen interface
*Spectrum display is large enough to be useful Intuitive functions
*Twin PBT is both intuitive to operate and effective
*Effective RF gain to compensate for noisy band conditions
*Built-in RX and TX recording, file transfers via common SD card
*Front panel knobs and buttons are spaced appropriately and easy to use
*Quiet cooling fan (see con)
*Decodes RTTY on screen
*Built-in ATU
*Antenna analyzer function (not tested)

2016-05-21   6325 kHz:

2016-05-23   6070 kHz: