Icom IC-7700 initial impressions.

Your first impression when the deliveryman brings it is it's HUGE - a
giant box weighing in packed at 37kgs/80 lbs. It is double boxed and
extremely well packed. It takes two of you to unpack it and get it in
place in the shack. Setting up may be difficult for anyone not
familiar with the Icom 756 PRO range, as it has a huge 216 page
instruction manual and takes some time to go through it and get
familiar with all the functions and numerous "bell's and whistles".
However, if you already owned a 756PRO series you will find setting up
much easier as many of the functions follow the same format.

I am a listener only and focus mainly on the LF and MW bands.
I have had it for several days now and feel more familiar with it and
have given it a really good thrash in some productive quiet early
morning pre-dawn sessions.
It is very quiet compared to the already quite quiet 756PROIII that I
have next to it connected for direct A/B comparisons through a SP20
speaker and common antenna.
A major advantage for me is that the 7700 will engage both pre-amp 1
and 2 in both LF and MW bands, whereas this is not possible on the
756. In addition pre-amp 1 is supremely quiet and can be engaged with
confidence in nearly all situations. This results in the possibility
to render audible some very faint stations that are not audible on the
756. In addition pre-amp 2 can also be engaged usefully on MW and LF,
even though the instruction manual recommend it's use only above 20
Mhz.

The action of the filters on the 7700 is superb, as when selecting a 2
Khz setting and engaging the 3 Khz roofing filter. Working the
difficult 9/10 Khz MW splits is a breeze and gives results appreciably
better than the 756PRO.

Using the pre-amps and the tight filters I was able to render several
very weak Brazilians audible that the 756 couldn't get. Plus on LF I
found the ASN Ascension Isl. NDB beacon, extremely faint but readable
with a 50 Hz filter and pre-amp 1 on. You could hear it faintly on the
756, but could not really render it readable.

The NR noise reduction feature on both radio's seems to be the same,
but the NB noise blanker is a dream on the 7700, as it is adjustable
for both width and depth. On the 756 the NB will only zap the
infrequent ignition noise you get today, but the 7700 will in addition
zap all sorts of suburban electrical pulses = lovely feature.

The 7 inch scope is lovely, much clearer and larger than the 756 and
covers a much greater span - 5 khz to 500 khz in several steps.

So I am very happy with the 7700 and it seems a very worthwhile
upgrade and money well spent. Don't misunderstand me, the 756PROIII is
a very good radio, it is just that the 7700 is superb and a marked
improvement.
__________________________________________________ _____

Of course if you only listen to the AM SW bands then you will probably
do very well with a setup like Burr has, but if you want to do serious
Trans Atlantic and Trans Pacific MW DX then you need a top line
receiver.

John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s
Icom IC-7700, Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
Drake SW8. ERGO software
Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Redsun RP2100
BW XCR 30, Sangean 803A.
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro Mk II, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop.
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx