On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 19:57:07 UTC, wrote:

Having great fun cruising my new Bentley Continental GT. See:
http://www.bentleymotors.com/Corpora...spx?infid=1523

No, actually I have been cruising the airwaves with my new Icom
IC-7700 and having great fun. See:
http://www.ab4oj.com/icom/ic7700/main.html
upgrading from my IC-756PROIII is like upgrading to a Bentley =
orgasmic!

Getting AFN Pearl Harbour, Guam, Diego Garcia and Key West as clear as
a bell with it's wonderful NR noise reduction and tight filters.
And "Big L" from Holland, a 20 Kw MW station nice and clear.

This is the only radio I have owned that will actually clearly work AM
stations on ECSS with a 2.0 kHz filter (all the other radio's are too
muffled at this tight setting).
I am also having great fun with it's superb RTTY and PSK decoding
facilities. On RTTY you can actually see the twin peaks and tune them
with great ease. On PSK you have a peak display and a lovely waterfall
display to get you tuned spot on, then a tuning meter to get it 100%
exact = great fun.

I also like to DX the CW NDB aviation beacons and the 7700's
facilities for that are just superb. Cruise around hunting with a 500
Hz filter, then zero into your target narrowing it to 250 Hz, then
activate the APF audio peak filter and that really gets those very
faint stations peaked out of the mud = superb! I got VTR Vitoria
Brazil and ASN Ascension Isl. easily which are both very far distant
by NDB beacon standards. If you are a bit off station, you can easily
centre it by hitting "Auto Tune".

During the day when the DX is not running I cruise the bands on SW HF
with a 6 kHz AM filter setting, and that with the 6 kHz roofing filter
engaged. The results are outstanding yielding hours of pleasant
listening even to quite faint stations. If the station is a bit
crackly and hissy you can engage the NR noise reduction - that way
even very faint stations become listenable. Another nice feature is
the tuning step switch can be changed at the press of a button: from .
001 through .01, .1, 1, 5, 9 and 10 kHz steps = very convenient.

The 7700 on SW AM also seems to be more resistant to fading and
multipath distortion than any of my other radio's, and if conditions
are difficult you can just change to SSB with a wide 3 kHz filter and
still have superb audio for pleasant listening. It also has separate
tone controls for each mode, so for example you can set AM to have a
nice rounded sound with a bit of bass, and for SSB you can attenuate
the bass and peak the treble a bit to bring out voice.

So if you want to cruise the airwaves in utter luxury sign up for an
Icom IC-7700 and you will be a very spoilt and happy chappie.

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

John,
Very nice radio! When I get my old Hammarlund back from rehab, it will
be like going from my pre-war 1940 Chrysler to a post-war Chrylser!
Not much change under the hood, but a better shaped body!