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| GPSDO Injection Board Installed |
Since the Icom IC-9700 can experience significant frequency drift, especially on 23cm, and this drift can affect digital modes -- I decided to add a GPS Disciplined Oscillator (GPSDO) to the radio. Leo Bodnar offers such a device which connects to the radio's "REF IN" connector and supplies an external 49.152 MHz signal (derived from GPS satellites) to lock the transceiver's internal frequency reference to a stable signal. This will insure the radio will stay within 1 Hz on all bands.
The product I purchased is the High Stability Kit for ICOM-9700 from Leo Bodnar. This comes with the LBE-1420 GPSDO locked clock source which is a GPS receiver, an antenna for that receiver, an injection board for the IC-9700, and appropriate cables. In the photo on the left (click for a larger image) you can see the injection board "1" installed (and outlined in yellow), the SMA connector for the GPS receiver "2" placed in the "REF IN 10MHz" location, and the original SMA connector "3" which was removed and taped to the inside of the radio.
The Leo Bodnar website has instructions for opening the radio and installing the injection board. It is important to use the proper screwdriver, a Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) #2 and not a Phillips screwdriver to remove the 12 screws from the radio. My only boo-boo was that I removed the 12 screws from the TOP of the case and not the BOTTOM. DUH! I wasted 15 minutes doing that. Otherwise, it took me 1-1/2 hours to locate the tools needed, perform the install, and return the tools to the garage. I was helped a bit by a video on YouTube describing the install and the setup of the device and the radio and also this YouTube video.
I did not have a frequency generator to produce a tone for fine tuning of the "REF Adjust" menu item in the IC-9700. I did find a birdie and made some minor adjustments using that. However, once I can source a relatively accurate signal source, I will do that part of the setup again.
This part of my 23cm EME project was pretty simple and took very little time. Hopefully this will insure that my radio is on frequency and not drift. This should allow me to make a few more EME contacts or make them more quickly.
