Panadapter SDR for the IC-781 with IFace v.2

Another very important testimonial has been sent to us by IZ4AQT Nicola and we can never say “thank you very much” enough. Here below we propose his full report.

https://youtu.be/W_3kcYuYjO8

This description is intended to be complementary to the article already published for the same apparatus modified with IFace v.1. The solution described here advantageously takes advantage of the small size that the IFace v.2 interface “without connectors” has; in particular, the extremely limited thickness of the SMD construction made it possible to choose a location inside the “shielded box” of the RF Unit. Having used a rather rigid shielded cable (RG 316 / U), and the sampling point of the IF signal being particularly hidden, particular care had to be taken in the path and execution of the solderings. Primary objective: we must have curves of the coaxial cable sufficiently wide so as not to create excessive stress on the welding points. The photos below show the sequence of the implementation steps of the change.

Preparing the IFace for installation

In this phase the coaxial input and output signal cables and the power supply cable (in red) have been soldered to the board.

Check the overall dimensions in the final position

In this phase it was checked that the IFace v.2, suitably sandwiched between two insulating layers of plasticized cardboard, could easily find its place inside the RF Unit compartment.

Welding of the IF pickup cable

To facilitate soldering of the IF pickup cable, the RF Unit board has been removed from its housing so that the contacts on its underside can be easily accessed. The image below shows the solder side of this board.

The points where to carry out the soldering to take the IF signal and the power supply are shown in the following image. It should be noted that the welding, for convenience, will then be carried out on the lower side.

Uscita del segnale IF

In this image you can see the Teflon coaxial cable (RG 316 / U) for the output of the IF signal.

This needs to be brought up to the rear panel of the radio.

Before arriving at the output connector, an RF choke was inserted in order to prevent any propagation of unwanted signals.

This was made with two cylindrical ferrites as can be easily verified from the following images.

The choke was then suitably protected with heat shrink tubing (in green).

To bring the IF signal outside, it was decided to use the free “SPARE” connector on the rear panel of the radio.

This is accessible through special contacts on the printed circuit called “CONNECTOR 1”.

In order not to disassemble the “CONNECTOR 1” printed circuit board, it was decided not to solder the pins of the “SPARE” RCA connector and the end of the IF output cable from IFace v.2 was terminated with two golden female pins recovered from a military connector VEAM AMPHENOL.

At this point the work is finished and from the rear of the radio the IF signal is conveniently available and ready to be sent to the external SDR receiver (in the photo it is visible in blue).


Again a big thank you to IZ4AQT Nicola for this beautiful work of documentation of his installation.

For more information on our IFace buffer interface click here.

To find out about all the radios on which the card can be installed click here.

We remind you that to buy the IFace you can use one of the following buttons.

ATTENTION: Although the installation of IFace 2 is not difficult, it is done at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side effects or anything else.

SDR interface for the IC-706MKIIG

These are the instructions to install the IFace interface inside of the Icom IC-706MKIIG. The installation is very easy.

The IC-706MKIIG, like other radios, has a fairly complex configuration and uses two different intermediate frequencies. We are interested in the first, the “wideband” one, the one before the main bandpass filter (the roofing filter so to speak). The sequence of operations to be performed in order to obtain a sufficient bandwidth to realize a panoramic receiver around the chosen IF frequency is shown below. The intermediate frequency filter is also used in transmission, so it will be preferable to use the PTT command to disable the IFace during transmission. The following images show the point where the IF signal will be taken.

Let’s start by analyzing the wiring diagram. We have to find the first mixer, the PTT and where to take the power supply. From the following images everything will appear clear.

PTT and power supply can be easily taken from the connector J10. The interesting signal are labeled as T8 and 13.8 respectively.

At this point we have to locate the points where we connect the electric cables to the IFace. The following images show where to take the various signals.

If you like the idea and the goodness of the proposal buy an IFace using the button below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information do not hesitate to write us.
Have fun!

IC-7400 with SDR panadapter

Our buffer interface named IFace can be used to add an SDR panadapter to the glorious ICOM IC-7400.

The operations to be carried out are very simple, it is sufficient to obtain from its wiring diagram the information on the points where the IF signal has to be taken. This radio uses several mixers, we are interested in the first of the reception chain as it gives us a broadband signal. The IF frequency is 64.455 MHz. The following image shows the block diagram of the radio and where to get the IF signal.

The following images show the portions of the schematic diagram of the RF UNIT where we can see the exact points where to sample the IF signal and the power supply.

We now proceed to identify the exact points on the printed circuit board where to take the IF signal to be sent to the IFace. The following images show the sampling point for the IF signal and for the power supply for the buffer interface.

The use of PTT signal is not required, RX and TX signals are separated.

In order to purchase an IFace use the buttons below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information, do not hesitate to write to us using the form below.
Have fun!

IC-R9000 with SDR panadapter

Our buffer interface named IFace can be used to add an SDR panadapter to the glorious Icom IC-R9000.

The operations to be performed are very simple, it is sufficient to obtain from its wiring diagram the information on the points where to take the IF signals.

This radio uses different mixers. In particular, we will have to use the second one of the RX chain because the IF frequency will be the same for all the bands, 10.7 MHz. The following images show the block diagram of the radio.

The following two images show the portions of the schematic diagram of the IF UNIT where we can see the exact points where to sample the IF signal and the power supply.

We now proceed to identify the exact points on the printed circuit board where to take the IF signal to be sent to the IFace. The following images show the sampling point for the IF signal and for the power supply for the buffer interface.

The use of PTT signal is not required, it’s a receiver!

In order to purchase an IFace use the buttons below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information, do not hesitate to write to us using the form below.
Have fun!

IC-7000 with SDR panadapter

Our buffer interface named IFace can be used to add an SDR panadapter to the glorious Icom IC-7000.

The operations to be performed are very simple, it is sufficient to obtain from its wiring diagram the information on the points where to take the IF signals.

This radio, in fact, uses different mixers. In particular, we will have to use the first of the RX chain. The following images show the block diagram of the radio. For the IC-7000 the first IF is at 124.487 MHz.

We now proceed to identify the exact points on the printed circuit board where to take the IF signal to be sent to the IFace. The following images show the sampling point for the IF signal and for the power supply for the buffer interface.

The use of PTT signal is not required.

In order to purchase an IFace use the buttons below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information, do not hesitate to write to us using the form below.
Have fun!

IC-781 with SDR panadapter

Our buffer interface named IFace can be used to add an SDR panadapter to the glorious ICOM IC-781.

In addition to the instructions below, we also have a great testimonial. It was sent to us by IZ4QAT Nicola, and a warm thanks goes to him. You can find it here: IC-781 SDR by IZ4AQT Nicola.

The operations to be performed are very simple, it is sufficient to obtain from its wiring diagram the information on the points where to take the IF signals.

This radio, in fact, uses different mixers. In particular, we will have to use the first of the RX chain. The following images show the block diagram of the radio. For the IC-781 the first IF is shown in the small table in the following image.

We now proceed to identify the exact points on the printed circuit board where to take the IF signal to be sent to the IFace. The following images show the sampling point for the IF signal and for the power supply for the buffer interface.

In order to purchase an IFace use the button below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information, do not hesitate to write to us using the form below.
Have fun!

ICOM IC-775/775DSP SDR!

Our friend Luigi IV3XNF sent us some pictures of the installation of our universal SDR interface IFace inside the great ICOM IC-775DSP. This is a very powerful testimonial and we like to share it to thank Pellegrino.
In this way, using an external SDR receiver and its software you can take advantage of all the advanced features of the SDR technology and improve the performance of any radio!

This image shows just how our IFace works: it is used to take the IF signal from the radio and send it, properly processed, to the external receiver: this creates a real SDR panadapter.

And if it works with an IC-775… it works with any radio!

The installation is very easy, the instructions can be found here, and from the following images, you can see result of the installation made by IU8JAD.

If you’d like to buy an IFace please use the following button. A shopping cart will appear and you will be able to proceed with the order.

If you want to find out for which other radios the installation instructions are already available, go to this page.

If you do not know which SDR receiver to use and you want an advice, please note that all our tests were carried out using one of the receivers shown in this article: click here.

For more information, videos and other technical notes please visit the product page, click here.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information do not hesitate to write us.
Have fun!

ICOM IC-7100 SDR!

Our friend Pellegrino IU8JAD sent us some pictures of the installation of our universal SDR interface IFace inside the great ICOM IC-7100. This is a very powerful testimonial and we like to share it to thank Pellegrino.
In this way, using an external SDR receiver and its software you can take advantage of all the advanced features of the SDR technology and improve the performance of any radio!

This image shows just how our IFace works: it is used to take the IF signal from the radio and send it, properly processed, to the external receiver: this creates a real SDR panadapter.

And if it works with an IC-7100… it works with any radio!

The installation is very easy, the instructions can be found here, and from the following images, you can see result of the installation made by IU8JAD.

If you’d like to buy an IFace please use the following button. A shopping cart will appear and you will be able to proceed with the order.

In order to buy an IFace, please use one of the following buttons.

If you want to find out for which other radios the installation instructions are already available, go to this page.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information do not hesitate to write us.
Have fun!

IC-7700 with SDR panadapter

Our buffer interface named IFace can be used to add an SDR panadapter to the Icom IC-7700.

The operations to be performed are very simple, it is sufficient to obtain from its wiring diagram the information on the points where to take the IF signals.

Testimonial by IU8JAD Pellegrino

This radio, in fact, uses different mixers. In particular, we will have to use the first of the RX chain. The following images show the block diagram of the radio. For the IC-7700 the first IF is shown in the small table in the following image.

We now proceed to identify the exact points on the printed circuit board where to take the IF signal to be sent to the IFace. The following images show the sampling point for the IF signal and for the power supply for the buffer interface.

In order to purchase an IFace please use the buttons below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information, do not hesitate to write to us using the form below.
Have fun!

IC-775 and IC-775DSP with SDR panadapter

Our buffer interface named IFace can be used to add an SDR panadapter to the Icom IC-775 and IC-775DSP.

The operations to be performed are very simple, it is sufficient to obtain from its wiring diagram the information on the points where to take the IF signals. This radio, in fact, uses different mixers. In particular, we will have to use the first of the RX chain. The following imagea show the block diagram of the radio. For the IC-775 and IC-775DSP the first IF is shown in the table in the following image.

We now proceed to identify the exact points on the circuit diagram where to take the IF signal to be sent to the IFace. The following images show the sampling point for the IF signal and for the power supply for the buffer interface.

In order to purchase an IFace use one of the buttons below.

ATTENTION: Though installing the IFace is not difficult, you do this at your own risk. TSP S.r.l. is not responsible for any damage, unwanted side-effects or whatever.

For more information, do not hesitate to write to us using the form below.
Have fun!

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