Leo Inside my IC-9700 :-)
Last week I ordered a Mini GPSDO + 9700 injection board from Leo Bodnar.
As I want my radio to be solid as a rock on 23cm for digital modes. The need for a stable LO was needed.
Because the 10mhz reference input only is not enough cause it only corrects every several seconds.
The update frequency is too large.
When running FT8 with Narrow FSK, updating every several seconds will end up in bad decodes.
Therefore a better solution was needed.
The approach of Leo Bodnar’s GPSDO does not focus on the 10Mhz reference input, but on the LO of 49.152000Mhz.
To achieve this, Leo has made a PCB that you place over the LO can.
There is an inductor on the PCB that couples in (overcrowds) the radio’s own LO.
This works great!.
There is no need for soldering at all.
The only thing that needs to be removed and replaced is the SMA cable.
The standard SMA cable goes to a 10mhz input on the PCB.
You can remove this very easily.
I placed the cable in an ESD safe bag on the bottom plate of the radio. That way everything stays together nicely.
Now the supplied SMA cable can be placed.
That’s it!
