Tuning an ICOM

Well,

I've been fiddling lately with external ATUs and most recently the linear I mentioned last time.

More and more I keep wanting an easy way to generate a tune carrier from the IC-7610. Now, when Kenwood designed the TS-990 (the best radio in the world) they got everything right. There is a tune function you can allocate to one of the user programmable buttons, and also you can set the tune power by band - what could be simpler?

Well, with the latest and greatest Icom radio, you have to stick the radio in FM or AM or RTTY, press the Transmit button after adjusting the power to the required level and sticking a chicken down your trousers and facing north. The last bit isn't actually necessary, I was just checking you were paying attention.

So here we have the answer to the problem:

The switch in the middle of the schematic selects the internal or external ATU and the outside switch (in my case a push button) enables the carrier:



The whole thing connects to the external tuner connector on the back of the majority of Icom radios, which I've made a plug for by butchering an old PC PSU connector:


Easy, don't you think?