Anyone have any regrets on buying an IC-9700?

What in particular do you not like? I found it to be pretty simple to work satellites with it.

 

The IC-9100 can, in fact, be made to cross-band repeat. It's a simple mod that involves adding a diode (D1529) to the main board. You can perform one of the other mods (e.g., MARS/CAP) to obtain the diode for the x-band mod.

 

I too would be very interested to know your misgivings for satellite operations. I upgraded my FT-847 to the IC-9700 and well, it was definitely worth the replacement. Yes, the FT-847 is old technology but it did function as a decent "at that time" transceiver for sat operations. The IC-9700, well what can I say ... Plugged the USB cord from to 9700 to the PC ... oh, done! HRD connected to the radio, selected the satellite, ran auto down/up Doppler correction ... communicating through the sat. Nice.

 

The latest version of HRD working with the current 9700 firmware in satellite mode is a joke imho. Little provision for manually tuning in CAT via the app without killing the CAT connection. You can't tune manually from the radio end because of the constant switching between main and sub receivers. The built in sat frequencies in the app don't match the fact that when you switch the radio to SAT mode (or the app switches modes), the main and sub frequencies are transposed. The built in freqs for the FM birds don't start at Satellite rise, precluding manual tuning....which kills the CAT link. It well may be operator error on my part......which is in part because I cannot find any good info online or youtube about using HRD with the 9700. Also, the HRD bug list has bunches of 9700 issues there too.

 

When in FM mode, TX bandwith is greyed-out in the function menu.

I am running firmware 1.21

 

Any serious satellite operator ought to drop HRD like a bad habit. For years, HRD has ignored suggestions to fix how Icom radios in satellite mode interact. Blaming the radio is a joke when this problem has existed long before the IC-9700's release.

MacDoppler, SatPC32, and gpredict are known-good solutions.

 

For interfacing to the 9700, SatPC32 is pretty hard to beat right now.

 

TX bandwidth in FM mode is set by selecting Filter 1, 2, or 3. In the settings menu, you can set the value for each of those filters.

 

RX bandwidth in FM is set by selecting the filters, not TX.

Per a discussion I had with Icom support, there is NO WAY to change TX bandwidth from 25KHz. The support person did admit that this could be changed with a firmware update.

I encourage anyone interested in the feature to contact Icom and let them know you want it.

 

Well I eventually bought one as finding a repairer/service person from my old Yaesus was inconclusive.

As a basic vhf/uhf transeiver the 9700 is passable. The keyer is horrible if you have had the pleasure of a Kenwood keyer with mode a and b setting.

It isn't what its cracked up to be.