Installation - Yaesu FTM-6000R Manual

Functionally, it breaks out each band's receive RF
signal and feeds the signals from the IC-9700's cur-
rently selected band to the internal receiver and to an
external SDR that you provide, with no loss in signal
such as you'd have with a receive splitter. The board's
architecture is shown in Figure 3.
One important caveat: The PTRX-9700 can operate
only on the currently selected band of the IC-9700.
If you're operating, say, 144 MHz, it feeds only the
144 MHz signal out to the external SDR. It doesn't offer
the ability to use the external SDR to watch a second
band while using the IC-9700's built-in waterfall display
on the currently selected band.

Installation

Installing the PTRX-9700 took me about 20 minutes.
The biggest part of the job is removing and then rein-
stalling all of the bottom cover screws on the radio — it
has a dozen of them. Once you have the bottom cover
off the radio, there's plenty of room to work, and
installing the board is straightforward. The key steps are:
1) Disconnect power from the radio, and remove the
bottom cover.
2) Remove two of the screws that hold the main board
to the radio, and replace them with standoffs and
longer screws, mounting the PTRX-9700 to the
standoffs.
3) Disconnect the three receive signal cables (one per
band), and connect the PTRX-9700 board in series
with them using the provided cables.
4) Insert the PTRX-9700 into the external reference
signal path with the provided cable.
5) Insert the PTRX-9700 into the power path to the
main board by moving a power connector and
inserting the provided wiring harness.
The most intrusive part of the installation is cutting a
few plastic wire ties to facilitate moving the last section
of the radio's power wiring harness to the PTRX-9700.
Figure 4 shows the PTRX-9700 installed in the
IC-9700. At this stage, the RF connections on the
QS2208-ProdRev02
Amplifier
Blocks
VHF
UHF
23 cm
RADIOANALOG
Figure 3 —­Functional­block­diagram­of­the­PTRX-9700.
PTRX-9700
IF/RF out
Combining
REF In
Filtering
Multiplexing
REF out
Power
13.8 Vdc
Regulation
PTRX-9700 input are completed, and the cables sup-
plied with the PTRX-9700 route RF back to the radio's
main RF board. Figure 5 shows the board after the
installation is completed.
Radio Analog makes installation easy by providing an
-shaped tool with properly placed tabs for removing
l
and installing the tiny U.FL RF connectors that Icom
uses to attach cables to the board. These are difficult
to manipulate and securely attach without this tool —
props to Radio Analog for including it.
Once I had installed the board, buttoning up the radio
and testing it were all that remained. For level of dif-
ficulty, I'd give this a 1 out of 5. Very straightforward.
Options
If you are using the IC-9700 without an external refer-
ence, then all you need to do after the installation is
connect your external SDR with the provided SMA
male-to-male cable. If you plan to use an external ref-
erence with the radio, you have a couple of options:
Use the provided splitter board to inject the reference
signal, or upgrade the radio's external reference func-
tionality using a Leo Bodnar Reference Injection Board
(see the next review in this issue of QST) and accom-
panying 49.152 MHz reference oscillator.
The Reference Injection Board fits inside the radio side
by side with the PTRX-9700 and uses the provided
cable and splitter. Radio Analog provides a connection
diagram for this option on their website. Both options fit
into the radio easily, and the interconnections are no
more challenging than either one by itself.
Figure 4 —­PTRX-9700­installed­in­the­IC-9700.­RF­connections­
on­the­near­side­of­the­board­are­completed.­The­IC-9700's­
internal­cables­now­route­to­the­PTRX-9700,­and­the­PTRX­board­
routes­connections­back­to­the­radio's­main­RF­board­after­filtering­
and­buffering.­
www.arrl.org QST August 2022 45