Icom 710 with SGC 230 tuner advice

[tdalke]

Has anyone installed this setup before that wouldn’t mind offering some advice? I have a basic wiring question relating to the red/white wire and black/white wire starting from the tuner. Do these wires need to be connected to the Icom 710 head unit? The local dealer just told me that the SGC 230 tuner wasn’t compatible with my Icom 710 sooooo here I am. Any help would be great!

[btrayfors]

Originally Posted by tdalke

Has anyone installed this setup before that wouldn’t mind offering some advice? I have a basic wiring question relating to the red/white wire and black/white wire starting from the tuner. Do these wires need to be connected to the Icom 710 head unit? The local dealer just told me that the SGC 230 tuner wasn’t compatible with my Icom 710 sooooo here I am. Any help would be great!

The local dealer obviously doesn't know the SG-230 tuner. The SG-230 can work with ANY radio. It senses the band thru RF.

The only connections required are:

1. Coax from the radio to the tuner input; and

2. 12VDC to the tuner (the red and black wires).

The other two wires can be used to cause the tuner to reset when desired, but this isn't necessary for normal operation.

For many years now -- a couple of decades, actually -- the SG-230 has been the king of automatic tuners.

Bill
WA6CCA

[roverhi]

The SGC tunes from the HF output from the radio. No reason it shouldn't be compatible. It's been a long time sine I installed mine and/or looked at it but all I remember needing is a coax connection from the radio to the tuner, a two wire power lead/ground to the tuner and a unshielded lead from tuner to the antenna. Keep the lead to the antenna as short as possible because it becomes part of the antenna. I've got a 718 ham radio so not the same as 710 but the signal out should be HF frequencies, Marine band from the 720 and all HF frequencies from my 'opened up' 718. I went with the SGC tuner because the ICOM tuner I had wouldn't work with the radio. The SGC was plug and play.

[Ip485]

As a 710 user I find by far the most informative place is the Yahoo user group. You do need to register, but it doesnt take very long.

There is plenty of discussion about the 230, and from a brief read, it seems fine, but dont bet on that, have a good read. I dont have the 230 so I cant give personal experience.

Good luck.

[tdalke]

Wow thanks guys for all the help!

[jseth]

Ahoy tdalke - I have a similar setup on Liberty and have helped others set theirs up. It works fine. Like previous posters said, you just transmit into the SGC 230 and it tunes.

I wanted to add that you might want to go into the M710’s “Set Mode” and change the “Automatic Tuning Condition” to OFF. That’s documented in the M710 manual. In that mode the M710 doesn’t try to communicate with the tuner, it just transmits, which is what you want. “OFF” is the default setting, but perhaps yours got set differently somewhere along the way.

You also don’t need to worry about the “Non-Icom tuner” section in the M710 manual. Those switch settings are for communications between the radio and tuner and don’t apply to the SGC 230.

Finally note that as long as the SGC 230 is powered ON and it is tuned to a particular frequency (i.e. you have transmitted through it) it retains that setting until you transmit again on a different frequency. So if you change channels on the M710 and just want to listen, not transmit, then the tuner will remain tuned for the previous frequency, which can attenuate the signals you want to receive on the new frequency. In other words, the tuner doesn’t “know” you’re on a new frequency until you transmit. This can be a problem if, for example, you transmit on your favorite net, then switch to receive weatherfax or a time tick. In that case, for maximum receive sensitivity, you want the tuner to switch to “straight-through” mode without tuning for transmit. On the SGC 230 one way is just to power-cycle the tuner. This works because the tuner comes up in “straight-through” mode when it powers on. Another way is with a little circuit SGC calls “SmartLock” which can reset the tuner to “straight-through” without power-cycling it. They provide a simple schematic in the manual. For the reset function all it does is momentarily ground the White/Red wire from the tuner. It also uses the White/Black wire to indicate when the tuner has found a tuned setting, which is good to know sometimes. Not crucial.

Enjoy your rig. Not only can the SGC 230/Icom M710 combo work, together they make a pretty bomb-proof HF installation.

Seth