How to Program an IC-7000 — Step by Step

HF through 70 centimeters in a box the size of a car stereo. There are only four soft keys along the bottom of the screen, and what those four keys do changes with which menu group you are standing in.

This page covers: Icom IC-7000. One model, so nothing here has to be translated from a near relative — every step below was written for exactly this radio.

What you can do on this radio

• Set the radio up for FT8 and other digital modes
• Connect the radio to a computer
• Set the drive level for digital modes
• Narrow the filter to shut out the station next door
• Turn on noise reduction
• Turn on the noise blanker
• Notch out a whistle or a carrier
• Work a DX station that is running split
• Save a frequency to a memory channel
• Run the antenna tuner
• Set the CW keyer speed and weight
• Reset the menu to factory settings

Set the radio up for FT8 and other digital modes on an IC-7000

The first thing to understand about this radio is what it does not have. There is no USB socket, no sound card inside it and no DATA MOD setting to choose between them — so the question a modern Icom answers in a menu is answered here by which lead you plug in where. Get the wiring right and there is almost nothing to configure.

1. Use the six-pin DATA socket on the back unless you have a reason not to.the DATA socket, rear panelThe screen should show: Nothing yet — this step is at the back of the radio.Icom's own pinout for it is: pin 1 DATA IN for audio into the transmitter, pin 2 ground, pin 3 PTT P to key the radio, pin 4 DATA OUT for 9600 baud receive data, pin 5 AF OUT for ordinary receive audio, pin 6 SQL. For FT8 and everything else running at ordinary audio speeds, AF OUT and DATA IN are the two you want.
2. Key the transmitter by grounding pin 3, the PTT P line, rather than by any other route.ground pin 3, PTT PThe screen should show: The TX indicator lights when your software transmits.The manual notes something genuinely useful here: grounding PTT P also disconnects the microphone input on the front connector. So keying through this pin mutes the microphone for you, and the shack noise that ends up on top of so many digital signals cannot get in.
3. On the radio, press MODE and choose USB.MODE›▲▼ USBThe screen should show: USB in the mode area.FT8 and the other sound-card modes run on upper sideband. There is no separate data version of the mode on this radio the way newer Icoms have USB-D — plain USB is what you want.
4. Get to menu M-3 and check that the 9600 setting on the F-4 key is switched OFF.hold MENU/GRP›MENU/GRP›F-4 9600The screen should show: The 9600 indicator is absent.Watch out. This one catches people. That switch is for 9600 baud packet, which takes its audio straight in and out of the DATA pins and bypasses the ordinary audio path. Leave it on and your FT8 audio is going somewhere you did not intend. It should be off for every sound-card mode.
5. If what you actually want is Baudot RTTY, press MODE for RTTY instead, and hold MODE for a second to flip between RTTY and RTTY-R.MODE›hold MODEThe screen should show: RTTY or RTTY-R.This radio decodes Baudot RTTY on its own screen with no computer at all — hold MENU/GRP for the S group, get to S-1, and press F-2 DEC for the decoder. That is a genuinely nice thing to have on a rig this old and it costs nothing to try.

The practical shape of it: the wiring is the configuration. Nothing in the menu tells the radio where transmit audio comes from, because the socket you wired decides that. Once it works, the only two things to revisit are the drive level, on its own page here, and the 9600 switch that has to stay off.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Connect the radio to a computer on an IC-7000

Icom's computer control is called CI-V and it has one thing Yaesu's does not: an address. If your software is asking for a hex number and you have been hunting for a baud rate, that is what it wants — and on this radio it is 70h.

1. Push the AF knob straight in to open Set mode, then press F-4 OTH for the miscellaneous list.AF(set)›F-4 OTHThe screen should show: The Set mode menu, then a numbered list.Watch out. Set mode is opened by pushing the volume knob in. There is no key marked MENU that does it, and this is where most people stall on this radio.
2. Step along with F-1 and F-2 to item 48, CI-V Baud Rate, and set it with the main dial. Auto is the default.F-1›▲▼ 48 CI-V Baud Rate›dial → AutoThe screen should show: CI-V Baud Rate, then 300, 1200, 4800, 9600, 19200 or Auto.On Auto the radio matches whatever the software is using. Pin it to a fixed rate only when something is unhappy.
3. Item 49 is CI-V Address, and 70h is this radio's number.▲▼ 49 CI-V Address›dial → 70hThe screen should show: CI-V Address, then 70h.Watch out. 70h, not 94h and not A4. Those are the IC-7300 and the IC-705. Software set up from somebody else's Icom notes will not find this radio, and the symptom is silence rather than an error.
4. Item 50 is CI-V Transceive, and it ships ON. Consider turning it off.▲▼ 50 CI-V Transceive›dial → OFFThe screen should show: CI-V Transceive, then ON or OFF.With it on, the radio announces every change you make on the front panel down the same wire the software is talking on. Some loggers and digital programs read that unsolicited traffic as a reply and lose track. If your software keeps timing out or losing the frequency, try OFF here before you change anything else.
5. Press the menu/grp key twice to come back out of Set mode.Z(menu/grp)›Z(menu/grp)The screen should show: The normal frequency display.

Order of suspicion when it will not connect: the COM port number first, then the address, then Transceive. The baud rate is rarely the culprit because Auto is the default. And check the obvious one — without a CT-17 or an equivalent converter in the line, nothing on the computer end will ever see the radio, however right the settings are.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the drive level for digital modes on an IC-7000

There is no USB MOD Level to turn here — the level arrives from your interface or your computer's sound card, so that is where you set it. What the radio gives you is a way to see whether you have it right.

1. Put the meter on ALC before you transmit anything.METERThe screen should show: The ALC bar rather than power output.ALC is the radio telling you it is having to hold your signal back. On a data mode you want to see very little of it — a signal driven into ALC is a signal spread across everybody else's frequency.
2. If you can measure the audio going in, Icom asks for 0.4 volts peak to peak, and accepts anything between 0.2 and 0.5.0.4 Vp-p from the TNC or interfaceThe screen should show: Nothing on the radio — this is measured at the lead.Watch out. The manual is blunt about the upper limit: never apply more than 0.6 volts peak to peak. Above that the radio can no longer hold the bandwidth of a 9600 baud signal, and it says in as many words that you may interfere with other stations.
3. Without a meter, use the method Icom gives instead: put the TNC or software into a test mode, transmit, and watch the TX indicator.transmit a test signalThe screen should show: The TX indicator lights red.If the radio will not transmit, or keys sporadically, the level is too high — turn it down until TX lights red and stays lit. If TX is solid red and nothing is getting out, the level is too low and needs raising.

For FT8 the same principle applies with a different instrument: set the drive so the ALC bar barely moves, and take the rest of your power from the RF power control rather than by pushing more audio in. Almost every complaint about a wide or splattery digital signal comes from somebody who turned up the computer's volume slider until the power meter looked satisfying.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Narrow the filter to shut out the station next door on an IC-7000

This radio does its filtering in DSP, so the three filters are not crystals you bought — they are three slots you get to define, and you can put any width you like in each of them.

1. Get to menu M-1 and tap F-3 FIL to step between filter 1, 2 and 3.hold MENU/GRP›MENU/GRP›F-3 FILThe screen should show: FIL1, FIL2 or FIL3, with the passband width and shift beside it.Out of the box on SSB those are 3.0, 2.4 and 1.8 kHz — a wide one for tuning around, a normal one, and a narrow one for when the band gets crowded. On CW they are 1.2 kHz, 500 Hz and 250 Hz.
2. Hold F-3 FIL for a second to open the filter Set mode, where you can change what those three slots contain.hold F-3 FILThe screen should show: The filter setting screen, drawn as a passband.
3. Pick the filter to change with F-3 FIL, then hold F-1 BW down and turn the main dial to set its width.F-3 FIL›hold F-1 BW›dial → the width you wantThe screen should show: The passband narrowing or widening as you turn.On SSB and CW you can go from 50 Hz to 3.6 kHz — 41 different widths. On RTTY it stops at 2.7 kHz, and on AM it runs from 200 Hz to 10 kHz. FM and WFM are fixed and cannot be changed.
4. On SSB and CW, F-4 switches the filter shape between sharp and soft.F-4The screen should show: Sharp or soft.Sharp cuts harder at the edges; soft sounds easier to listen to for a long session. Icom measures the published selectivity figures with this set to sharp, which tells you which one is doing more work.
5. For the last bit of rejection, use twin PBT: press the PBT/M-ch/RIT switch until its green indicator lights, then move the two passband controls.PBT/M-ch/RIT›dial → the two PBT controlsThe screen should show: The passband display shifting and narrowing.Watch out. Two things worth knowing. Changing a filter's width clears any PBT shift you had set on it. And PBT should be back at centre when there is nothing to reject, because left off-centre it quietly makes everything sound wrong — hold the PBT/M-ch/RIT control for a second to centre both.

The habit that makes the most difference: leave FIL1 wide for tuning around, then step to FIL2 or FIL3 the moment you settle on somebody. The radio remembers a filter choice per mode, so once you have set them up the right filter is already waiting each time you change mode.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn on noise reduction on an IC-7000

One button on the front panel, and one level behind it. Noise reduction is for the constant hiss and hash that never lets up, as opposed to the sharp repeating tick the noise blanker deals with.

1. Tap NR/LEV to switch noise reduction on and off.NR/LEVThe screen should show: The NR indicator appears when it is on.It is a DSP process pulling the signal you want out of the noise floor. On and off is the first comparison to make — sometimes the noise is not what is actually bothering you.
2. Hold NR/LEV for a second to reach the level, set it with the main dial, then come back out.hold NR/LEV›dial → the level›Z(menu/grp)The screen should show: NR Level, then a percentage.Watch out. More is not better. Turn it too far and the processing starts eating the signal along with the noise — voices go hollow and underwater, and weak CW disappears entirely. Icom's own advice is to set it for maximum readability, not minimum noise, and those are two different settings.

The honest test is to turn it off every so often and see whether you can still copy. Noise reduction feels like it is helping long after it has stopped helping, because a quieter receiver is a more comfortable one even when it is telling you less.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Turn on the noise blanker on an IC-7000

The noise blanker is for pulses — car ignition, an electric fence, a failing power line insulator. It works by punching a hole in the receiver each time a pulse arrives, which is why it is so good at that one job and so bad at everything else.

1. Tap NB/ADJ to switch the noise blanker on and off.NB/ADJThe screen should show: The NB indicator appears when it is on.Watch out. It does nothing at all in FM or WFM. If you are on 2 meters FM wondering why the button seems dead, that is why.
2. Hold NB/ADJ for a second for its own settings, and step between them with F-1 and F-2. NB Level is how hard it works, from 0 to 100 percent, and it starts at 50.hold NB/ADJ›F-1›dial → NB LevelThe screen should show: NB Level, then a percentage.
3. NB Width is how long a pulse it assumes it is dealing with, from 1 to 100, also starting at 50. Press NB/ADJ again to leave.▲▼ NB Width›dial → 1 to 100›NB/ADJThe screen should show: NB Width, then a number.Width is the setting people never touch and often need. A short sharp tick and a long buzzy one want different widths, and getting it right is the difference between the blanker fixing the noise and the blanker wrecking the audio.

When a strong station is on frequency, the blanker can generate distortion that sounds like the other station is over-driving. Icom names that specifically. If somebody strong suddenly sounds terrible, switch the blanker off before you tell them so — it is a common and slightly embarrassing mistake.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Notch out a whistle or a carrier on an IC-7000

A notch takes out one steady tone sitting on top of the station you want. This radio has two kinds, on two separate buttons, and they are good at different things.

1. Tap ANF to switch the automatic notch on. It hunts for the whistle itself.ANF/RECThe screen should show: The auto notch indicator appears.Automatic is the one to reach for first because it needs no aiming, and it will follow a tone that drifts — a tuning-up signal or a carrier wandering about. It works in SSB, AM and FM.
2. For a tone that sits still, tap MNF instead for the manual notch.MNF/ADJThe screen should show: The manual notch indicator appears.Manual is available in SSB, CW, RTTY and AM — including CW and RTTY, where the automatic one is not offered at all, because a notch that hunts for steady tones would go after the signal you are trying to copy.
3. Hold MNF/ADJ for a second to aim it: F-2 turns on the first notch, then the main dial moves it onto the offending tone.hold MNF/ADJ›F-2 NF1›dial → onto the toneThe screen should show: The notch frequency moving as you turn.There are two of them. F-3 gives you a second notch, NF2, for when there are two whistles — which happens more often than you would think on a crowded band.
4. F-4 sets how wide the cut is — narrow, middle or wide — and MNF/ADJ again takes you back out.F-4 NW›MNF/ADJThe screen should show: The notch width changing.Watch out. Start narrow. A wide notch removes the interference and a chunk of the voice with it, and the result sounds muffled in a way that is easy to blame on the other station.

Both notches can run at once, and on a bad evening that is a reasonable thing to do. One warning worth carrying over from the manual: adjusting the manual notch makes its own faint noise from the DSP as it moves. That is the radio working, not a fault.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Work a DX station that is running split on an IC-7000

Split means listening on one frequency and transmitting on another, and it is how every serious pile-up is run. This radio gives you the long way and a one-second shortcut, and the shortcut is the one to learn.

1. Get to menu M-1, then HOLD F-1 SPL for a second. That is quick split.hold MENU/GRP›MENU/GRP›hold F-1 SPLThe screen should show: The split indicator appears, and the transmit frequency arrives beside it.Holding it switches split on and sets the other VFO in one movement — either equalised with where you are, or offset by whatever you have stored as the split offset. Tapping the same key only toggles split on and off and leaves you to set the transmit frequency yourself.
2. Now hold F-4 XFC down and turn the main dial to move your transmit frequency.hold F-4 XFC›dial → the transmit frequencyThe screen should show: The transmit line moving while the receive line stays put.XFC does two things at once while you hold it: it lets the dial move the transmit frequency, and it lets you HEAR that frequency. So you can listen to where you are about to call and pick a gap rather than landing on top of somebody.
3. If the same offset comes up again and again, store it: Set mode, F-4 OTH, item 9 SPLIT Offset.AF(set)›F-4 OTH›▲▼ 9 SPLIT OffsetThe screen should show: SPLIT Offset, then a frequency.With an offset stored, quick split lands you the right distance away the moment you hold F-1 SPL. Up 5 on 20 meters becomes one keypress.
4. While you are there, look at item 10, SPLIT LOCK.▲▼ 10 SPLIT LOCK›dial → ONThe screen should show: SPLIT LOCK, ON or OFF.Watch out. This is the setting that saves you from the classic split disaster. Let go of XFC a moment early while you are turning the dial and you move your RECEIVE frequency instead — losing the DX station just as they come back to you. Split lock, used with the dial lock, stops the dial doing anything except while XFC is held.

To swap the two frequencies over — to check what your transmit frequency actually sounds like, or to move to where you have been calling — press F-2 A/B in M-1 and the two VFOs exchange places. And when the pile-up is over, tap F-1 SPL to turn split off, because a radio left in split is the reason somebody calls CQ on a frequency they are not listening to.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Save a frequency to a memory channel on an IC-7000

Same idea as a handheld, different buttons — and one step at the start that is not obvious, because the knob you need for choosing channels does something else by default.

1. Press the PBT/M-ch/RIT switch until its green indicator goes OUT.PBT/M-ch/RITThe screen should show: The green PBT indicator is off.Watch out. That one control is three controls wearing a hat. While the green light is on it is the passband tuning; with it off the inner ring becomes the memory channel selector. Skip this and the knob you are about to turn will be shifting your filter instead of picking a channel.
2. Set the frequency and the mode you want to store.set the frequency and modeThe screen should show: The frequency, in the mode you want.The memory keeps the mode as well as the frequency, so store it the way you actually want to hear it.
3. Get to menu M-2 and press F-1 MEM to show the memory contents.hold MENU/GRP›MENU/GRP›F-1 MEMThe screen should show: The channel and what is in it, above the soft-key labels.F-1 LST gives you the whole list instead, which is easier when you are hunting for an empty channel — a blank one shows as dashes.
4. Turn the M-ch control to the channel you want to write into.dial → M-ch, to the channelThe screen should show: The channel number, with its contents or dashes if it is empty.The outer ring of the same control changes the memory bank, so if the numbers are not going where you expect, check which ring you are turning.
5. Hold F-2 MW for a full second to write it.hold F-2 MWThe screen should show: The frequency appears in the channel.Watch out. Hold it, do not tap it. A tap does nothing at all, which reads exactly like a radio that has ignored you.

To check your work, press F-4 V/M to switch to memory mode and look. Two things worth knowing while you are in there: you can store a split pair in one channel by setting both VFOs and turning split on before you write it, and you can give a channel a name, which turns a list of numbers into a list of repeaters.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Run the antenna tuner on an IC-7000

Read the first line above before anything else, because it is the thing people get wrong when they come from an IC-7300. There is no tuner in this radio as it leaves the factory, so what the TUNER key does depends entirely on what you have connected to it.

1. With an AT-180 fitted, tap TUNER/CALL on an HF band to switch the tuner into circuit.TUNER/CALLThe screen should show: The tuner indicator appears.From then on it tunes itself during transmission whenever the SWR goes above about 1.5 to 1, and it remembers the settings it found for each 100 kHz slice of the band, so going back to a frequency it has seen before is instant.
2. On 50 MHz, and with an AH-4, hold TUNER/CALL for a second to tune instead.hold TUNER/CALLThe screen should show: The tuner indicator flashes while it works, then stays on.Watch out. The AH-4 has to be re-tuned every time you change frequency, even slightly — it is a tuner on the end of a wire, not a matching network with a memory. And never transmit into it without an antenna connected: the manual says in capital letters that this damages both the tuner and the radio.
3. Holding for two seconds starts a manual tune on the AT-180.hold TUNER/CALLThe screen should show: The radio switches to CW, makes a tone, and the tuner indicator flashes.Useful on SSB, where the tuner can struggle to find a match from speech alone because your voice keeps stopping. A steady carrier gives it something to work with.
4. Two Set mode items decide how much of this happens by itself: item 17, Tuner (Auto Start), for the AT-180, and item 18, Tuner (PTT Start), for the AH-4.AF(set)›F-4 OTH›▲▼ 17 Tuner (Auto Start)The screen should show: The item, then ON or OFF.Auto Start lets the AT-180 start tuning on a poor SWR even when you have switched the tuner off. PTT Start lets the AH-4 tune the moment you key up on a new frequency, which removes the hold-the-button step entirely.

Three things the manual is firm about and worth repeating. The AT-180 needs at least 10 watts to tune properly, so turn the power up before you tune and back down after if you are running low power. It does not work on 144 or 430 MHz at all — up there the same key selects the call channel instead, which is why it seems to do something random on VHF. And a tuner does not fix a broken antenna or a bad feedline; it only makes the transmitter comfortable with what it has been given.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Set the CW keyer speed and weight on an IC-7000

Speed lives in one place and the feel of the sending lives in another, which is why people find one and not the other.

1. Put the radio in CW first.MODE›▲▼ CWThe screen should show: CW in the mode area.Watch out. The quick Set mode shows different items depending on the mode you are in. Key Speed is simply not there unless you are already in CW, so the setting looks missing when it is only hidden.
2. Push the AF knob in, press F-1 QS for the quick Set mode, step to Key Speed and set it with the dial. It runs from 6 to 60 words per minute and starts at 20.AF(set)›F-1 QS›▲▼ Key Speed›dial → 6 to 60 wpmThe screen should show: Key Speed, then a number in WPM.
3. CW Pitch is in the same list — 300 to 900 Hz, in 5 Hz steps, starting at 600.▲▼ CW Pitch›dial → 300 to 900 HzThe screen should show: CW Pitch, then a frequency in Hz.This is the note you hear a signal at when it is tuned in correctly. Pick the one your ears find easiest to pull out of noise, and stay with it — changing it later changes how every tuned-in signal sounds.
4. For the weight of the sending, go the other way: menu group S, S-1, F-2 KEY for the keyer, then F-4 SET, and step to Dot/Dash Ratio.hold MENU/GRP›F-2 KEY›F-4 SET›▲▼ Dot/Dash RatioThe screen should show: Dot/Dash Ratio, then a ratio.It runs from 1:1:2.8 to 1:1:4.5, and it is 1:1:3 by default. Longer dashes sound heavier and more deliberate; shorter ones sound crisper. Listen to it on the sidetone while you change it — that is what the manual suggests, and it is the only way to judge.

Paddle Polarity and Keyer Type are in the same keyer list, and they are the first two things to check on a second-hand radio: if your dots and dashes are the wrong way round, that is Paddle Polarity, not your paddle wired backwards. Speed and weight are two different controls in two different menus because they are two different things — speed is how fast the letters arrive, weight is what the letters sound like.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.

Reset the menu to factory settings on an IC-7000

There are two different things called resetting on this radio, and they are wildly different in size. Try the small one first — it fixes the most common complaint, which is not a broken setting at all but being lost in the menus.

1. The small one: hold either menu/grp arrow key while switching the radio on. That is a menu reset.hold Y(menu/grp)›PWRThe screen should show: The radio starts up in menu M-1.It puts every group back to its first menu — M-1, S-1 and the scope group — and touches nothing else. Icom offers it for exactly one situation: you cannot work out how to get back to M-1. Nothing you have configured is lost.
2. For the big one, switch the radio off first.PWRThe screen should show: Dark.
3. Then hold both band keys down together and press the power key.hold Y(band)›hold Z(band)›PWRThe screen should show: ALL CLEAR, then RF power 100 percent, then the radio's starting frequency and mode.Watch out. This clears everything programmed into the memory channels and puts every Set mode item back to its default. It is a genuine wipe, and the manual says so before it says anything else.

After a full reset the radio is not quite ready to use — Icom's next page is a list of controls to put back where they belong, because a reset leaves several of them somewhere unhelpful. Work down it: AF fully counter-clockwise, RF/SQL to centre, PBT centred, and then check the display for indicators that came back on by themselves. If a symptom survives a full reset, it is not a setting.

Taken from the manufacturer's own manual for this model.