How to Program an IC-9700 — Step by Step

Not an HF radio at all — 2 meters, 70 centimeters and 23 centimeters, all modes, from one box with two independent receivers and a proper satellite mode. It sits on this page because it is a base station that works like one, with the same touchscreen and Set-mode tree as its HF cousins.

This page covers: Icom IC-9700. One model, so nothing here has to be translated from a near relative — every step below was written for exactly this radio.

The CI-V address is A2h, and it is not the one you remember

If you have set up an IC-7300 or an IC-705 before, the address in your muscle memory is wrong for this radio. The IC-9700 is A2h. Icom even suggests using that fact the other way round: if a piece of software predates this radio and does not recognize it, setting the CI-V address to that of a transceiver the software does know can be enough to get it talking. The other thing that catches IC-7300 owners is the modulation socket. This radio has three that can carry audio — the ACC socket, the USB cable and the network jack — and the item that chooses between them for data modes ships on ACC. Plug in a USB cable, select USB-D, and nothing you send will be modulated until you go and change it. And note that the socket actually labeled DATA carries no audio at all; it is a serial port.

Two receivers, one transmitter, and a lot of settings that live per band

The two receivers are genuinely independent — different bands, different modes, both at once. What they are not is two radios. Icom says it plainly: you can transmit only on the main band, except during split. So the sub is a listening receiver. Swapping which is which is a one-second hold of the upper of the two concentric volume knobs, marked M/S, and a one-second hold of the lower one turns dual watch on and off. That is unguessable coming from any other brand. The other thing to internalize is that a good deal of this radio is remembered per band rather than globally. The preamp, the attenuator, the AGC, the passband tuning and the filter bandwidths each hold separate values for 144, 430 and 1200 MHz. So a setting you are sure you made can be genuinely absent when you change band, and nothing is broken.

There is no antenna tuner in this radio, and no socket to drive one

This is worth stating plainly because people go looking. Neither of Icom's two manuals for the IC-9700 contains the word tuner in the antenna sense anywhere — the AUTO TUNE key is a CW feature that moves your VFO onto a nearby signal, not a matching network. There is no tuner control jack on the back; the rear panel is three antenna sockets, the network jack, a reference input, the ACC socket, the data jack, USB, the key jack, REMOTE, two speaker jacks and the power connector. The ACC pinout has no tuner start line. No tuner appears in the options list. And the troubleshooting table settles it: against an antenna SWR above 3 to 1, Icom's remedy is to adjust the antenna, because there is nothing on the radio to press. Each of the three antenna sockets wants a 50 ohm load. If you need matching, it has to be an external tuner the radio knows nothing about.

What you can do on this radio

Rather do this on your phone, standing at the radio?

The app walks you through the same steps one at a time, on a screen sized for a phone.

Open Radio Rosetta

Set the radio up for FT8 and other digital modes on an IC-9700

Two touches for the mode, and then one menu item that decides whether anything you transmit is modulated at all. The factory setting of that item is the single biggest source of confusion on this radio.

  1. Touch the mode icon to open the MODE screen.touch the mode iconThe screen should show: SSB, CW, RTTY, AM, FM, DV, and on 23 centimeters, DD.
  2. Touch SSB, then touch DATA.touch SSB›touch DATAThe screen should show: The mode gains a -D. USB-D for FT8.DATA is a modifier rather than a mode of its own, and it only appears when you are in SSB, AM or FM. It does not exist in CW, RTTY or the digital voice modes. Touching SSB repeatedly swaps between upper and lower sideband.
  3. Push MENU, touch SET, then go to Connectors and MOD Input.MENU›touch SET›touch Connectors›touch MOD InputThe screen should show: The modulation input items.
  4. Touch DATA MOD and set it to USB if your computer is on the USB cable. Push EXIT a few times to leave.touch DATA MOD›touch USB›EXITThe screen should show: DATA MOD, with the socket choices.Watch out. This is the one. DATA MOD ships on ACC, meaning the radio is listening for your audio on the eight-pin DIN socket on the back. Plug in a USB cable, select USB-D, key up from WSJT and you will transmit a clean carrier with nothing on it. Nothing on the display tells you. And note that the socket actually marked DATA is not an audio socket at all — it is a serial port with three pins, ground, transmit and receive.

One thing worth checking while you are in that menu, because it is set the other way: DATA OFF MOD, the equivalent for when you are not in a data mode, ships on MIC and ACC together. That means in ordinary SSB the ACC socket's audio is live alongside your microphone. If you leave an interface wired to ACC and then make a voice contact, whatever that interface is putting out goes on the air with you. Icom lists SSTV, RTTY, PSK31, JT65B and FT8 as what this radio is for in data mode, and gives two routes — the USB cable for everything, or the ACC socket through an interface unit if you prefer analog. The USB driver and its installation guide are a download from Icom's site; install it before you go looking for COM ports.

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

Connect the radio to a computer on an IC-9700

Everything here is in one branch of the menu and the defaults are mostly sensible. The two that are not are the address, which nobody guesses right, and the fact that one USB cable presents two COM ports with different jobs.

Have these to hand before you start

  • Icom's USB driver, downloaded from Icom's site — the manual points you at it but, unlike the IC-7100's, does not tell you to install it before plugging in.
  • The address, which is A2h — not the number you remember from another Icom.
  1. Push MENU, touch SET, then Connectors, then CI-V.MENU›touch SET›touch Connectors›touch CI-VThe screen should show: The CI-V items.
  2. CI-V Address is A2h. That is what your software wants in its rig address box.touch CI-V AddressThe screen should show: A2h.Icom names it explicitly as the default address of the IC-9700. Leave it there unless you have two Icoms sharing a bus — or unless your software is older than this radio and does not recognize it, in which case Icom's own suggestion is to set the address to that of a transceiver the software does know.
  3. Push EXIT to come back up to the CI-V list, then touch CI-V Baud Rate. Leave it on Auto unless something is unhappy.EXIT›touch CI-V Baud Rate›touch AutoOn Auto the radio matches whatever the software is using, which is why Icoms tend to connect first time.
  4. Touching Auto put you back on the CI-V list, so touch CI-V Transceive straight away. It ships ON. Turning it off is often the fix when software keeps losing track of the radio.touch CI-V Transceive›touch OFFThe screen should show: OFF or ON.Watch out. On ON, the radio announces every front-panel change on the bus and accepts changes from it in return. That unsolicited traffic arrives in the middle of a conversation and some logging software reads it as an answer to something else.
  5. Back up a level and go into USB SEND and Keying. USB SEND is how the computer keys the transmitter.EXIT›touch USB SEND/Keying›touch USB SENDThe screen should show: OFF, or one of four choices — the DTR or RTS line on either of the two virtual ports.It ships OFF. If you are letting the software key the radio over the cable rather than by CI-V command, this has to match the line your software uses. USB Keying for CW and for RTTY are two more items alongside it, and the radio will not let you assign the same line to two of the three.

The two COM ports are worth understanding. Plug in the cable and Windows sees two — Icom calls them USB A and USB B, and tells you to look at the Details tab of the port properties to tell which is which. USB A is the one used for programming and CI-V. USB B is assignable, and by default it is set to OFF. If your logging software is pointed at the wrong one you get silence with no error. One more setting you should leave alone: the inhibit timer at USB connection, which ships ON. It exists to stop the radio transmitting by accident in the moment a USB device is plugged in or the computer starts up, and Icom's own note says that if you turn it off you should update the USB driver first and satisfy yourself that a stray send signal will not key the radio. That is an unintended-transmission hazard rather than an inconvenience.

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

Set the drive level for digital modes on an IC-9700

One level item per socket, and a power control that is a percentage rather than a wattage — which matters more than it sounds, because the three bands have three different maxima.

  1. Go to Connectors and MOD Input, and check what DATA MOD says.MENU›touch SET›touch Connectors›touch MOD InputWhatever it says is the level item you need. If DATA MOD is on ACC and you turn USB MOD Level up and down, nothing at all happens.
  2. Set the matching level. All three — ACC, USB and the network one — run to 100 percent and all ship at 50. Push EXIT several times to get back out to the operating screen.touch USB MOD Level›dial → MULTI›EXITThe screen should show: A percentage.For reference, 50 percent on the ACC socket is about 100 millivolts, which is Icom's standard modulating level. Start at 50 and move a few percent at a time.
  3. Touch the meter until it shows ALC, then transmit and watch it.touch the meterThe screen should show: The meter cycles Po, SWR, ALC, COMP, VD and ID.Icom's only guidance for data is to keep the device's output level within the ALC zone. For voice they give a figure — between 30 and 50 percent of the ALC zone — and that is a reasonable place to aim for data as well.
  4. For power, push the MULTI knob to open the multi-function menu, touch RF POWER, and turn.MULTI›touch RF POWER›dial → MULTIThe screen should show: A percentage from 0 to 100.Watch out. It is a percentage of that band's maximum, and the maxima are different. On 2 meters the full scale is 100 watts, on 70 centimeters 75 watts, and on 23 centimeters 10 watts. So fifty percent means 50 watts, 37.5 watts and 5 watts depending on which band you are on. There is no single wattage number to remember.
  5. If you would rather set a ceiling than a level, TX PWR LIMIT on the FUNCTION set screen does it per band. Hold it for a second, rotate MULTI to the maximum power you want, then push MULTI to close.FUNCTION›touch TX PWR LIMIT›hold it for a second›dial → MULTI›MULTIThe screen should show: The limit value, with the set power shown against it.Useful on 23 centimeters where ten watts into the wrong thing is expensive. It can also confuse you: with a limit set, turning RF POWER up past it does nothing, and the only clue is the meter.Watch out. A plain touch of TX PWR LIMIT does something different — it toggles the function on and off. So if you tap it on the way to holding it, you have just switched the limit off. Hold from the start.

Worth knowing what this radio actually makes before you start: 0.5 to 100 watts on 2 meters, 0.5 to 75 on 70 centimeters and 0.1 to 10 on 23 centimeters, with AM a quarter of each. Those are real differences, and a power level that is conservative on 2 meters is everything the radio has on 23.

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

Narrow the filter to shut out the station next door on an IC-9700

Three filter slots per mode, and each one is a number you can change rather than a piece of hardware you have to buy. One touch switches between them; a one-second touch opens the editor.

  1. Touch and hold the filter icon for a second.touch the filter icon›hold it for a secondThe screen should show: The FILTER screen for whatever mode you are in.A brief touch on the same icon just steps between the three filters without opening anything.
  2. Touch the filter icon a few times to pick FIL 1, 2 or 3 — wide, mid and narrow.touch the filter iconIn SSB they arrive at 3.0, 2.4 and 1.8 kHz. In SSB data, 3.0 kHz, 1.2 kHz and 500 Hz. In CW, 1.2 kHz, 500 Hz and 250 Hz. RTTY starts at 2.4 kHz. AM gives 9, 6 and 3 kHz. FM, FM-D and DV are fixed at 15, 10 and 7 kHz. DD is the fourth fixed case and the odd one — a single filter at 150 kHz, with nothing to choose between.
  3. Touch BW, then turn the MAIN DIAL to set the width.touch BW›dial → MAIN DIALWatch out. Note which knob. Almost everything on this radio is the MULTI knob and this one is the main tuning dial. And BW is not the reset. Putting a filter back to its factory width is a one-second touch of DEF, the same soft key Icom uses for reset-to-default all over this radio. Do not go looking for a reset by holding BW.
  4. In SSB and CW you can also choose the filter shape — sharp for something close to an ideal rectangle, soft for rounded shoulders like an analog filter.touch SHARPSharp gets you the most out of the passband width. Soft is often kinder on a voice.
  5. Push EXIT to close the filter screen.EXIT

Three things that bite. Changing a width resets the twin passband tuning to center, so do the width first and the passband tuning afterward, not the other way round. A small dot appears beside the filter number whenever the twin passband tuning is off center on that filter — easy to miss, and it stays there until you hold MULTI for a second to clear the shift. And this one is genuinely surprising: in FM, selecting filter 2 or filter 3 does not only narrow your receiver, it puts your transmitter into narrow FM as well. A receive-side control changing what you put on the air is not what anyone expects. Last, the widths are stored per band. A filter you set up on 2 meters will not be the same one on 70 centimeters or 23.

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

Turn on noise reduction on an IC-9700

A key and a knob, and Icom's own instruction on where to set it is better than a number would be.

  1. Push NR to switch it on or off.NRThe screen should show: NR appears on the display.
  2. Hold NR for a second to open the level menu, then turn MULTI. The range is 0 to 15.hold NR›dial → MULTIThe screen should show: The NR menu with the level.Watch out. Holding the key switches the noise reduction on as a side effect of opening the menu. You cannot look at the level without engaging the function, so if you only wanted a peek, expect the audio to change.
  3. Push EXIT to close the menu.EXIT

Icom's instruction is to adjust to where the noise is reduced but the received signal is not distorted, which is a better rule than any number — the point where the noise is quietest and the point where the signal is easiest to copy are usually not the same setting, and the second one is the one you want. Two things make the noise reduction seem to switch itself off, and it is worth being precise about which is which. Holding XFC in simplex opens the squelch and cancels the noise reduction — that is the simplex behavior; in split or duplex the same key monitors your transmit frequency. The Basic Manual's key description says nothing about the noise reduction in that case, but the Advanced Manual does: when you hold XFC to listen to a repeater's input, the noise reduction and the notch are canceled while you listen. The other is the RIT monitor: with RIT on, holding XFC lets you hear the operating frequency, and while you are monitoring the RIT itself is temporarily off and so are the noise reduction, the notch and the twin passband tuning. Everything comes back when you let go. The noise reduction works in SSB, CW, RTTY, AM, FM and digital voice — unusually broad coverage.

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

Turn on the noise blanker on an IC-9700

For pulse noise, and it has three adjustments rather than one — which is unusual and genuinely useful once you know what they do.

  1. Push NB to switch the blanker on or off.NBThe screen should show: The noise blanker icon.Watch out. SSB, CW, RTTY and AM only. In FM and the digital modes it does nothing at all — Icom's mode line for the Noise Blanker is those four and no more.
  2. Hold NB for a second to open its menu.hold NBThe screen should show: Three items — LEVEL, DEPTH and WIDTH.Watch out. As with the noise reduction, holding the key switches the function on as well as opening the menu.
  3. Touch the item you want and turn MULTI.touch the item›dial → MULTILEVEL is the threshold — how big a pulse has to be before the blanker acts. It runs to 100 percent and ships at 50. DEPTH is how hard it cuts, 1 to 10, default 8. WIDTH is how long a pulse it blanks, 1 to 100, default 50. That last one is the one to experiment with: a blanker set for short sharp ignition pulses will do nothing against the long ragged ones from a switching supply.
  4. Push MULTI to close the menu.MULTIWatch out. Pushing the knob closes this one, where EXIT closes most other things on this radio. Same knob, different job depending on what is on screen.

Icom's own note is worth taking at face value: with the blanker on, received signals may be distorted if they are excessively strong, or if what you are trying to blank is not actually pulse noise. Their fix is to turn it off or reduce the depth. In practice that means a blanker turned up hard on a busy band will make a strong nearby station sound broken, and it is worth switching off as a test whenever something sounds wrong that did not an hour ago. Their illustration makes the two failure modes clear: width set too wide takes a chunk of the signal you wanted along with the noise, and depth set too shallow leaves the noise where it was.

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

Notch out a whistle or a carrier on an IC-9700

Both kinds on one key, with different mode coverage, and a menu item you have probably never looked at that decides which of the two you are even allowed.

  1. In SSB or AM, push NOTCH to cycle between the automatic notch, the manual notch and off. In the other modes it is a two-way switch — see below.NOTCHThe screen should show: AN for automatic, MN for manual, nothing for off.Automatic covers SSB, AM and FM. Manual covers SSB, CW, RTTY and AM. So in CW only the manual one exists, and reaching for the automatic notch to kill a carrier there will get you nowhere.
  2. Hold NOTCH for a second to open the notch menu.hold NOTCHThe screen should show: The notch menu, with MN now showing.Watch out. Holding the key force-selects the manual notch, even if you were happily using the automatic one. So there is no way to open this menu to adjust the width without losing the automatic notch.
  3. Touch WIDTH to pick wide, mid or narrow, then turn MULTI slowly to place the notch. EXIT closes it.touch WIDTH›dial → MULTI›EXITTurn it slowly — this is a deep notch and it is easy to go past. Icom's specification is more than 70 dB for the manual notch against more than 30 for the automatic one, which is why the manual one is worth the fiddling when a carrier is genuinely in the way.

One setting to know about because it can make the radio look broken. Under SET and Function there are two items called NOTCH Switch, one for SSB and one for AM, and each decides which notches that mode is allowed to use — automatic only, manual only, or both. They ship on both. If somebody has set one of them to Auto and you are pushing NOTCH expecting three positions and getting two, that is where to look. And a small thing worth not worrying about: Icom notes that you may hear noise while you adjust the manual notch, that it comes from the signal processing chip, and that it is not a fault.

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

Work a DX station that is running split on an IC-9700

One-second hold on SPLIT and you are set up. Worth knowing on this radio because split is also the one exception to the rule that you can only transmit on the main band.

Have these to hand before you start

  • The frequency the other station is transmitting on.
  • Where he is listening.
  1. Set VFO A to the frequency you want to receive on, in the mode you will use.dial → MAIN DIAL
  2. Hold SPLIT for a second.hold SPLITThe screen should show: Split turns on and VFO B takes VFO A's frequency and mode.That one gesture equalizes the two and switches split on. A plain press of SPLIT toggles the function without copying anything.
  3. Hold XFC and turn the dial to set how far up or down you will transmit.hold XFC›dial → the offsetThe screen should show: You hear your own transmit frequency while you hold XFC.This is the useful part — you find out whether the frequency you picked is already busy before you call rather than after.
  4. Press SPLIT to switch it off again.SPLIT

The long way round works too: set VFO A to your receive frequency, press A over B to get to VFO B, set the transmit frequency there, press SPLIT, and press A over B to come back. For the repeaters, duplex is a different function — on the FUNCTION screen, page 2, the DUP key cycles minus, plus and off, and holding it for a second lets you type the offset. One warning about that: if the automatic repeater function is on and you tune outside the repeater output range, the duplex setting is canceled for you without asking. Where the function exists it also sets the direction and the tone for you, which means a manually set offset can be quietly overwritten. Which radios have it is a question Icom answers two different ways in two different books: the Basic Manual says the Auto Repeater item is displayed only in the USA version, and the Advanced Manual says the U.S.A. and Korean versions. Both are printed, we cannot resolve it, and the way to settle it on your own radio is to look in SET, Function and see whether the item is there.

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

Save a frequency to a memory channel on an IC-9700

Six steps, and the last one is a one-second hold. A tap does nothing at all, which is where almost everyone gets stuck the first time.

  1. Push V/M for VFO mode, and set the frequency and the mode you want kept.V/M›dial → MAIN DIALA channel holds the frequency, the mode, the filter bandwidth, the name, the tone settings and whether it is included in a select scan.
  2. Hold the kHz and M-CH key for a second.hold kHz M-CHThe screen should show: M-CH is selected and the channel list opens.
  3. Turn MULTI to the channel you want.dial → MULTIThe screen should show: BLANK under a number means that channel is empty.Watch out. MULTI here. In the memory-to-memory copy procedure the destination is chosen with the MAIN DIAL instead, and Icom puts a note in the manual telling you not to use MULTI there. Two similar-looking jobs, two different knobs.
  4. Touch the channel number, then touch MW and hold it for a second, until BLANK disappears.touch the channel number›touch MW›hold it for a secondThe screen should show: BLANK goes away from under the number.Watch out. Two things. It must be a hold — a tap does nothing and there is no feedback to tell you that. And the confirmation is negative: you are watching for a word to disappear rather than for anything to appear. Icom's own note is that new content overwrites whatever was already there, with no prompt.
  5. Push EXIT to close the screen.EXIT

Ninety-nine ordinary channels, plus six scan edge channels and two call channels, and the last eight of those cannot be left blank. Everything except a blank channel can be named. The memory menu — reached by touching the edit icon on a channel's row, or by pushing QUICK — carries the name editor, memory write and memory clear, which means the write and the erase are adjacent items in the same short list. Before doing anything wholesale, the SD card chapter is worth ten minutes: the radio will write its memories and its entire setup to a card, and reload either of them selectively afterward, right down to a single item.

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

Set the CW keyer speed and weight on an IC-9700

Two pushes and a turn, and the whole thing only exists while the radio is in CW.

  1. Get into CW first — touch the mode icon, then touch CW.touch the mode icon›touch CWWatch out. In SSB, in the data modes and in FM, AM and DV that slot is microphone gain; in RTTY it is the twin peak filter and in DD it is TX inhibit. This is not a case of the setting being hidden — it genuinely is not there.
  2. Push the MULTI knob to open the multi-function menu, then touch KEY SPEED.MULTI›touch KEY SPEEDThe screen should show: The key speed in words per minute.
  3. Turn MULTI to set it — 6 to 48 words a minute — then push MULTI to close the menu.dial → MULTI›MULTIIcom's own suggestion is to do this while you are actually sending with the paddle, which is the only way to judge it.

The rest of the keyer is in its own place: in CW, push MENU and touch KEYER, then EDIT/SET. That is where the sidetone level, the dot to dash ratio, the rise time, the paddle polarity and the key type live, along with the eight message memories and the contest number counter. The key type ships on Paddle. One piece of hardware to get right: Icom specifies a 3.5 millimeter stereo plug for the key jack, for a straight key, a paddle or an external keyer alike. What a mono plug does in that socket is not something the manual states, so use the stereo plug Icom asks for and do not find out. Icom prints no default keyer speed anywhere, so we are not going to invent one. And the CW pitch sits next to the speed in the same menu, adjustable from 300 to 900 Hz in 5 Hz steps.

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

Reset the menu to factory settings on an IC-9700

Two resets and an emergency one. The emergency one is the destructive kind, which is the opposite of what most people assume, so read the closing note before you use it.

  1. Put a card in and save your settings and memories before you do anything.save your settings to an SD card firstIcom puts this in a boxed note of its own, and the reload is selective — you can put back a single item, right down to the CI-V address, rather than all or nothing.
  2. Push MENU, touch SET, then Others, then Reset.MENU›touch SET›touch Others›touch ResetThe screen should show: Partial Reset and All Reset.
  3. Touch Partial Reset, then YES.touch Partial Reset›touch YESThe screen should show: The radio restarts on the default VFO screen.This puts the VFO frequencies, the VFO settings and the whole Set mode back to factory, and leaves a long list alone: your memory channels, the call sign memories, your messages, the DTMF and GPS memories, the D-STAR repeater list, the network settings, the frequency calibration, the fixed scope edges, the allowed call sign list and the preset memories.
  4. All Reset is the other branch, not the next step. The partial reset above restarts the radio, so walk back through MENU, SET, Others, Reset first. All Reset then asks twice — All Reset, then NEXT, then YES.touch All Reset›touch NEXT›touch YESWatch out. Everything goes: memory channels, filter settings, all of it. And the D-STAR repeater list goes with it, which is what the DR mode runs on, so the radio cannot do DR mode afterward until you reload the list from Icom's website or from your card.

Two things about partial reset that are easy to miss. It does clear the whole Set mode, which means it will put the CI-V address back to A2h and the data modulation source back to ACC — so a working digital setup stops working, silently, and the reset is the reason. Worth knowing before you use it as a general fix. Icom's own escalation is sensible: switch the radio off and on first, then try a partial reset, and only then an all reset. And the emergency route, for when the touchscreen has stopped responding and you cannot reach the menu at all: switch the radio off, hold PBT and V/M together, and push the power switch. Be clear that this is an all reset — every memory channel, with no confirmation screen — and those two keys sit next to each other in the cluster around the main tuning dial, on the right of the panel — PBT along the top row, V/M just below it.

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

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