Icom: ICOM IC-21 mod question

[firedog359]

Hello all, As a new ham, my technical knowledge is very limited so hopefully someone can answer this. I am looking at an Icom IC-21 on ebay and it's had a mod done to it that has me puzzled. I think I know what's been done but I'm not sure, The previous owner has taken a couple lengths of shielded cable and soldered RCA plugs on one end and attached the other ends to two crystal sockets. One receive and one transmit. There is another piece of shielded cable tagged PTT but I can't see where it's connected to. The ebay item number is 201475296877 if anyone wants to look at it and maybe tell me what you think this mod is for. Thanks

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Looks as though he had extended out the crystal sockets, one each for the transmit frequency and receive frequency. The third wire looks like it is labeled, to have an external PTT wire.

If you look at the crystal socket photo, you can see that one half is for the receive frequency crystals and on the other side the transmit frequency crystals (e.g. 146.880 RX, 146.280 TX).

Who knows why the mod was done, but it looks benign enough and easy to "uninstall".

Nice looking rig BTW.

 

[mmckenna]

Made it easier to swap out crystals on the fly without having to open up the radio each time.
External PTT was likely for a foot switch or some other adaptive Push To Talk device.

I agree, easy enough to undo.

 

[firedog359]

Thanks for the replies. Would it be possible to attach an external VFO using these leads?

 

[ShawnInPaso]

Yes it is possible, but it does depend on the design of the radio.