SSB on the IC-R1? Yes!

[TassieJay]

Ever since the Icom IC-R1 first came out 25 years ago, people had asked "could it receive SSB?" And the answer was no. Until now.
Icom IC R1 SSB demo 3 - YouTube
(there's other earlier demos too if you want to look for them)
Its long been a dream of mine to add SSB to the IC-R1, and have finally gotten around to modifying it to fit a BFO internally, which gets switched on by inserting a shorting plug into the 'line out' socket on the IC-R1. It's not perfect, the filters are a bit wide, and the smallest tuning steps of 0.5kHz mean that sometimes you won't get quite close enough to being 'spot on tune' - but as this video shows, it can work quite well.
The ham station received in the video is from Spain, received in Australia, with just the stock FA-4B Icom rubber duck antenna.

A while ago, I wrote a combined modification / review for a local scanning website, and this will soon be updated with the SSB mod for the Icom IC-R1; will post the URL here when that is ready.

 

[Fast1eddie]

Nice!! That was such a neat radio and way ahead of it's time, at least in my opinion. Liked it but useless most of the time because of the poor filtering.

 

[Haley]

Now that is very cool! Would that work for an R2??? I have mine for 15 years still a nice little radio. Does VHF very well. I am a sucker for small portable SSB radios, there just are not many out there. I broke down last year and got a Kenwood THF6A just for that reason, awesome radio by the way. Personally think the R1,2,5 and 6 are very under rated. They are excellent receivers. Mike

 

[TassieJay]

It should work on the R2 just fine. The circuit is very simple, I've attached what works on the R1 here. The only thing that may need changing is the 220k ohm resistor to achieve suitable BFO level output for the R2 - it's a trial & error thing. The other tricky bits are finding a suitable power tap, and where to inject the BFO signal - typically just after the 455kHz ceramic filter.
The Icom IC-R2 uses a 450kHz 3rd IF, and you'll need a 450 kHz ceramic resonator instead of the 455 kHz type. They're a bit harder to find than the 455 kHz types, but not impossible.
The big challenge will be finding the space to cram in the circuit. Also attached is a picture of the built circuit that was put in the R1, which might also fit into the R2? Not sure, never seen inside an R2 before.

 

[Haley]

Thank you for all that information! If I get brave enough , this might just be my winter project! I watched all 3 parts on YouTube, really impressive. Thanks again , Mike

 

[TassieJay]

The webmaster has uploaded the modification / review - including updated SSB modification info to here:
http://www.scanningtasmania.org/IcomR1
Along with a downloadable pdf (information with lower quality pictures embedded) at a link on the bottom of the page.

 

[danieldad]

keep trying that link, as well as Google searchs. Link comes up Error - 403. No site found. I have a very nice IC R1 that I bought from a gentleman quite a while ago; has the base charger, all the accessories- just want to do the SSB mod, - simply to add that feature to the rig, as Icom could/should have done, back when they released it.
Yeah, it is pretty deaf below around 6 meters, but it works pretty well on a 60' longwire with an adjustable attenuator.

 

[TassieJay]

The link provided above works fine for me?
Also try the pdf version download here: http://scanningtasmania.org/Icom IC R1 review and mods.pdf
And a Google search found it just fine for me, search for "IC-R1 SSB" and you should find it (pdf version)

I also noticed a minor error in the schematic I had attached above, corrected here now: