TLDR – The 20-watt option.
- For those looking for a cheap, portable (battery powered) and QRP tuner, the LDG Z-817 is what I would suggest. You can plug a TRS cable (yep standard stereo headphone cable) into both the IC-705 and the tuner and get your tune going ASAP. At the time of this article being written, the LDG Z-817 is going for $129.95 and even comes with a free Balun as part of a rebate.
- This option will also save you the most. Right now if you purchased this instead of the Icom AH-705 you’d be saving $240 or more if you got the balun which effectively turns it into the AH-705!
TLDR – The 100+ watt option & where I spent my money.
- I wanted a tuner that would support my fantasy to have a 100W base station in the future while still supporting my current QRP efforts. I decided to go with the bit more expensive option from LDG, the Z-11-Pro-II running $184.95 with a free Balun as part of a rebate. This option gives me battery power portability, full 160-10 band support along with the simplicity of a standard TRS headphone cable.
The Problem
- The Icom IC-705 antenna tuner cable is non-standard, but standard in a normal consumer way. All the existing cables on the market for the older radio use a weird proprietary interface to the radios.
- The IC-705 uses a simple headphone cable! Thankfully! Sadly, this makes it hard to find a tuner, but it turns out there are options! They are just not documented, till now!
- My use case is a little different than that of most other Hams so I ended up going with a bit more expensive option, but if you are on a budget you can save yourself $230 on this transaction and buy a killer antenna or the like!
My Thought Process
The Icom IC-705 is really a slick 10W QRP radio, but I see it as a great entry point into HF and UHF portable radio. I personally use mine as a base station radio doing NVIS EMCOMM along with Digital Modes like FT8 and WSPR.
I have purchased two Chameleon Halfwave End Fed antennas. My primary mobile is the LEFS 8010 Sloper; thankfully this does not need a tuner. For my base station setup, I have another Chameleon Antenna, the EMCOMM III v2 which does 160 through 10 and definitely requires a tuner.
The need for an antenna really stumped me, because the options for the IC-705 seemed really limited until I figured out an undocumented secret from LDG. Most of their antennas support tuning over a standard TRS plug (yep a double-ended headphone cable connected to the IC-705 and your LDG tuner will work!).
The standard offerings from Icom, Elecraft, MAT-Tuner and the like were either too QRP (only supporting up to 10 to 30W) or were not portable enough (no batteries) or were just too expensive for my budget!
In the table below, I highlighted in red my issues with each of the tuners and how they compare to my chosen tuner, the LDG Z-11-Pro-II which so far has been pretty fantastic! The tuner offers great performance, lots of stored memories (for fast tuning) long-lasting battery support (up to a year or so) and 125W at a sane price of $184.95 (at the time of this article being penned).
The 125W power support allows me to keep my options open for a future more “base” radio like an IC7300 or something similar.
Anyway, let me know what you think in the comments below and I hope to hear you on the HF waves! 73 W7PDJ – Phil
Portable Antenna Tuners for the IC-705
I went through and captured by requirements for an antenna tuner for the IC-705. I have future plans to purchase a 100W HF radio, so most of the QRP tuners are out, but I still wanted to be able to go into the wild and use my radio. Also, I didn't want to have any custom cabling so I prefer tuners that are TRS compatible.
Honorable Mentions
These are additional tuners from LDG that will likely work with the Icom IC-705, but they were way out of my price range or power requirements. I list them here because I confirmed that they all have the TRS tuning cable supported by the IC-705 so in theory, they will work.
- LDG Z100A
- LDG AT-100PRO-II
- LDG AT-200PRO-II
- LDG AT-600PROII
- LDG AT-1000PROII
Hi Phil,
I’m curious how you are interfacing the LDG-Z817 to the IC-705 as there is not a TRRS connector on the back of that tuner. What am I missing?
Thanks!
Mike – KI8R
Hi Mike, I’m super sorry for the late reply! I’m not used to getting comments!
I in fact do use the TRS cable (It’s the one that has fewer connections from the IC-705 to the tuner.
Works great and still going in fact. I still use the same tuner today on my random wire antenna at my base station.
– Phil