so ive been running my IC-7300 pretty much stock since i got it a couple years ago and always read about people swapping out the stock oscillator for a proper TCXO upgrade, the kind that gets you down to like 0.5ppm stability or better. finally bit the bullet last month and had my buddy who does board-level work help me pull the stock one and drop in a Golledge unit we sourced from mouser.

honestly i wasnt sure i'd notice a difference on SSB but running FT8 for a few sessions after the mod the drift is basically gone, like my offset just sits there. before the mod i'd see maybe 3-4hz of wander over a 30 minute session warming up, now it barely moves. also been doing some JS8Call nets where timing matters and yeah it feels tighter.

anyone else gone down this road? curious if people have done the mod on other rigs too, i know the 7100 has a similar situation. also wondering if the AF filters are worth touching or if thats getting into diminishing returns territory for a radio that already has pretty decent DSP.

did basically the same thing on mine about a year ago, though i used a different TCXO, think it was an NDK unit, cant remember the exact part number offhand. the improvement on weak signal digital modes is real, not imagined. when youre doing MSK144 meteor scatter every hz of stability matters and the stock oscillator on these rigs is honestly fine for voice but youre right that it wanders a bit during warmup.

on the AF filter question i wouldnt bother. the 7300's DSP is already doing most of that heavy lifting in software and unless you have a specific noise floor problem the analog path is clean enough that swapping passives isnt going to move the needle much. where i did see a real difference was adding a ferrite choke on the USB cable because i was getting some RFI sneaking in through the PC connection and messing with the waterfall, not a mod exactly but worth mentioning if you havent done it.

interesting, i always figured the 7300 was good enough out of the box that mods were kinda overkill for most people. but the TCXO thing makes sense for digital ops i guess. i run mostly CW and SSB so maybe i just never noticed any drift.

my old FT-817 on the other hand, that thing drifted like crazy until i did the TXCO mod on that one, totally different world after. so yeah i believe you that it makes a difference, just depends what youre using it for.