so ive been running my FT-857D for about three years now and never really messed with the internals beyond swapping the fan out for a quieter one. but last weekend i finally got around to doing the extended TX mod so i can hit some of the MARS/CAP freqs my club uses for drills. not gonna lie i was nervous about opening it up, that thing is packed in there pretty tight.

while i had it open i also trimmed the ref osc since mine was running about 150hz high on 10m which was bugging me for a while. used a GPSDO as my reference and got it dialed in real close, like within 10hz now across most of the HF bands. way better than it was.

anyway the whole thing took maybe two hours including the time i spent staring at the service manual trying to figure out which jumper was which. if anyone else has been on the fence about doing this it really isnt that bad as long as you have a decent set of JIS screwdrivers. regular philips will chew up those screws fast.

thinking about also doing the collins filter mod next but not sure its worth it on this radio vs just saving up for something with better DSP. anyone done that one?

yeah the ref osc trim is one of those things you dont realize makes a difference until you do it. i did mine after noticing i was always slightly off on FT8 and once i trimmed it up everything just locked in cleaner. did you check it on 2m and 70cm too or just HF? mine drifted a bit differently on VHF and took a second pass to get it where i wanted.

on the collins filter question — honestly if youre mostly doing SSB voice and digital i wouldnt bother. the difference is noticeable on CW in a crowded contest environment but for general use the stock filters are fine. id put that money toward a good external preamp or a better antenna before touching the IF stage.

JIS screwdrivers, this is the thing nobody tells you when you first start poking around in japanese rigs. i stripped two screws on an old IC-706 before someone finally clued me in. now i wont open anything without them.

i havent done the 857 specifically but i did a similar TX unlock on an older 817 and the process is pretty much the same idea. those little radios are surprisingly well built inside considering how small they are. good on you for actually doing the osc trim too, most people skip that part.