so i've had my IC-7300 for about two years now and always kind of ignored the extended receive modification because i figured it wasnt worth the hassle. well last weekend i finally got around to it and honestly i wish i had done it sooner. the mod itself is pretty straightforward if you're comfortable pulling the radio apart, just a couple of jumper pads on the main board, took me maybe 45 minutes including the time i spent second-guessing myself and staring at the board with a loupe.

what i mainly wanted it for was listening down in the MW broadcast band and also some utility stuff around 400-500 MHz range. the sensitivity in the extended portions isnt gonna win any awards obviously since the front end filtering isnt there, but for casual monitoring its totally usable. i did notice a slight improvement in overall feel after doing a realignment but that might have been placebo, hard to say.

anyway anyone else done this or any other mods to their 7300? i've been thinking about the TX unlock mod too but im a little nervous about that one from a legal standpoint depending on how it gets used. also heard some people are swapping out the stock fan for a quieter one, curious if that actually makes a difference on the heat management side or if its just for noise reduction.

yeah the fan swap is worth doing if the fan noise bothers you during SSB operation on weaker signals, some people find it distracting when monitoring. i put a Noctua NF-A4x10 in mine, had to fab a little adapter bracket out of some scrap aluminum but it fit fine. temps actually run maybe 2-3 degrees warmer under key-down conditions compared to the stock fan at full blast but nothing that ever concerned me, the thermal cutback doesnt kick in any earlier that ive noticed.

on the TX unlock thing i'd just leave it alone personally. the extended RX is a grey area but generally tolerated, messing with the TX side opens up a whole different can of worms especially if you ever have the radio looked at for warranty or repair work. not worth the headache.

did the rx mod on mine ages ago mostly for airband. works fine for that. never bothered with anything else on it tbh the radio does what i need out of the box for hf work and thats really all i care about. might look into the fan thing though because mine does get annoyingly loud when i'm running any kind of digital modes for extended periods