so ive been putting this off for like two years but i finally dropped in a TCXO on my IC-7300 last weekend. for context i do a lot of FT8 and some WSPR beaconing and the stock oscillator drift was honestly not terrible but once you start doing long WSPR runs overnight you can see it wander a bit especially in the summer when the shack gets warm.

the mod itself isnt too bad if youre comfortable with fine pitch SMD work, theres a pads on the main board where the TCXO drops in and you pull a couple resistors. took me maybe 45 minutes with a good iron and a steady hand. used the Hy-Time part that a few people on the SDR forum were recommending. stability went from maybe plus or minus a couple hundred millihertz of drift over a few hours down to basically nothing i can measure. the reference stays rock solid now even when the temp in here swings 10 degrees.

anyway if anyones been on the fence about doing this i say go for it, just dont rush the SMD part. only thing i wish i knew beforehand is that you should recalibrate the radio after the install, took me a minute to figure out why my displayed frequency was suddenly a few hz off before i remembered id need to reset the ref.

did this on mine about a year ago and yeah the calibration thing tripped me up too lol. worth noting the drift improvement is really noticeable if you do any digital modes that care about sub-hz accuracy. for SSB voice work you probably wouldnt care at all but for WSPR especially it makes a real difference. which Hy-Time part number did you use, the standard 0.5ppm one or the tighter spec version? i went with the 0.1ppm and it was like 20 bucks more but figured why not while i had the thing apart.

interesting, I hadn't even considered this mod honestly. I run FT8 on my 7300 pretty regularly and never noticed drift being an issue but maybe I just don't look closely enough. Does the stock oscillator spec get worse as the radio ages or is it pretty much the same out of the box as after a few years of use? I ask because mine is about 3 years old now and I swear it used to decode a little cleaner but that could just be me imagining things or the band conditions being different. Also curious if this voids the Icom warranty, not that mine is still under warranty but just wondering.