so ive been sitting on this for a while but finally thinking about doing the mars/cap mod on my 7300 to open up the transmit range a bit. i know icom has the jumper on the board somewhere and ive seen a couple youtube videos but they all seem to be from like 2018 and im not sure if the procedure changed with the newer firmware revisions

not looking to do anything sketchy with it, just want the flexibility to do some MARS nets and maybe experiment a little outside the traditional ham bands on my own property. the receiver side already covers pretty much everything which is great but the tx being locked is annoying

anyone actually done this on a recent unit? the board revision on mine is like a late 2021 manufacture date i think. wondering if the jumper location is the same or if icom moved stuff around

yeah did mine about a year ago, late 2020 unit. the jumper is still in the same spot near the PA section, you have to pull the top cover and its pretty obvious once you know what youre looking for. there was a thread on eham with pictures that was way more helpful than the youtube stuff honestly

one thing i'll say is just be careful around that area of the board because theres some smd stuff nearby that you dont want to accidentally brush with a screwdriver. used some kapton tape to cover adjacent components before i went in. worked perfectly after, no issues with normal ham operation and the MARS stuff checked out fine too. firmware version shouldnt matter, its a hardware jumper not software controlled

cant speak to the 7300 specifically but i did a similar mod on an older 706 back in the day and the main thing is just having decent lighting and a steady hand. those boards are not friendly if you start poking around blind. get a good macro photo of the area before you touch anything so you have a reference point if something looks wrong after

also make sure youre static grounded, seems obvious but ive seen people fry boards being careless about it