So, the christmas holidays are almost over and I have to go back to Les Mureaux tomorrow 
I really had a great time with the IC-765. Wonderful radio. The receiver is definitely one of the best ones I have ever heard. Despite rather louzy condx, I had no problems in getting nice DX’s in pile-ups. I even got a few new countries. The antenna I used was the HyGain DX-88 multi band vertical. Here is a picture of the temporary setup. Left of the IC-765 you can see my FT-301D, while on the right side is the TRIO JR-599/TX-599 Custom Special set.
I have also put a high resolution image of the IC-765 here (click image for full resolution). I promise to take more pictures of it later.
Now, a few thoughts about the radio. As said, the receiver is superb. Although it doesn’t have so many knobs, there are many ways to adjust the receiver parameters tyo extract weak signals. I’ll still have to do the PBT mod, in fact, as far as I can see, none of the available mods have been done. So. I’ll have to do at least the PBT and QSK mods before I’ll jump in a big contest. Maybe I will also invest in the 250Hz filter; the 500Hz one is stock in the IC-765. I will also need a CAT cable.
Many times I had to bypass the built in antenna tuner. Don’t get me wrong, the tuner seems to be excellent, but I think there was something wrong with the antenna, so the SWR varied from time to time trigging the auto-tuner :)) – this was very confusing during a QSO, so I switched to a manual tuner.
I also listened a lot to AM broadcasts. Besides regular broadcasts, I picked up many weird stations like Bombay Airport. The receiver performs well in AM as well.
Ok, I will put the radio back in the again. I will not have any time to use it for the next six months or so