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write your own review of the I.C.E Bandpass and BCB filters.
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KG6AOH
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Rating: 4/5
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Dec 5, 2008 12:32
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Good filtering characteristics
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I purchased a few of the 400 model series 10m bandpass filters for use on some 10m beacons.
First impressions with the build quality is good. All the ICE filters are built using slices of aluminum extrusions with flat aluminum sheet top and bottom covers sandwiched using nuts/screws.
Looking inside the filters, you see copper coils and small epoxy dipped capacitors.
These filters provide not only RF filtering, but also isolation for your equipment. There is no DC path from the center conductors of one coax cable connector to the other. Also, each coax connector has a direct DC path from center conductor to ground. This is helpful for those of you in lightning prone areas.
Using an IFR 1200 service monitor with tracking generator, I swept each filter for bandpass characteristics and found them to be quite capable of attenuating out of band signals by many dB. Insertion loss across the 10m band was negligible, less than 0.2 dB. As you get up into the VHF and UHF range, signals are not attenuated as much. By the time you get to the 800 MHz. area, there is little attenuation at all (if that concerns you).
On the 10 watt beacons, the filters are a dream come true! Since the beacons are located at heavily populated hilltop commercial radio sites, all the RF at the site can be a concern. Using the ICE bandpass filters in series with lowpass filters, the beacons are unaware of any other RF in the area, so there is no intermod produced, and they can actually be used to receive with no interference from anything else at the sites.
For the 100 watt beacon, I had some problems. Although the filters are rated for 200 watts power, the 100 watt beacon tends to heat up the filters. The CW beacon is only transmitting about 35% of the time, and off the air 65% of the time. However, the ICE bandpass filter gets uncomfortably warm. I even mounted the filter to a blank rack panel, using heatsink grease between the filter and the panel to try and reduce the heat buildup. But, the filter still gets warm. Not hot, but warm. Which is still quite disturbing!
If you run low power (less than 50 watts), the ICE filters will work great! If you run 100 watts or more, look elsewhere.
If the filter said it was good up to 50 watts, I would have given it a 5! Since it says it is good for 200 watts, but runs hot at only 100 watts (intermittent), it gets a 4.
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WA1SEO
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 26, 2008 06:43
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Great product, great price
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I was referred to I.C.E. by some people on one of the bulletin boards because of an interference problem at my QTH.
The price seemed too good to be true since the box, connectors, and any parts had to be worth that.
I ordered the 404 (80M BPF) on a Wednesday and it was at my home on Friday via priority mail...total cost was $42. Total reduction in generated noise, over 1 S-unit, which is what I needed.
For the sake of curiosity, I used my HP Network Analyzer and measured the performance. It was perfectly aligned.
I highly recommend the I.C.E. Bandpass filter to anybody who may need that "edge" with a less expensive receiver.
Mike, WA1SEO
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K9YC
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 28, 2006 14:41
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Good, but Flaky QC
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I own a half dozen ICE filters -- two BCB's, and individual bandpass filters for 80, 40, 6, and 2M. I own an HP generator and spectrum analyzer, so I put all on the bench to test them. The HF filters tested fine, but both the 6M and 2M filters were significantly out of alignment.
I had considerable difficulty contacting ICE to get instructions for sending them for repair -- they weren't very good at answering their phone (like for a week at a time). Eventually I did contact them, sent the filters for rework, and got them back in good shape. But there's no good excuse for stuff like this being bad "out of the box." Both were purchased new.
On the positive side (and the reason for my rating being 4 rather than 2), the filters do have decent curves when they're properly aligned, and when used within their ratings with my 100W radios, haven't shown signs of overheating. No, I haven't tried them at higher power.
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N1XBP
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 28, 2006 13:39
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Model 400X exactly what I needed..
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I'm very close by several BCB stations, with the closest being WRKO Boston (680 Kc). Not only was I receiving WRKO over absolutely every signal, I also had an amazingly high bacground noise level (S9+10). I was ready to pack it in and try some other hobby but I decided to try the filter in a last ditch effort.
Why didn't I start there in the first place?!? Noise levels on 20 and 40 meters dropped to a usable S5-S8. I think the BCB was overloading and desensing the radio (on top of all the other urban noise). Things roll off nicely below 3.5 Mhz as they should, with WRKO making it through on 680 but at a very diminished level and not affecting anything else.. I didn't think that would be possible.
As far as construction, it's "bomb proof" as my dad would say. That's somewhat better than just bullet proof. :)
This will be in my shack for a LONG time.
- Jason, N1XBP, Boston
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WB9YCJ
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 11, 2005 01:40
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401 BCB notch filter
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Regarding the ICE BCB Filter - model 401.
I live about two miles from a 10 KW AM station on 1480 Khz - KWIZ. I can hear their signal on the landline telephone, speaker wire and mixing products on many Ham-SWL receivers! The model 401 is not aimed at the average Ham. It is for the SWL or Ham using seperate receiver. It is really a BCB "Notch" filter attenuating 500 Khz through 1800 Khz allowing LONGWAVE reception. Not suitable for serious 160 Meter ops since there "seemed" to be a 1 -2 db of spillover attenuation above 1800 Khz.
And I know the model 402(x) is NOT for the serious 160 OP for the same reason. If you live very near a BCB station - opt for the model 400X. The 400(x) has more attenuation of the BCB since it starts rolling off (attenuates) below 3.5 Mhz. The "x" denotes capability for use with a transceiver which is what most hams want. About 7 years ago I called ICE and they said they could custom make a model 401 (for the same price) with roll off starting just below 1800 Khz to facilate unaffected 160 M receive. In this situation, my 1480 station would have less attenuation and likely still show up as "some" mixing products in my receiver. In summary, these products work very well. Above all - see the chart at ICE showing the differances between the models - copy & paste:
http://www.arraysolutions.com/Products/ice/filtersrf.html#bcb
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K8DIT
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 4, 2004 10:24
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402x BCB filter
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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A nearby ham showed me on his communication monitor's scope how strong the local BC signals were. The spikes were much higher in db. than my Jupiter's front end's ability to suppress. The resultant energy made the rig go blotto on the top band with imaging repeating in multiples all through the lower bands. There's nothing wrong with the design of the front end of the Jupiter just that in the presence of near field energy, the excess energy blows past the front end distorting resulting mixing products as the rig is tuned. See those spikes? You need to lop the heads off those spikes with a high pass filter, he said. The 402x was just the ticket. Now the top band is image free and just as sweet as are the higher bands. I passed this info along to nearby hams using other rigs during our get togethers and have heard nothing but positive results. The thing is if you ignore this problem, the characteristic dynamic range and sensitivity is compromised througout the entire hf spectrum and you dont get nearly the reciever performance on any band the rig is capable of delivering. While this is an absolute necessity on general coverage rigs, I tried it on a ham-band-only rig, my Omni 6+, with interesting improvement on imaging on the lower bands resulting in better close in IMD on the ham bands.
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K6RB
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 4, 2004 00:10
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I Have Two
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I use two of these - one for each radio in my SO2R station. They are automatically switched by two Top Ten Band Decoders attached to the two FT-1000s. They work flawlessly and you can really hear the difference when you switch one of 'em out.
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WA2PJI
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 25, 2003 22:08
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Very Effective
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I live a few miles from a powerful AM station transmitting antenna, operating on 880KHZ. I use a Ten-Tec Argosy and a full wave delta loop on 40 meters (a magnet for BCI). The BCI literally wiped-out most of the 40 meter CW band. After trying everything, a friend suggested the I.C.E 400X. This filter really works! After putting it in the line, the BCI was gone. A well-constructed and very effective filter!
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G3VGR
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Rating: 4/5
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Feb 10, 2003 19:39
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Worthwhile product
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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My IC706mkIIG isn't the greatest of performers on 160m. I was getting lots of spurious signals appearing from cross-modulation by a local BC station. I ordered a BCB filter from ICE. They confirmed the order by e-mail & it arrived in the UK within 2 weeks. It seems substantially built & worked perfectly, getting rid of the IM products. Now if I could find a way of lowering the noise from the other local crud (tv timebases etc) from around S7, Top Band would be enjoyable
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KB4TBK
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 10, 2003 00:00
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Good product
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Had some wideband interference in the ssb segment of 6m prior to installing the I.C.E. 6m band pass filter. Afterwards, I had no interference problems.
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