Solving IC-7610 low TX audio for WSJT-X

The ACOM 1000 input power meter says 33 watts going into the amp from the IC-7610. with the radio’s TX Power set to 35% — the amp’s meter reads a tiny bit low.

It’s Sunday morning during the lack-luster 2020 ARRL June VHF contest. 6 Meters is pretty dead so I had time to putter around with the radio while calling CQ on FT8. That’s when I noticed the USB-D1 transmitted SSB audio wasn’t at the level I expected.

Setting the multi-function knob to 30% TX power resulted in only about 20W going out, as measured by my rig’s bar graph.

After checking the radio’s ALC setting (adjusted so no ALC was showing, but max outout power before ALC started to show), I finally tried WSJT-X settings.

Turns out the Audio output device (in my case “Speakers (USB Audio CODEC)” had defaulted to “Mono.”

When I changed that to “Left” the rig’s SSB output power returned to a normal output level as expected.

The IC-7610 settings I’m using are as follows:

RADIO MODE = USB-D1
MOD  INPUT > USB MOD Level = 40%
Noise Blanker = OFF
Noise Reduction = OFF
Filter bandwidth = 3.6 khz
Pre-amp = 2

The WSJT-X settings are:

Your settings may be different, but this one got me back on the air at full expected output power on WSJT-X modes.