Radio Adventure

I got my radio working okay yesterday after adjusting my antenna (can't do much in the yard with the mast down). I was able to listen to 14.300, the Maritime Mobile Service Network, but didn't participate -- reception wasn't too good, but was much better after I unplugged my battery charger.

Now, I need to work on connecting it up to my computer and other systems. I think the easiest route will be to use the Winlink software, however, I'd still like to examine it's configuration and adjust it if necessary. One of the issues with radios in general, and marine SSB's in particular, is that although they will normally receive on all HF frequencies, they might be set to only transmit on marine frequencies -- only approved marine SSB radios are allowed to transmit on marine frequencies, which makes them much more expensive.

These setting can be examined and adjusted via the CI-V interface, but it looks like you might need special cables in order to do that from a PC. My radio, IC-M700Pro, has both a cloning jack and a 9-pin serial port, and from what I've read, you can use either. Right now, it's all a black box to me, so I need to get souped up on the CI-V protocol and enough about the electronics to do this myself. I downloaded the program Icom uses to program the radio, ex2100, but still need a cable to connect it to the radio, either the cloning jack or serial port -- the cable for the cloning jack is between 30-50 dollars, so it's not cheap.

The programming shouldn't a problem, but since I don't have a good grounding in electronics, I want to spend some time getting up to speed before I connect anything up. I certainly don't want to burn up my new radio. But this is what hams do, so I'm excited to get started. Plus, since the boat isn't covered yet, I can't work on anything else, so I've got plenty of time on my hands to work on my radio.

My preference would be to write my own software and use the serial port to program the radio, but I still haven't figured out how I need to connect the Winlink software. Looks like that'll keep me busy and out of trouble for a while, especially tonight -- Happy New Year everyone.