efroymson

Monday, February 05, 2018

KG6JCA

Several years ago, when I was living in the Bay Area, I got my Ham Radio license.  At that time I got a Yaesu VX-5 handheld, and would occasionally use it to hit the repeaters in the area.

After several years of  neglect, I got a Jeep this past fall, and decided that a mobile radio would be a good backup to my cell phone, especially because NM is a big state, and there are a lot of places without coverage.  The geography of NM is good for Ham radio though, since there are plenty of tall mountains here, which are not only pretty to look at, but make great places for an antenna.

I got an Icom 4100, for a couple of reasons.  I am not too embarrassed to admit that one of the reasons was that it is the only radio I could find that can actually be controlled by an iPhone app.   The app is easier than the somewhat small and cryptic control head, especially for D-star operation.  However, if you want to use the near repeater search function, you do have to work out the UI of the actual radio.  It is not so bad, once you realize that short press and long press do something different on several of the buttons.

There is one major annoyance about the radio, and that is that it does not do APRS.  Given that it has built in GPS, and a digital mode, it should have been trivial for Icom to add it, but they did not.  APRS has some features that are very handy, including position reporting, and even texting.  NM has an extensive APRS network, and I want to be able to use it from my radio.  Fortunately, I did figure out a way to do that, as I will detail in another post.

Finally, as you have perhaps guessed, KG6JCA is my call sign, and you might hear me on D-star or 2 meters sometime.