ICOM M710 and amateur radio

[oldvarnish]

I'm getting interested in ham radio on the boat and think I will set off on the long road to a licence.

I have an ICOM 710 on board.

From a little reading it seems that these will work on amateur bands, but with modification?

It's possible mine has been modified already. How would I tell?

 

[BERT T]

80 metres: 3.500 – 3.800MHz

60 metres: 5MHz

40 metres: 7.000 – 7.200MHz

30 metres: 10.100 – 10.150MHz

20 metres: 14.000 – 14.350MHz

17 metres: 18.068 – 18.168MHz

15 metres: 21.000 – 21.450MHz

12 metres: 24.890 – 24.990MHz

10 metres: 28.000 – 29.700MHz

These are the HF amateur bands, the only one you won't get is the 10 metre band unless the set has been modified. The Icom M710 covers 1.6Mhz to 27.5Mhz.

 

[Danbury]

I'm getting interested in ham radio on the boat and think I will set off on the long road to a licence.

It's only a long road due to the length of time between courses... I was lucky when I did mine because there are a few clubs near(ish) to me that I could pick and choose from. I think if I'd stayed at one club, it was something like 2 years !! If you want to operate 'Maritime Mobile', you'll obviously need the full license... I did mine with Steve Hartley and the 'Bath Based Distance Learning' course... excellent !!!

Good luck with it all if you decide to give it a go...

 

[Roberto]

I have an ICOM 710 on board.

From a little reading it seems that these will work on amateur bands, but with modification?

It's possible mine has been modified already. How would I tell?

The modification is a firmware one and must be done with a control cable hooked to the radio + a piece of software (I may have it somewhere, but the control cable is quite expensive so I think the best bet owuld be an Icom dealer make the modification...).

The radio can of course be made to work in amateur frequencies, though it is minorly non user-friendly as one first has to input/save the frequency in one of the pre-programmable channels before it can be used. In other words you cannot simply turn the knob to sweep the frequencies, you first have to program it into a channel. No big deal, except that if you are having a contact and there is some other people talking and causing interference, one usually says "up 3kHz" and both you and your contact swith up or down 3kHz and continue your communication, with the 710 you have to program it first, before you can transmit. Also, if you plan to use either Pactor or Winmor, all the working frequencies of the land stations you plan to use have to be pre-programmed, but that is a one-time job as they would not change.
Minor hassle of course.

To ascertain if yours is "opened" or not to amateur frequencies, just try and program a simplex channel say on 14300kHz and see if the radio accepts it and if you can briefly transmit (supposing ATU is in place, etc).

Another +1, go for the licence

 

[RobbieW]

The modification is a firmware one and must be done with a control cable hooked to the radio + a piece of software (I may have it somewhere, but the control cable is quite expensive so I think the best bet owuld be an Icom dealer make the modification...)...

I definitely have the software and the cable, acquired this winter. The software has to run in a real, not emulated, DOS environment on a machine with a real serial, not USB-Serial, port - they were very definite about that over in cruisersforum - something to do with direct access to serial registers. I now have that setup and can confirm it works, however PCs with real serial ports are now in short supply so perhaps a call to Bob at SailCom (I'd offer but unless you're in Sicily....)

If you use Airmail for Winlink with a Pactor modem, the connections can be set up to control the M710 through the Pactor modem so presetting the frequencies is not necessary. I'm currently trying to set up RMS Express to do the same but so far it doesnt want to.

btw, as has been said you need the full ham license for MM (Maritime Mobile) use as a UK resident. The coursework for that is designed for those who want to build their own equipment so involves a fair degree of electronics theory - I didnt find it easy even though I covered much the same material 40 years ago as an avionics apprentice.

 

[oldvarnish]

The coursework for that is designed for those who want to build their own equipment so involves a fair degree of electronics theory - I didnt find it easy even though I covered much the same material 40 years ago as an avionics apprentice.

Yes, I'm a bit daunted by that, although I was handy with a soldering iron building receivers a similar number of years ago. Tell me, did the transistor ever catch on?

 

[GHA]

Yes, I'm a bit daunted by that, although I was handy with a soldering iron building receivers a similar number of years ago. Tell me, did the transistor ever catch on?

First 2 I didn't think we're too hard though the advanced was quite full on.
Have a peek here if you want a quick look...

http://www.hamtests.co.uk

 

[mjcoon]

... Tell me, did the transistor ever catch on?

Well, the kilograms of a catalogue I have recently got from CPC-Farnell has a choice of real transistors (as well as integrated circuits, of course)... But they don't have the appeal of those glowing valves with dangerous top-caps!

Mike.

 

[jonic]

Oldvarnish we met over a decade ago now on Bob's SSB course.

I remember him touching on this so it might be worth giving him a call.

 

[tawhiri]

You need a USB to RS232 adaptor for your laptop and the cable to control the radio for WinLink is quite easy to make yourself. With some old speaker connectors and a 9 pin serial connector on the computer end. On the Radio end I used a very old round type keyboard connector. There are 4 connections audio in, audio out, PTT and ground. To galvanically isolate the PTT wire between laptop and radio use an optocoupler. They cost abot 30p. Oh and 2 audio transformers to isolate the audio wires. There is some very good information here http://www.winlink.org/GetStarted
and the circuit diagram is for the connection is also there somewhere.

 

[BlueSkyNick]

Oldvarnish we met over a decade ago now on Bob's SSB course.
.

Well there is a coincidence - a certain broker from NI told me just yesterday that he was on that course with you two.

 

[oldvarnish]

Well there is a coincidence - a certain broker from NI told me just yesterday that he was on that course with you two.

Sounds like it's time for an LRC survivor's reunion!

 

[Danbury]

First 2 I didn't think we're too hard though the advanced was quite full on...

When I did my Foundation course (the first one) there was a girl of I think 8 years old doing it... She nearly passed !

I agree about the Advanced though... a big step up from the first two... I think the pass mark is quite low though, which saved me...

 

[KellysEye]

I have an ICOM 710 on board.


We had one of those. Marine band is on Upper Side Band, Ham is on Lower Side Band so just tune to the Ham frequency and LSB. Nothing needs to added such as firmware it is made to cover both USB and LSB.

 

[oldvarnish]

Ham is on Lower Side Band so just tune to the Ham frequency and LSB.

I'm not certain my 710 has LSB. Or do they call it something else?

 

[GHA]

I'm not certain my 710 has LSB. Or do they call it something else?

A quick Google suggests it accessible with the mode button...

http://www.docksideradio.com/icom_M710_programing.htm

Ham is mostly conducted on lsb under 10Mhz and usb above.

 

[RobbieW]

I'm not certain my 710 has LSB. Or do they call it something else?

You've sort of rekindled my interest in doing more with the 710 I have so I've been doing more poking about just recently. I downloaded the config for the radio the other day, that shows that LSB is currently disabled - it doesnt appear in the list of modes for the radio. This website, http://www.mmsn.org/tools/sailors_links.html, suggests that frequencies of 7Mhz and below should use LSB - clearly some more reading to do before making any changes.

I set up the environment to download and change the config, clone the device, to make it much easier to edit the channel list. Theres a ICOM 710 Yahoo group that might be useful to join, it has one or two interesting set up and how to documents catalogged. Also found this document, http://www.made-simplefor-cruisers.com/- Communications/What Frequency do I use.pdf, which describes some interesting tweaks for Airmail.

 

[oldvarnish]

This website, http://www.mmsn.org/tools/sailors_links.html, suggests that frequencies of 7Mhz and below should use LSB - clearly some more reading to do before making any changes.

v useful link, thanks. I will check further, but I'm pretty sure LSB does not show as an option on the MODE selector. More research needed. It would explain why I've never successfully managed to listen to anything in the ham bands,although working fine on USB marine bands.

 

[oldvarnish]

Done a bit of quick reading. From the brochure, the 710 offers: J3E (USB, LSB), H3E (AM), J2B (AFSK), F1B (FSK), R3E, A1A (CW)

I'm not in front of the set, but that's pretty much what I remember. The J3E (USB, LSB) interests me. I thought J3E was USB only but WikiP says it covers both. Does this mean that if I choose J3E then the 710 will automatically select USB or LSB?

 

[Roberto]

Done a bit of quick reading. From the brochure, the 710 offers: J3E (USB, LSB), H3E (AM), J2B (AFSK), F1B (FSK), R3E, A1A (CW)

I'm not in front of the set, but that's pretty much what I remember. The J3E (USB, LSB) interests me. I thought J3E was USB only but WikiP says it covers both. Does this mean that if I choose J3E then the 710 will automatically select USB or LSB?

It's a long time since I used that radio, but as in most Icom radios one has first to configure the various allowed modes in a "default" programming section (say allow AM, WFM, SSB, etc etc), then on normal operation there is one "MODE" button (or whatever other label) which switches from one mode to the following one: USB - LSB - AM - Wide FM - Narrow FM - A1A Morse if one has chosen to configure it...
Sometimes switching from USB to LSB (or vice versa) simply involves keeping the button pressed for say 1 or 2 seconds longer.
J3E is single side band, either LSB or USB, possibly the 710 set on J3E being a marine band radio will show USB by default, but just keeping the "MODE" button pressed would likely switch it into LSB, or there will be another very similar and simple operation.