[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] DSTAR on the Kenwood TH-D74A

[Ian]

Forgot to mention: built-in TNC and GPS so it's great for APRS or portable
packet.  A short coax jumper to a Mirage BD-35 amplifier,
http://www.mirageamp.com/Product.php?productid=BD-35, and you have a 40W
2m/70cm mobile!
73, Ian N8IK


On Mon, May 21, 2018 at 12:40 PM, Ian <iann8ik at gmail.com> wrote:

> A growing number of us have the recently introduced Kenwood TH-D74A
> handheld.  2m, 70cm, and 1.25m on FM and DSTAR.  5W on all bands!  And
> Batteries America, maybe others, now have a 2000mAh aftermarket battery for
> around $50.  The radio worked great at Hamvention this year AFTER we
> discovered a few tricks.
>
> Unlike Icom's implementation of DSTAR, Kenwood makes a distinction in the
> operating mode.  If you're going through a repeater the mode is DR, for
> simplex it's DV.  If you are using Kenwood's or RTSystems' software to
> program your radio watch for this in the 'mode' drop-down list. You may
> have to scroll down to get to 'DV' for simplex channels.  The other
> difference is with digital coded squelch.  This is used like a tone on FM.
> On the Kenwood you'll usually want 'DCS', not 'CCS'.  The RTSystems
> software appears to default to 'CCS', or callsign coded squelch, and
> wouldn't be too useful on a frequency used by more than two hams.
>
> Also, I was able to route back to W4HFH_B through BridgeCom's 1.25m dual
> mode repeater.  Pretty cool.
>
> 73, Ian N8IK
>
>