2023-11-10 — MMDVM Update - October 2023, What’s New at DLARC - November 2023, SOTAMĀT - POTA and SOTA Self-Spotting Without Internet, Universal Radio Controller Expansion - APRS Digi & KISS Modem
I couldn't agree more on your Kenwood prognostications. The 710 has been my favorite radio for a good long while. It has so much capability that it is hard to tap all of it. But some of those features are showing their age so if Kenwood put a 700-series radio back into production, it only makes sense to modernize with an on-board processor and software rather than embedding a chip that is certain to become outdated in the not too distant future.
Is there sufficient market to persuade Kenwood to return the 710 to production, or to dial it up a bit with an updated 700-series radio? That seems questionable. I run APRS while traveling (which I seem to do a lot of) and rarely find anyone near me running APRS. Making it a bit easier to use Winlink through a 710 would help many emergency management situations but measured in the context of our entire amateur radio collective, that's an edge case. Nevertheless, this would be a service to the entire amateur radio service.
I'd also love to see a LoRa APRS tracker built in. However, now I'm just wishing.
I would love an updated 710 and would quickly line up to make that purchase.
Tom - The D710 is certainly beloved, and its discontinuation is mourned more than any other mobile radio that I can think of. Kenwood had a winner on its hands with that one, especially after they updated it to the GA with an integrated GPS receiver. There's hope that they'll build a successor given the resources they've apparently put into the TH-D75A.
To further your point about the Pi9k6, not only does it do 1200 and 9600 baud packet, there is also a later firmware that implemented ARDOP.
It's probably too much to ask for, but it would be awesome if Kenwood went the direction you suggested *and* made it be possible to add new modes in the future.
Ben - I just don't see how / why anyone wouldn't adopt this technique for Amateur Radio modems. Once I became aware of that trend, I couldn't stop seeing it implemented everywhere.
Ren old friend... I am SO sorry for that goof! Some callsign patterns do indeed cause a mental parity error - you're not the first to suffer this indignity in Zero Retries. Your callsign is now correct in the online version of Zero Retries 0124.
My wish list for a revised TM-d710 would include a CAT interface. In fact all radios that are programmable from a USB cable should have direct VFO control, just like HF radios.
And maybe an easily accessable IF tap for RTL-SDR and other dongles.
And if we're going crazy, how about an Ethernet port/WiFi hotspot and web browser GUI? With APRS messaging and mapping in the radio? Node-Red support? Dare to dream...
Ready - a wish list for a fantasy "D720" would be a fun article of Zero Retries. (tap... tap...) OK, now added to the ideas for ZR 0125 next week. Here are some of mine:
* Color fully bit-mapped display
* Full MMDVM compatibility including the new MMDVM-TNC modes
* 222-225 MHz
* Ethernet connectivity and an IP stack so it can be a node on a network
I couldn't agree more on your Kenwood prognostications. The 710 has been my favorite radio for a good long while. It has so much capability that it is hard to tap all of it. But some of those features are showing their age so if Kenwood put a 700-series radio back into production, it only makes sense to modernize with an on-board processor and software rather than embedding a chip that is certain to become outdated in the not too distant future.
Is there sufficient market to persuade Kenwood to return the 710 to production, or to dial it up a bit with an updated 700-series radio? That seems questionable. I run APRS while traveling (which I seem to do a lot of) and rarely find anyone near me running APRS. Making it a bit easier to use Winlink through a 710 would help many emergency management situations but measured in the context of our entire amateur radio collective, that's an edge case. Nevertheless, this would be a service to the entire amateur radio service.
I'd also love to see a LoRa APRS tracker built in. However, now I'm just wishing.
I would love an updated 710 and would quickly line up to make that purchase.
Tom - The D710 is certainly beloved, and its discontinuation is mourned more than any other mobile radio that I can think of. Kenwood had a winner on its hands with that one, especially after they updated it to the GA with an integrated GPS receiver. There's hope that they'll build a successor given the resources they've apparently put into the TH-D75A.
To further your point about the Pi9k6, not only does it do 1200 and 9600 baud packet, there is also a later firmware that implemented ARDOP.
It's probably too much to ask for, but it would be awesome if Kenwood went the direction you suggested *and* made it be possible to add new modes in the future.
Ben - I just don't see how / why anyone wouldn't adopt this technique for Amateur Radio modems. Once I became aware of that trend, I couldn't stop seeing it implemented everywhere.
Re: Starlink and IPv6
Thanks for the mention Steve, but you got my call a 'few bits' wrong :-)
Ren K7JB (not K7JP)
Ren old friend... I am SO sorry for that goof! Some callsign patterns do indeed cause a mental parity error - you're not the first to suffer this indignity in Zero Retries. Your callsign is now correct in the online version of Zero Retries 0124.
My wish list for a revised TM-d710 would include a CAT interface. In fact all radios that are programmable from a USB cable should have direct VFO control, just like HF radios.
And maybe an easily accessable IF tap for RTL-SDR and other dongles.
And if we're going crazy, how about an Ethernet port/WiFi hotspot and web browser GUI? With APRS messaging and mapping in the radio? Node-Red support? Dare to dream...
Ready - a wish list for a fantasy "D720" would be a fun article of Zero Retries. (tap... tap...) OK, now added to the ideas for ZR 0125 next week. Here are some of mine:
* Color fully bit-mapped display
* Full MMDVM compatibility including the new MMDVM-TNC modes
* 222-225 MHz
* Ethernet connectivity and an IP stack so it can be a node on a network
Like you said... dare to dream!
Remember the old TNC 2 was designed to be used with a dumb terminal. A web GUI in a data centric radio makes a whole lot of sense.