ISS Fan Club

Hi Bob,

Here's a site with general info on ISS operations, supplementing other sites. Unfortunately, I am a TM-D700 owner, not the D710, so am unable to exactly help you there.

http://ronhashiro.htohananet.com/am-radio/spacecomm/

Assuming the D710 is similar to the D700, you want to do the following things. I'm doing this from memory, so it's close to this sequence.

1) Set aside three consecutive memory channels for VHF voice doppler, and three consecutive memory channels for APRS packet data operations. You can leave two blank memory channels in between to help you spot these two groups of memory channels.

2) Put the radio Side A in VFO mode. I believe you press in the left volume knob to select Side A transmit. On the main screen, on the left, second button is the VFO button. Tune the radio to the RX frequency 145.805 MHz. This is the first doppler freq. Note that while in VFO mode, you can press the main VFO knob once, and it'll select the MHz frequency. Press the VFO knob again, and it'll go back to the regular tuning increment.

3) Preselect the memory channel before attempting to write the VFO frequency to memory. Press the MR button on the lower left side of the screen, and rotate the main knob to select the first of the three consecutive memory channels. Press the VFO button to get back to VFO mode.

4) Write the VFO frequency into the Memory channel by pressing the "F" button (left most on the botton row of buttons), then pressing on the left hand side of the screen "M.In" (should be the bottom left button) and hold it for a second. You'll hear a beep and that screen will change to a VFO screen. Dial-up the TX frequency of 144.485 and press "M.IN" again to save the TX freq into the same memory channel.

5) That'll set up the memory for the first voice frequency. Repeat this with the other two pairs 145.80 RX/144.490 TX and 145.795 RX/144.495 TX and next two memory channels.

6) To set the TNC mode to APRS, you press the "F" button (left hand most button in the lower row) and hold it down one second, press the TNC button on the left hand side. It'll select either TNC or APRS mode. If it's in TNC, press "F" (1 second) and TNC again to select APRS mode.

7) You can select APRS parameters with the MENU button, and stepping through the various menus. The details are more than I can cover here. The D700 has a downloadable memory configuration program for Windows PCs.

8) You save away the packet frequencies of 145.985, 145.990, 145.905 similar to the above, with the APRS settings.

9) If I remember the D700 correctly, it has only one set of TNC settings available at a time. When you select a memory channel with APRS selections in the menu, it'll overwrite select APRS settings into the TNC configuration parameters. So, if you have a habit of switching between several packet programs, and also use the built-in APRS features of the D710, check to see that the TNC settings has or has not changed. You'll need to plug in a PC with a DB-9 RS-232C cable (on the D700, it's a female-to-female, straight through cabling (not crossed-over modem cabling). If you need help on this, you can email me.

73,

Ron H, AH6RH
Honolulu, HI