IC- E2820

OK so first let me say, I am no fan of D-Star, I have never used it, but from what I know about it, it's not my type of radio.
Next...I'm setting up a school radio club & D-Star could be the future, so as we have the budget & as it, as I understand it should give us extras like APRS & as Icom rigs are normally well made value for money radios I felt it was not about personal opinion, so we are going to order one, as it would be stupid to stop others simply because of my opinion which is not based upon use.
Any one have one ?

Hi Daxi,

I have 2 IC-2820's with the D-Star units in. Yes thats right it does have APRS in a fashion. You have to transmit on a D-Star repeater for the location to be added to the network. I have a page on my website www.DMRK.co.uk dedicated to D-Star if you want to have a look and there is a review of the IC-2820 on there and also a link to the page from the REVIEWS button on the top of the forum in the navigation menu.

It is however an ideal way of communicating around the world with short time to make the contacts.

If you need anymore help and info setting the radio up with all the D-Star settings give me a call! It's easy once you know what you need to put in the box!!!

We have had the D-star delivered. It is currently still at the school & not assembled yet, but looking at it.
Does it require 2 antennas ?
Can you fit the fascia to the radio & still use GPS ? as it does not look as if that is the case.

Hi Daxi,

The radio has diversity receive which means if you put two antennas on the car it will receive using the better antenna. Points to remember! It will only TX on the one antenna, so if you have a 2m in one and a 70cm in the other and it gets a better receive from the 2m antenna but your transmitting on 70cm freq it will blow the finals as you can imagine... The other thing is it only works in single VFO mode...

I'm sorry to say this is a gripe that I have with the radio and am sure many others... Your right the GPS antenna will only plug in when the seperation kit is inline and not when the face is attached to it... Shame...

Dave

Thanks.

Alan,

Have u still got the radio at home in it's box or is it setup at school now? Just wonder if u wanna try a contact on it one day?

Let me know and if I can be of any help with the setting just ask :-)