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WITH ITS VHF/UHF SSB AND CW CAPABILITIES, THE IC 705 WOULD BE A
WORTHY RADIO FOR CONTEST ROVING, ALTHOUGH YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER
ADDING AN AMPLIFIER.  THE 705 ALSO HAS POTENTIAL FOR MICROWAVE
OPERATING WHEN PAIRED WITH A TRANSVERTER.  YOU CAN REDUCE THE OUTPUT
TO AS LITTLE AS 100 MW FOR COMPATIBILITY WITH JUST ABOUT ANY
TRANSVERTER ON THE MARKET.  OF COURSE, A REVIEW WOULDNT BE COMPLETE
WITHOUT TRYING THE IC 705 ON AMATEUR SATELLITES.  WITH 5 W TO A
SMALL DUAL BAND YAGI, I WA I CHECKED FT8 RESULTS USING PSKREPORTER
WHILE RUNNING 5 W TO MY DIPOLE ANTENNA ON 20 METERS AND SAW
RECEPTION REPORTS FROM ACROSS THE US.  I WAS ALSO ABLE TO SNAG A FEW
FT8 CONTACTS ON 6 METERS WITH JUST 5 W TO THE SAME ANTENNA.  IF YOUR
HF DIGITAL INTERESTS INCLUDE RTTY, YOULL BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THAT
THE IC 705 HAS THE ABILITY TO SEND AND RECEIVE RTTY WITHOUT THE NEED
FOR AN EXTERNAL COMPUTER, AND IT DOES THIS QUITE WELL WITH ITS
EXTREMELY SHARP MARK/SPACE TWIN PEAKS FILTERING.  I USED IT TO COPY
W1AW RTTY BULLETIN TRANSMISSIONS, ALONG WITH THE OCCASIONAL RANDOM
RTTY SIGNAL.  I RAN THE POPULAR MMTTY RTTY SOFTWARE SIMULTANEOUSLY
ON MY STATION COMPUTER AND NOTICED THAT THE IC 705S RTTY DECODER
MATCHED IT CHARACTER FOR CHARACTER.  TO SEND RTTY WITHOUT AN
EXTERNAL COMPUTER, YOULL NEED TO PREPROGRAM THE RTTY MACRO MEMORIES.
BECAUSE MOST RTTY ACTIVITY THESE DAYS IS CONFINED TO CONTESTS AND DX
OPERATING WHERE EXCHANGES ARE PREFORMATTED ANYWAY, THIS ISNT A
SERIOUS LIMITATION.  ALTHOUGH SLOW SCAN TV SSTV ISNT THE BEST MODE
FOR LOW POWER WORK, I HAD TO GIVE IT A TRY.  I LOADED UP THE MMSSTV
SOFTWARE, CONFIGURED IT TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE 705, AND THEN SENT
AN SSTV CQ.  MY 5 W 20 METER SIGNAL WAS RATHER NOISY AT KD9DD IN
ILLINOIS, BUT MY CQ IMAGE WAS VIEWABLE SEE FIGURE 4.  THE WIRELESS
CONNECTION THIS IS THE ERA OF WIRELESS MOBILE DEVICES, AND THE IC
705 IS NO EXCEPTION.  IT INCLUDES WI FI FUNCTIONALITY AS STANDARD
EQUIPMENT.  THIS MEANS THE IC 705 CAN CONNECT TO ANY 2R4 GHZ
WIRELESS NETWORK AND INSTANTLY BECOME A REMOTELY CONTROLLABLE
TRANSCEIVER.  YOU SET UP THE WI FI CONNECTION IN THE IC 705 IN THE
SAME WAY YOU WOULD CONFIGURE A TABLET COMPUTER OR SMARTPHONE.  USING
THE TOUCHSCREEN, YOU CHOOSE THE NETWORK SSID, AND THEN ENTER THE
PASSWORD SEE FIGURE 5.  I WAS ABLE TO ADD THE TRANSCEIVER TO MY HOME
NETWORK IN LESS THAN A MINUTE.  FOR OPERATION AWAY FROM HOME, ICOM
RECOMMENDS A TRAVEL WIRELESS ROUTER TO USE WITH THE RADIO, AS THE IC
705 WILL NOT CONNECT TO A WIRELESS NETWORK REQUIRING SECONDARY
CONNECTION LIKE YOU SEE IN MANY HOTELS.  YOU WOULD USE THE TRAVEL
ROUTER TO CONNECT TO THE HOTEL WIRELESS NETWORK WITH THE SECONDARY
INFORMATION, THEN THE RADIO WOULD CONNECT TO THE TRAVEL ROUTER.
WITH THE IC 705 CONNECTED TO WI FI, IT CAN BE USED FOR REMOTE
OPERATING IN ALMOST ANY MODE.  AT THE TIME OF THIS WRITING, THE ONLY
REMOTE CONTROL SOFTWARE AVAILABLE FOR THE 705 WAS THE ICOM RS BA1
PACKAGE.  I DIDNT HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO TEST THE IC 705 WITH RS
BA1, BUT IM AWARE OF A FEW AMATEURS WHO ARE USING IT WITH THIS
TRANSCEIVER FOR LONG DISTANCE

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