On Wed, 13 May 2009 16:57:22 -0700, "John Hays" <[email protected]> said: > Nate gave a long answer that addresses some of the variables, for a > short demo of 5W at 100KM listen and see: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyYhLtS-0gE > > If you can afford the difference between a 2200 + DSTAR board and an > ID-880H you will have a much better user interface plus 70cm.
Definitely get the dual-band mobiles... of any sort. But... let's go into another topic. With the scattered reports of a bug in the CQCQCQ feature taking away the RPT2 field (I think?) and also in the fact that the "repeater memories" are apparently worthless here in the States and are designed for callsign-routing, which isn't as popular here... there's little to "sell" the 880 over the 800 right now, is there? (Thinking about it, this MAY NOT be considered a bug in Japan???? They probably don't want CQ calls passing between repeaters in a busy callsign-routed ONLY network, because you can't LISTEN to the remote repeater before making your call... so they rip off RPT2 on CQCQCQ and add "Repeater memories" that FORCE the "/" onto the front of whatever's programmed into them. Unfortunately NEITHER of those so-called "features" is right for the U.S. market and D-Plus linking, and actually BREAKS things for us. Sigh.) In fact, because of those new "features" that break things here in the U.S., the 880 appears to be a step BACKWARD until Icom fixes those things with "region specific" software for the U.S. -- if they're even interested in doing so? Maybe that's a bit harsh, but right at the moment, I'd rather have another 800... since I already have the programming cables, software etc. The use of the same protocol and software to program the 80 and 880 (the two new rigs) doesn't sway me anymore now that Icom completely seems to have "forgotten" about how U.S. users use the rigs. What do you think John? Should I get another 800H while they're still in stock??? :-) Maybe someone who's "experiencing the fun" of the 880 first-hand can comment. Nate WY0X -- Nate Duehr [email protected]
