[Dxbase] PROIII not retrieving VFO B

Sun Oct 7 11:34:07 EDT 2007

I gave a long winded reply to Jim on this, but I bet others would be
interested as well, so here is an abbreviated one:
The ICOM radios provide no interface option to allow a logging program to
determine if the radio is currently running and split/dual watch nor to tell
which of the two VFO's is the transmit one. As a result if you do retrieve
both frequencies, which you can, you can't tell if both are active or which
one is receive and which one is transmit. As such the data is useless!
Say for example you do retrieve both frequencies, and you are NOT running
split. Say one is 14002.0 and the other is 14010.5. How will DXBase know
if you are running split or not? It can't. Since other manufacturers
radios do provide this information DXBase is set up to send a spot like DX
14002.0 P40A QSX 14010.5. But this would be incorrect as you are not
operating split. Even worse what if VFO B were on 3795.0, and you sent a
spot like DX 14002.0 P40A QSX 3795.0. But it's even worse than that as the
ICOM will not tell you which of your two VFO's is currently the transmit
VFO, so if the information were retrieved you could easily send the
frequencies reversed! Anything DXBase would do would have to be a guess and
you would have egg on your face!
The current ICOM radios provides several pages of commands to sense and set
things you never even imagined, but they left out allowing us to sense if
the radio was in dual watch or split and which vfo was the transmit vfo (and
thus which on was the receive vfo). What were they thinking?????
I have over the years complained many times, communicated with ICOM America
by letter, e-mail and in person. ICOM America understands the problem, but
admit that Japan ignores their communcations on this...or at least does
nothing. One would think that when they bring out new radios instead of
adding a command which will tell you the radio has an itch on the lower left
hand corner, they would include this important information. So I thought
maybe the high end 7800 would implement this correctly, but it didn't. Then
the Pro III arrived, and it didn't deal with this either. Whatever is next
will probably not handle this either! As I said the Yaesu, TenTec, Kenwood
provide a command to get this info and have for a long time.
I guess we could all boycot ICOM until they listened to us...but that won't
happen, so save your energy.
As a result you will find two definitions for each modern ICOM radio, one
will include the words 'VFO A only'. I use the 'VFO A only' definition and
if I want to send a spot with a QSX I have to fill it in by hand to be sure
it's not reversed or cross band.
If any of you think you would be able to get ICOM to listen to you, I could
go back in my correspondence and if I am lucky find my prior communcations.
But I am not going to communicate with them again. Mowing my lawn or raking
leaves would be a better use of my time. And much less frustrating.
Ron, N5IN
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim McDonald" <jim at n7us.net>
To: "Dxbase Reflector" <Dxbase at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2007 4:33 AM
Subject: [Dxbase] PROIII not retrieving VFO B
DXbase isn't retrieving VFO B's (transmit) frequency in the comments field
when I log a QSO operating split.
It does it fine if I'm using N4PY's rig control program, which DXbase thinks
is a Ten-Tec Pegasus.
I'm using the PROIII selection in the Radio 1 Model menu, with RTS high for
my K1NU cable, 19200, 8/N/1.
I think, but am not sure, that the program has retrieved the frequency of
VFO B when I was using the CIV interface built into my RIGblaster Pro, which
I'm not using now, but I'm not sure that's the case.
Any suggestions?
Jim N7US
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