August 20, 2025 • 20 mins
Discover the VGC VR-N7600 Dual Band Mobile Ham Radio in our latest YouTube video! Explore its powerful 50W VHF/40W UHF output, Bluetooth app control, built-in GPS, and advanced APRS functionality. Learn how this innovative radio offers seamless smartphone integration, a remote color-display microphone, and features like Smart Beacon and offline maps for ultimate connectivity. Perfect for ham radio enthusiasts seeking cutting-edge mobile communication!
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Today's video sponsored by M&P Coax. Save 10% off of all of their products with the code HR2CABLES at this link - https://hr2.li/cables
Use code KC5HWB for a discount https://www.verotelecom.com/VERO-VR-N7600-50W-Dual-Band-Mobile-Radio-With-APP-Programming-p2581203.html?parent_user_id=19379060&utm_source=sns_share&utm_medium=share_url
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I just picked up this brand new VGC in our
seventy six hundred. This is the update to the R
seventy five hundred. It offers a few more features. Now,
a lot of you have been using the N seventy
six HT, which this in seventy six HT is sort
(00:20):
of kind of pretty much the same radio as a
b Tech UV Pro full Open Kiss tn C full APRS.
Lots of extra features in this radio that we have
not seen in a radio with this price point for
a while. The predecessor to this mobile radio, the N
seventy five hundred, was all controlled by an app, which
this one is also. But reading through the manual just now,
(00:42):
and reading through it comes with two manuals. This is
the manual manual kind of washed out because it's white,
and it comes with a whole separate manual for the
ht app. This was never included. I did a video
about the N seventy five hundred on this channel several
years ago when it was new, and we did a
(01:02):
couple of live streams with it, trying to turn it
into a all Star node, which that never worked out.
But the ht app at the time of that recording
only worked on Android. Now it works on iOS, so
though it does say it's a limited capability, and it
was never a manual or anything with it. You just
kind of had to bumble your way through it to
learn the app. So that's already an improvement right there
(01:24):
in my mind. Let's take a look at this brand
new mobile radio. I'm gonna tell you about a few
really cool features it has. All right, this is the
radio itself right here, and it's got this eight pen
connector on the front here, and we're gonna look at this.
I'm show you this in a minute. But it's got
(01:45):
a big screen on the microphone so you can control
I think you can control the whole radio from the microphone.
The radio itself doesn't have a screen because it's all
app controlled. It's controlled with your Android app or iOS
app or whatever. And doing a little bit of research
on this radio before I went live here, before I
(02:06):
hit record, I should say I put together this high
level overview of everything. N seventy six hundred is a
fifty wat VHF forty wat UHF dual band mobile radio
designed for amateur radio use. It features headless design that's
like its predecessor as well, meaning it lacks the traditional
front panel et cetera, et cetera, et cetera smartphone app.
(02:27):
Bluetooth Control Radio is built for discrete vehicle installation and
offers advanced features like APRS, GPS network connectivity, making it
verstaal choice for modern HAM radio enthusiasts. So we scroll
down here and we look through this a little bit.
Right here. The HT app available for Android full featured
and iOS limited functionality. Okay, good. And then we scroll
(02:49):
down right here and it says built in GPS. Unlike
its predecessor, THENR the VRN seventy five hundred. This new model,
the seventy six hundred, includes an integrated GPS module for
standalone look atation track in APRS beaconing transmits GPS coordinates
with transmissions for geolocation tracking and mapping, and then APRS features.
It supports APRS for real time positioning, reporting and messaging. Okay, good,
(03:10):
that's what the HT does. Functions like an iGATE for APRS.
Functions like an iGATE for APRS. So you go on
and you read a little bit farther and what it does.
From what I'm reading, we're gonna hook this up here
in a minute. You download the app on your Android device,
which I just did that. I'm gonna look at that
(03:30):
here in just a second. You go into the app,
you connect to the radio, you can figure everything on
the app, and then it uses your smartphone intercon net
connection to beacon itself to APRS dot Fi to join
the APRS network. So it has GPS location, It has
GPS tracker in the radio, so it knows where it
(03:51):
is as long as you turn that on, I guess
it knows where it is. And it transmits that position
through your Android app, through the Internet, through your five
G connection on your Android phone to APRS dot Fi,
so it acts as its own iGATE. That is pretty cool.
Reading down through these instructions here, I don't see anything
specifically about a KISS T and C connection, although it
(04:14):
doesn't use that word, and I didn't find anything in
the manual about a Kiss TNC. If you're not aware
what a Kiss TNC is. TNC is a terminal node
controller KISS is keep it stupid simple, and it's basically
a way to connect via USB or Bluetooth to an
a You take a tn C and you interface it
(04:34):
to a radio, maybe through a USB connection, maybe through
the two prong Kinwood connector there's some old style TNCs
that do that, and then that basically adds the APRS
and wind link and functionality a lot of functionality to
that radio. Moby Linked is a good example of a
modern KISS tn C. Also, the digrig can act as
(04:54):
a TNC. The digitrig is is hardline only, while the
moby link has Bluetooth, so you can attach that to
a radio and then use apps like win link over
Android or APRS droid or something like that to do
APRS over a non APRS radio or send win link
over a non over a radio that doesn't have a
built in T and C. Modern radios like the Kiin
(05:17):
with D seventy four and D seventy five have have
built in KISS T and cs that just allow you
to connect to the radio via Bluetooth and it's all
done for you, kind of like a built in sound
card inside of an HF radio. You don't have to
have an interface in between your smartphone or computer and
the radio if the radio has a built in KISS
T and C. That The vr N seventy six HT
(05:38):
that I just showed you a picture of is an
example of something with a KISST and C as well
as the BTech UV Pro. These have built in t
and cs where you don't need an extra piece of
hardware between your computer and or smartphone and the radio
in order to enable these extra functionalities with the radio.
All right, we're gonna connect this up to the power
supply here, got the microphone hooked up here, so you've
(06:01):
got a menu you can go in and edit the channel. There.
These two buttons here. Main menu is this button here,
return channel up, channel down. These are all the pre
program channels that came with the radio. Some glare on
(06:22):
the screen of the microphone, but it's nice and backlit.
As you can see. You can edit the channel that way.
Main menu basically control the whole radio from that microphone,
which that microphone was not an option on the On
its predecessor, the N seventy five hundred, it was only
controlled from the app on this one. Also, there's a
(06:43):
there's this USB port in the front here. It's Usbare's
it's not USBC, And I wasn't really sure what that was,
so I consulted the manual. The only thing it really
says right there down at the bottom of that page
is that it's an output of five volts and two
amps right there in that little diagram right there, So
(07:04):
it doesn't appear that that USBC port actually does anything.
You can plug your phone into it or plug I
don't know, all Star node, I don't know power your
All Star node, that kind of thing. So maybe maybe
more to come on that later. Maybe it will have
some increased functionality on that later for an extra expansion
or something. I don't know. But right now, what we're
(07:25):
gonna do is I've downloaded the ht app on my
phone and I'm going to take this. I'm going to
open it up and I'm going to connect to this
radio and see see what it looks like, what kind
of APRS functions and other functions we can set up
while using the app on the radio. Now, with this
radio setup, if I was going to put it here
(07:45):
in the shack, or I was going to add it
to my vehicle, which I actually might do that later,
I will be feeding it with Mesi and Plony Coacts.
Mezzi and Ploni is a sponsor of today's video. You
can save a ten percent discount on everything Messi and
Plony makes with the link in the description blow and
the coupon code of HR two cables HR two cables
get you ten percent off of older Coacs, connectors, adapters, tools,
(08:09):
all kinds of good COACS stuff, some of the best
Coacts made in Italy, and I thank them for sponsoring
this video. This is the app on my phone and
put these. You guys know, I turned fifty last year, right,
which means how old was my this year? Okay, So
we've got this right here. This HT app is just
(08:31):
it's very it's just called HT. I just went to
the play store and searched for HT and that's what
it looks like right there. It says HT and it's
got that green and white symbol there, so that's all
it is. That's when you install it. So we're gonna
go pair a new device here and the options are
Walkie Talkie, PTT, Handfeld microphone or buy now. Walkie talkie
(08:54):
is what it calls a radio. Okay, so we're gonna
scan this. Hopefully this seventy six HUNDERD will come up.
That's the only thing I've got powered up in the
shack right now. Now again, we can consult this HT
app operating guide and there might be a menu. We've
got to go and download the app. Okay, So what
(09:14):
you have to do. And this book doesn't tell you
that this is the ht app operating instructions, but it
doesn't tell you that you have to put the radio
into pairing mode, which makes sense. It makes sense that
the radio needs to go into pairing mode before it
will show up on this app. I get it. But
in order to use this book, you have to put
(09:36):
the radio in pairing mode, which you can only find
instructions for in the main manual, the user manual. Right there,
I know it's washed out. There we go, that's better.
This one will tell you how to put the radio
in pairing mode. This one does not, but this one
should say it, because this is how to use the
ht app. In my opinion, what we do here is
we go into the main menu of the radio by
(09:58):
clicking on the menu button on the microphone that I
showed you a minute ago. And we're just gonna scroll
down here. And I know that's washed out and right
here a is pairing. We click okay, and then now
it's in pairing mode, and now we can see it
(10:20):
on the screen here. So I'm going to click on
this one and it says at the bottom of the screen,
make sure the device is in pairing mode pairing request pair. Okay,
the radio beeped at me. The device firmware needs to
be updated. You want to start updating now, synchronized signaling settings?
Yes and yes. Okay, So in firmware versions zero dot
(10:41):
eight dot eight added smart beacon functionality. That's one of
the things. When I looked up the instructions and the
downloaded the specs on this radio, it said that smart
beaconing was not available. Well, apparently that's been added now.
APRS position sharing can be configured using the mike e
form to shorten the channel occupancy time. Added device GPS
(11:05):
location sharing when the phone does not support GPS or
has it disabled, so the device itself will share the GPS,
reduce volume bard display time to one second. Fix the
issue of interrupting network channel reception for location sharing. Okay, good,
so we're gonna update that firmware now, which is easy
this I remember this being easy on the last radio too.
You basically it prompted you, you click yes, and then
(11:27):
you just kind of let it go. So we're gonna
sit here for a second while this goes. Okay, that
took about ten minutes, A little bit longer than I
thought it was going to. But it's prompted me right
(11:49):
now saying the data transfer is complete, you want to
continue to upgrade. Device will reboot. Okay, it's talking about
the device rebooting. Is talking about the radio, No, not
the phone. So right now the radio is rebooting on
the microphone, it's talking about a reboot. And you can
see the LEDs on the radio itself or off. So
(12:11):
it says on the microphone updating firmware. Please do not
turn off the power. Let that go for a minute
and see how long it takes. Okay, there we go.
Update is complete. That only took about a minute or
to maybe a minute and a half, less than two minutes,
and there we go right there. Okay, So this is
what the app looks like after it's connected to the radio,
and we've got options there down the side for APRS
(12:33):
audio connection, NBC monitor, join the network channel, join an
existing channel, create a new channel. Here's some network channels.
Those are all in Chinese. Not sure what those are.
Maybe there's a way to talk to this radio. If
I have this radio connected to my app on my
(12:53):
phone and you have one connected to your app on
your phone, perhaps we can connect to one another and
talk over the internet through the radio to the internet,
kind of set up its own private talk group. Maybe
I don't know, join a network channel, create a new
channel title, passcode, bitrate, radio configuration frequency, okay, FM or AM.
(13:18):
I might have to experience. I'm not gonna do that now,
but I may have to experiment with that in the future.
Let me know in the comment section if any of
you are planning to get this radio. Maybe we can
get together on a zoom call and try out this
network channel thing. That might be kind of fun. I'm
gonna guess Too is probably gonna end up with one
of these radios, so I might be with t O
about that. But more than anything, I want to know. Okay,
(13:41):
so we can rename the radio itself. I could turn
that off and on. I don't have I don't currently
have because of some roof work I'm having done. I
don't currently have my VHF UHF antenna up right now,
so I'm not gonna be able to try to hit
a local repeater with this or anything. Okay, I had
to look at the manual, But here's what you do.
So we've got our channels at the top left corner.
(14:01):
There's that Hamburger menu at the top left corner right there.
You click on that and you get to your channel section.
You can edit your channels just like we just did there.
If you click on the three dots at the top
right corner, you've got several options there, disconnect, Voice Connection team, whatnot,
Device settings and settings. I was going to device settings,
and that is this menu right here, and it's just
basically squelch level speaker, wired mirkerotphone speaker. You can turn
(14:25):
it off and on, firmware version, et cetera, et cetera. Okay,
but if we go into settings, not device settings, but settings.
From that menu, now we have APRS settings, and this
is what I wanted to look like, what I wanted
to look at. So if we click on APRS settings
right there, the first thing to ask you is call
sign and password. This is to get into the APRS.
(14:50):
It's the same call sign and password you would set
if you set up APRS droid. So I'm gonna set
k C five HWB and I'm gonna pay. I'm gonna
say DASH generally a mobile station is DASH nine. I
don't like to use the same signifier, the same SSID
on multiple radios unless I'm using those radios at too
(15:12):
totally independent times. So right now, my truck, which is
the radio in my truck is my YAZUFTM five hundred.
It's not currently powered on, but it is set to
kcfive HWB Dash nine and it becons that every time
I'm on a road trip. So I want that one
to always be my truck radio. So I'm gonna set
this one to ten KC five HWB DASH ten. I'm
(15:33):
going to get a passcode, all right, get APRS password.
You can use an APRSIS password that has been registered
with other APRS applications. So when you register with the APRSIS,
you were given a password. It should be an email somewhere.
That's the password that you're going to want to put
in here here is okay. I went back into my
own email and found my own passcode, which is a
(15:54):
five digit number, and if I click on verify passcode,
it says the passcode is correct. So there we go.
I get service was automatically toggled on. I did not
toggle that on, so you can toggle that off and on.
I'm going to change my server to North America, of course,
and say radio to internet and Internet to radio, so
you can you can go both ways. You can turn
on one way direction or you can turn on duplex
(16:17):
direction for a messaging and then you can do receive
messages from the Internet. I'm going to turn everything on.
Share location via iGATE send power well in operating frequency. No,
I don't want to do that. Share location via iGATE,
Location source system select coordinates. Okay, so if I wanted
to share so, I don't see a setting in here
(16:38):
for ambiguity, which is usually like one or two digits off.
You can set ambiguity in a lot of radios so
that it reports your position a few miles away or
on the next town over something, depend on how you
set it. I don't see that. But what I can
do is I can set location source here for select
coordinates and just set it to if I wanted to
set it to somewhere across town or set it to
(16:59):
my mailbox address or something like that, I could do that. Okay,
I'm not gonna do that right now, but that's how
you do it. Okay, we can go interval five minutes
and I don't see a setting in here for smart beaconing.
Now it's not gonna really do anything. I guess I could.
I guess I could turn this on because it's not
gonna do anything because I'm connected. I got the radio
connected to a dummy load right now. I set a
minute ago, I didn't have an antenna hooked up, and
(17:20):
I don't, but I do have a dummy load hooked up,
so I don't know. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
click on that anyway, so I'm gonna save that really
customizable in there. So that's what that's where we are
on that. Let's see, this is the APRS map now
that I've got my settings set up there. This is
(17:42):
what it's seeing on the map currently, now that it's
connected to the internet through my smartphone. It's not beaconing
APRS over RF, not right now. Anyway. You can set
it to do that, but you can also set it
to use the five G connection on your phone to
share your position, which makes it an eegate. So this
(18:05):
is kind of a unique eyegate. Most igates will receive
an RF signal. If you've got an APRS radio in
your car and you're beacon in a signal a location
report on one three ninety, an iGATE will be a
radio on top of a tower or a building or something,
and it will receive your beacon and it will transmit
that information. Whatever you share via the beacon, you can
(18:27):
set it up in the radio to the Internet and
it will show up on the website at APRS dot
f FI. This is doing the same thing, but kind
of in a different manner. Is this is not transmitting
our f at least it's not right now because it's
in a dummi load. But you can see I am
on this map right here. If you look on this
map right there, you can see there's my call sign
right right there is my call sign right there in Grapevine,
(18:50):
right on the top of the Grapevine dot, which is
where it should be up there on the north end
of Grapevine. So it is sharing my location via the
GPS radio, in the GPS radio inside of this mobile radio,
and via the settings that I just set right here.
So this is kind of this is going to be
a neat thing to play with. I'm interested to see
(19:12):
if anyone wants to set up and do a network
connection and see if we can talk to one another
over the network. And I'm interested to see if they
eventually have a kiss T and C for this, although
you might not need it because with the kiss T
and C on the HT you can connect other apps
(19:32):
besides just APRS to it, so you can connect wind
Link to it. You can connect I can't think of
anything else right now, but win Link an APRS, you know,
are two different, two totally separate apps, and you can
connect it and tell the radio to do whatever and
connect to a win Link gateway or an APRS note
or something like that. So this one, with all the
steps we just went through just now, this is limited
(19:53):
to APRS, but it's totally open, fully function APRS. So
this is really cool. I want to send some messages
over the internet see what kind of feedback we can
get and that kind of thing. So how many of
you are actually interested in this radio? I would like
to see in the comments below how many are interested
in this radio? What you think about this radio? What
are some really cool things you want to try with
(20:14):
this radio? Where would you put this? Would you put
this in your shack or would you put this in
your vehicle or would you put it in some kind
of go kit that you would take to trips like
to hamfests and whatnot. Or to camping campouts or something
like that. Put a comment in the description below, thanks
for watching today. Check out the links to the radio
(20:36):
in the description below. Seventy three
I just picked up this brand new VGC in our
seventy six hundred. This is the update to the R
seventy five hundred. It offers a few more features. Now,
a lot of you have been using the N seventy
six HT, which this in seventy six HT is sort
(00:20):
of kind of pretty much the same radio as a
b Tech UV Pro full Open Kiss tn C full APRS.
Lots of extra features in this radio that we have
not seen in a radio with this price point for
a while. The predecessor to this mobile radio, the N
seventy five hundred, was all controlled by an app, which
this one is also. But reading through the manual just now,
(00:42):
and reading through it comes with two manuals. This is
the manual manual kind of washed out because it's white,
and it comes with a whole separate manual for the
ht app. This was never included. I did a video
about the N seventy five hundred on this channel several
years ago when it was new, and we did a
(01:02):
couple of live streams with it, trying to turn it
into a all Star node, which that never worked out.
But the ht app at the time of that recording
only worked on Android. Now it works on iOS, so
though it does say it's a limited capability, and it
was never a manual or anything with it. You just
kind of had to bumble your way through it to
learn the app. So that's already an improvement right there
(01:24):
in my mind. Let's take a look at this brand
new mobile radio. I'm gonna tell you about a few
really cool features it has. All right, this is the
radio itself right here, and it's got this eight pen
connector on the front here, and we're gonna look at this.
I'm show you this in a minute. But it's got
(01:45):
a big screen on the microphone so you can control
I think you can control the whole radio from the microphone.
The radio itself doesn't have a screen because it's all
app controlled. It's controlled with your Android app or iOS
app or whatever. And doing a little bit of research
on this radio before I went live here, before I
(02:06):
hit record, I should say I put together this high
level overview of everything. N seventy six hundred is a
fifty wat VHF forty wat UHF dual band mobile radio
designed for amateur radio use. It features headless design that's
like its predecessor as well, meaning it lacks the traditional
front panel et cetera, et cetera, et cetera smartphone app.
(02:27):
Bluetooth Control Radio is built for discrete vehicle installation and
offers advanced features like APRS, GPS network connectivity, making it
verstaal choice for modern HAM radio enthusiasts. So we scroll
down here and we look through this a little bit.
Right here. The HT app available for Android full featured
and iOS limited functionality. Okay, good. And then we scroll
(02:49):
down right here and it says built in GPS. Unlike
its predecessor, THENR the VRN seventy five hundred. This new model,
the seventy six hundred, includes an integrated GPS module for
standalone look atation track in APRS beaconing transmits GPS coordinates
with transmissions for geolocation tracking and mapping, and then APRS features.
It supports APRS for real time positioning, reporting and messaging. Okay, good,
(03:10):
that's what the HT does. Functions like an iGATE for APRS.
Functions like an iGATE for APRS. So you go on
and you read a little bit farther and what it does.
From what I'm reading, we're gonna hook this up here
in a minute. You download the app on your Android device,
which I just did that. I'm gonna look at that
(03:30):
here in just a second. You go into the app,
you connect to the radio, you can figure everything on
the app, and then it uses your smartphone intercon net
connection to beacon itself to APRS dot Fi to join
the APRS network. So it has GPS location, It has
GPS tracker in the radio, so it knows where it
(03:51):
is as long as you turn that on, I guess
it knows where it is. And it transmits that position
through your Android app, through the Internet, through your five
G connection on your Android phone to APRS dot Fi,
so it acts as its own iGATE. That is pretty cool.
Reading down through these instructions here, I don't see anything
specifically about a KISS T and C connection, although it
(04:14):
doesn't use that word, and I didn't find anything in
the manual about a Kiss TNC. If you're not aware
what a Kiss TNC is. TNC is a terminal node
controller KISS is keep it stupid simple, and it's basically
a way to connect via USB or Bluetooth to an
a You take a tn C and you interface it
(04:34):
to a radio, maybe through a USB connection, maybe through
the two prong Kinwood connector there's some old style TNCs
that do that, and then that basically adds the APRS
and wind link and functionality a lot of functionality to
that radio. Moby Linked is a good example of a
modern KISS tn C. Also, the digrig can act as
(04:54):
a TNC. The digitrig is is hardline only, while the
moby link has Bluetooth, so you can attach that to
a radio and then use apps like win link over
Android or APRS droid or something like that to do
APRS over a non APRS radio or send win link
over a non over a radio that doesn't have a
built in T and C. Modern radios like the Kiin
(05:17):
with D seventy four and D seventy five have have
built in KISS T and cs that just allow you
to connect to the radio via Bluetooth and it's all
done for you, kind of like a built in sound
card inside of an HF radio. You don't have to
have an interface in between your smartphone or computer and
the radio if the radio has a built in KISS
T and C. That The vr N seventy six HT
(05:38):
that I just showed you a picture of is an
example of something with a KISST and C as well
as the BTech UV Pro. These have built in t
and cs where you don't need an extra piece of
hardware between your computer and or smartphone and the radio
in order to enable these extra functionalities with the radio.
All right, we're gonna connect this up to the power
supply here, got the microphone hooked up here, so you've
(06:01):
got a menu you can go in and edit the channel. There.
These two buttons here. Main menu is this button here,
return channel up, channel down. These are all the pre
program channels that came with the radio. Some glare on
(06:22):
the screen of the microphone, but it's nice and backlit.
As you can see. You can edit the channel that way.
Main menu basically control the whole radio from that microphone,
which that microphone was not an option on the On
its predecessor, the N seventy five hundred, it was only
controlled from the app on this one. Also, there's a
(06:43):
there's this USB port in the front here. It's Usbare's
it's not USBC, And I wasn't really sure what that was,
so I consulted the manual. The only thing it really
says right there down at the bottom of that page
is that it's an output of five volts and two
amps right there in that little diagram right there, So
(07:04):
it doesn't appear that that USBC port actually does anything.
You can plug your phone into it or plug I
don't know, all Star node, I don't know power your
All Star node, that kind of thing. So maybe maybe
more to come on that later. Maybe it will have
some increased functionality on that later for an extra expansion
or something. I don't know. But right now, what we're
(07:25):
gonna do is I've downloaded the ht app on my
phone and I'm going to take this. I'm going to
open it up and I'm going to connect to this
radio and see see what it looks like, what kind
of APRS functions and other functions we can set up
while using the app on the radio. Now, with this
radio setup, if I was going to put it here
(07:45):
in the shack, or I was going to add it
to my vehicle, which I actually might do that later,
I will be feeding it with Mesi and Plony Coacts.
Mezzi and Ploni is a sponsor of today's video. You
can save a ten percent discount on everything Messi and
Plony makes with the link in the description blow and
the coupon code of HR two cables HR two cables
get you ten percent off of older Coacs, connectors, adapters, tools,
(08:09):
all kinds of good COACS stuff, some of the best
Coacts made in Italy, and I thank them for sponsoring
this video. This is the app on my phone and
put these. You guys know, I turned fifty last year, right,
which means how old was my this year? Okay, So
we've got this right here. This HT app is just
(08:31):
it's very it's just called HT. I just went to
the play store and searched for HT and that's what
it looks like right there. It says HT and it's
got that green and white symbol there, so that's all
it is. That's when you install it. So we're gonna
go pair a new device here and the options are
Walkie Talkie, PTT, Handfeld microphone or buy now. Walkie talkie
(08:54):
is what it calls a radio. Okay, so we're gonna
scan this. Hopefully this seventy six HUNDERD will come up.
That's the only thing I've got powered up in the
shack right now. Now again, we can consult this HT
app operating guide and there might be a menu. We've
got to go and download the app. Okay, So what
(09:14):
you have to do. And this book doesn't tell you
that this is the ht app operating instructions, but it
doesn't tell you that you have to put the radio
into pairing mode, which makes sense. It makes sense that
the radio needs to go into pairing mode before it
will show up on this app. I get it. But
in order to use this book, you have to put
(09:36):
the radio in pairing mode, which you can only find
instructions for in the main manual, the user manual. Right there,
I know it's washed out. There we go, that's better.
This one will tell you how to put the radio
in pairing mode. This one does not, but this one
should say it, because this is how to use the
ht app. In my opinion, what we do here is
we go into the main menu of the radio by
(09:58):
clicking on the menu button on the microphone that I
showed you a minute ago. And we're just gonna scroll
down here. And I know that's washed out and right
here a is pairing. We click okay, and then now
it's in pairing mode, and now we can see it
(10:20):
on the screen here. So I'm going to click on
this one and it says at the bottom of the screen,
make sure the device is in pairing mode pairing request pair. Okay,
the radio beeped at me. The device firmware needs to
be updated. You want to start updating now, synchronized signaling settings?
Yes and yes. Okay, So in firmware versions zero dot
(10:41):
eight dot eight added smart beacon functionality. That's one of
the things. When I looked up the instructions and the
downloaded the specs on this radio, it said that smart
beaconing was not available. Well, apparently that's been added now.
APRS position sharing can be configured using the mike e
form to shorten the channel occupancy time. Added device GPS
(11:05):
location sharing when the phone does not support GPS or
has it disabled, so the device itself will share the GPS,
reduce volume bard display time to one second. Fix the
issue of interrupting network channel reception for location sharing. Okay, good,
so we're gonna update that firmware now, which is easy
this I remember this being easy on the last radio too.
You basically it prompted you, you click yes, and then
(11:27):
you just kind of let it go. So we're gonna
sit here for a second while this goes. Okay, that
took about ten minutes, A little bit longer than I
thought it was going to. But it's prompted me right
(11:49):
now saying the data transfer is complete, you want to
continue to upgrade. Device will reboot. Okay, it's talking about
the device rebooting. Is talking about the radio, No, not
the phone. So right now the radio is rebooting on
the microphone, it's talking about a reboot. And you can
see the LEDs on the radio itself or off. So
(12:11):
it says on the microphone updating firmware. Please do not
turn off the power. Let that go for a minute
and see how long it takes. Okay, there we go.
Update is complete. That only took about a minute or
to maybe a minute and a half, less than two minutes,
and there we go right there. Okay, So this is
what the app looks like after it's connected to the radio,
and we've got options there down the side for APRS
(12:33):
audio connection, NBC monitor, join the network channel, join an
existing channel, create a new channel. Here's some network channels.
Those are all in Chinese. Not sure what those are.
Maybe there's a way to talk to this radio. If
I have this radio connected to my app on my
(12:53):
phone and you have one connected to your app on
your phone, perhaps we can connect to one another and
talk over the internet through the radio to the internet,
kind of set up its own private talk group. Maybe
I don't know, join a network channel, create a new
channel title, passcode, bitrate, radio configuration frequency, okay, FM or AM.
(13:18):
I might have to experience. I'm not gonna do that now,
but I may have to experiment with that in the future.
Let me know in the comment section if any of
you are planning to get this radio. Maybe we can
get together on a zoom call and try out this
network channel thing. That might be kind of fun. I'm
gonna guess Too is probably gonna end up with one
of these radios, so I might be with t O
about that. But more than anything, I want to know. Okay,
(13:41):
so we can rename the radio itself. I could turn
that off and on. I don't have I don't currently
have because of some roof work I'm having done. I
don't currently have my VHF UHF antenna up right now,
so I'm not gonna be able to try to hit
a local repeater with this or anything. Okay, I had
to look at the manual, But here's what you do.
So we've got our channels at the top left corner.
(14:01):
There's that Hamburger menu at the top left corner right there.
You click on that and you get to your channel section.
You can edit your channels just like we just did there.
If you click on the three dots at the top
right corner, you've got several options there, disconnect, Voice Connection team, whatnot,
Device settings and settings. I was going to device settings,
and that is this menu right here, and it's just
basically squelch level speaker, wired mirkerotphone speaker. You can turn
(14:25):
it off and on, firmware version, et cetera, et cetera. Okay,
but if we go into settings, not device settings, but settings.
From that menu, now we have APRS settings, and this
is what I wanted to look like, what I wanted
to look at. So if we click on APRS settings
right there, the first thing to ask you is call
sign and password. This is to get into the APRS.
(14:50):
It's the same call sign and password you would set
if you set up APRS droid. So I'm gonna set
k C five HWB and I'm gonna pay. I'm gonna
say DASH generally a mobile station is DASH nine. I
don't like to use the same signifier, the same SSID
on multiple radios unless I'm using those radios at too
(15:12):
totally independent times. So right now, my truck, which is
the radio in my truck is my YAZUFTM five hundred.
It's not currently powered on, but it is set to
kcfive HWB Dash nine and it becons that every time
I'm on a road trip. So I want that one
to always be my truck radio. So I'm gonna set
this one to ten KC five HWB DASH ten. I'm
(15:33):
going to get a passcode, all right, get APRS password.
You can use an APRSIS password that has been registered
with other APRS applications. So when you register with the APRSIS,
you were given a password. It should be an email somewhere.
That's the password that you're going to want to put
in here here is okay. I went back into my
own email and found my own passcode, which is a
(15:54):
five digit number, and if I click on verify passcode,
it says the passcode is correct. So there we go.
I get service was automatically toggled on. I did not
toggle that on, so you can toggle that off and on.
I'm going to change my server to North America, of course,
and say radio to internet and Internet to radio, so
you can you can go both ways. You can turn
on one way direction or you can turn on duplex
(16:17):
direction for a messaging and then you can do receive
messages from the Internet. I'm going to turn everything on.
Share location via iGATE send power well in operating frequency. No,
I don't want to do that. Share location via iGATE,
Location source system select coordinates. Okay, so if I wanted
to share so, I don't see a setting in here
(16:38):
for ambiguity, which is usually like one or two digits off.
You can set ambiguity in a lot of radios so
that it reports your position a few miles away or
on the next town over something, depend on how you
set it. I don't see that. But what I can
do is I can set location source here for select
coordinates and just set it to if I wanted to
set it to somewhere across town or set it to
(16:59):
my mailbox address or something like that, I could do that. Okay,
I'm not gonna do that right now, but that's how
you do it. Okay, we can go interval five minutes
and I don't see a setting in here for smart beaconing.
Now it's not gonna really do anything. I guess I could.
I guess I could turn this on because it's not
gonna do anything because I'm connected. I got the radio
connected to a dummy load right now. I set a
minute ago, I didn't have an antenna hooked up, and
(17:20):
I don't, but I do have a dummy load hooked up,
so I don't know. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
click on that anyway, so I'm gonna save that really
customizable in there. So that's what that's where we are
on that. Let's see, this is the APRS map now
that I've got my settings set up there. This is
(17:42):
what it's seeing on the map currently, now that it's
connected to the internet through my smartphone. It's not beaconing
APRS over RF, not right now. Anyway. You can set
it to do that, but you can also set it
to use the five G connection on your phone to
share your position, which makes it an eegate. So this
(18:05):
is kind of a unique eyegate. Most igates will receive
an RF signal. If you've got an APRS radio in
your car and you're beacon in a signal a location
report on one three ninety, an iGATE will be a
radio on top of a tower or a building or something,
and it will receive your beacon and it will transmit
that information. Whatever you share via the beacon, you can
(18:27):
set it up in the radio to the Internet and
it will show up on the website at APRS dot
f FI. This is doing the same thing, but kind
of in a different manner. Is this is not transmitting
our f at least it's not right now because it's
in a dummi load. But you can see I am
on this map right here. If you look on this
map right there, you can see there's my call sign
right right there is my call sign right there in Grapevine,
(18:50):
right on the top of the Grapevine dot, which is
where it should be up there on the north end
of Grapevine. So it is sharing my location via the
GPS radio, in the GPS radio inside of this mobile radio,
and via the settings that I just set right here.
So this is kind of this is going to be
a neat thing to play with. I'm interested to see
(19:12):
if anyone wants to set up and do a network
connection and see if we can talk to one another
over the network. And I'm interested to see if they
eventually have a kiss T and C for this, although
you might not need it because with the kiss T
and C on the HT you can connect other apps
(19:32):
besides just APRS to it, so you can connect wind
Link to it. You can connect I can't think of
anything else right now, but win Link an APRS, you know,
are two different, two totally separate apps, and you can
connect it and tell the radio to do whatever and
connect to a win Link gateway or an APRS note
or something like that. So this one, with all the
steps we just went through just now, this is limited
(19:53):
to APRS, but it's totally open, fully function APRS. So
this is really cool. I want to send some messages
over the internet see what kind of feedback we can
get and that kind of thing. So how many of
you are actually interested in this radio? I would like
to see in the comments below how many are interested
in this radio? What you think about this radio? What
are some really cool things you want to try with
(20:14):
this radio? Where would you put this? Would you put
this in your shack or would you put this in
your vehicle or would you put it in some kind
of go kit that you would take to trips like
to hamfests and whatnot. Or to camping campouts or something
like that. Put a comment in the description below, thanks
for watching today. Check out the links to the radio
(20:36):
in the description below. Seventy three
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