Icom ID51 Oh dear should I have taken on this task ??

[G8CVF]

Hi thanks for the interest.

A good friend of mine of MANY years bought an Icom ID51 and asked me 'as a favour', Pete can you get this working "PLEASE" of course says' I, - WRONG !!

I am USUALLY aufait with programming Icom rigs having in the past owned a ID31, a IC2820 and a ID5100 all programmed without a problem but my friends ID51 has me 'beaten'.

#1. Insert a SD Card to download the 51 data onto the card, it can't even format to start the ball rolling. It comes up with a window saying "Function is active - QSO Log - RX History Log" in the window then a second later reverts back to FORMAT.

#2. Thought OK lets buy an FTDI cable and forget about the SD Card problem and do the programming in software, but the cable will not 'see' the TX it just puts the ID51 into transmit mode have tried a real assortment of drivers as well (Win10).

#3. And this one is the last straw. When looking at what is available in the 51 at the moment to play with it looks normal BUT! when going in the Menu to SELECT the REFLECTORS listing is missing.

#4. Thought OK lets put all info on an SD Card and import it, Simples - Wrong! switch to download the data from the SD Card and it doesn't find my lovely files Ugh!

#5. Help! I've run out of ideas and headache tablets.

It does find my Pi-Star and that's about it.

Thanks for ANY ideas 73 Peter G8CVF

[VK7HSE]

The main mistake people make when setting up a dstar radio for use with pistar is that you must treat it like a repeater, BUT you use a 0.00 duplex offset. Without doing so you will have the exact problem you have described!

So instead of importing the very out of date repeater listing for importing via the sdcard, instead take a look at the format and simply make an entry for the simplex frequency (if you wish to use the DS button to control it)

Remember that a simplex dstar frequency will not allow you to set a gateway destination. You MUST enable a + or - duplex with as I previously mentioned, no actual frequency shift but ZERO!

Only then will you be able to edit the missing menus you currently can't find...

Cheers

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[G8CVF]

The main mistake people make when setting up a dstar radio for use with pistar is that you must treat it like a repeater, BUT you use a 0.00 duplex offset. Without doing so you will have the exact problem you have described!

Thank you for your quick response. Well I fully understand what you are saying BUT! unfortunately I am not getting the option to insist on a 00.00 offset.

I assume you are talking about the INITIAL stage when you have the option to choose the repeater + or - entitled DV Repeater unfortunately like the other missing options I am not receiving this option either and I cannot see any other way of setting the system to 00.00.

Of course I could be missing something but cannot suss what it could be,

Thanks again Peter

[G8SEZ]

Have a look at the videos from K9WLW here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2zfYL ... RgQ/videos

He describes the setup steps in several of them, with difference for PiStar and openSPOT users.

[AF6VN]

Caveat: I'm going by a copy of the manual. I don't own any Icom gear (well, I might have a first generation Icom FRS handheld somewhere).

#1. Insert a SD Card to download the 51 data onto the card, it can't even format to start the ball rolling. It comes up with a window saying "Function is active - QSO Log - RX History Log" in the window then a second later reverts back to FORMAT.

My thought: So turn off the QSO Log.

cf: Manual page 26

I'd also suggest checking for any other logging type functions that write to an SD card.

#2. Thought OK lets buy an FTDI cable and forget about the SD Card problem and do the programming in software, but the cable will not 'see' the TX it just puts the ID51 into transmit mode have tried a real assortment of drivers as well (Win10).

#3. And this one is the last straw. When looking at what is available in the 51 at the moment to play with it looks normal BUT! when going in the Menu to SELECT the REFLECTORS listing is missing.

#4. Thought OK lets put all info on an SD Card and import it, Simples - Wrong! switch to download the data from the SD Card and it doesn't find my lovely files Ugh!

And with all these complications, my next step would be to try first a Partial Reset, and if that doesn't work, a full "All" Reset. cf: manual page 30.

[G8CVF]

Thanks for the help everybody but I had this post on another forum and my problems are over I post the answer:

jwt873 said:
A long shot.... But is the QSO logging and/or the RX History function turned on? It may be that formatting is disabled when these functions are active.

You have gone straight to the top of my Christmas card list PERFECT all is now fine, can't thank you enough as it's been one headache I can tell you.

My compliments and MANY thanks again Peter G8CVF

The post is now closed