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I'm happy to report that the ID-31A sounds MUCH better on D-Star than it did analog. Like night and day. In fact, the audio is borderline "hot", where it was really muffled on analog.

This was my first day on D-Star & I have to say I'm impressed now. I actually spoke to Mole while he was inside his office on the HT, talking to me 15 miles away over two mountains on simplex. We usually talk during the day with him outdoors, running through a repeater sitting at a 4000' elevation behind me, and the white noise can still be hell. That's the first thing I noticed on D-Star. No white noise at all. Pretty cool...

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I just found that you can adjust both the TX/RX treble and bass audio quality using the supplied software. These settings are not currently available to change on the radio itself. I fond that cutting the bass and boosting the treble on TX got much better audio reports on analog FM than the default settings.

Weird but it sounded clear as a bell on D-Star before you found the bass/treble setting. The adjustment on FM was like night and day though. It sounded like an HT after the adjustment, but sounded like a shoe phone on the default setting.

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Updated firmware released by ICOM here;

Firmware Updates / Software Downloads | Support | Icom Inc

Note that the USB adapter cable is required - you can't do it via the uSD card.

I haven't applied the update yet as I'm waiting for the cable to arrive.

Best Regards,

Tim VK2AAA

So I'll be getting my bonus here in a few days and I've really been eyeing this radio. The biggest issue for me is that its a mono-band radio. I am primarily on 2m. I currently own the Yaesu VX-8R and use the APRS functionality all the time, but I am having serious issues finding what D-Star is, what it can do, etc. I've read the wiki page and it told me absolutely nothing. If I got this radio, what can I do with D-Star?

D-STAR brings several features to the table:

First, it is a digital mode that takes less bandwidth than analog signals. This is advantageous because it allows more stations in a crowded band. Because it is digital, it allows you to combine data and voice at the same time. For example, callsigns and locations of stations are automatically displayed on everyone's radios. You can also specify specific stations to talk to and only that station's squelch will open. Because the repeaters are connected to the internet, you can easily talk to any other station via a repeater through the internet. One thing is cool is that if you include your GPS info with your transmission, the whole system automatically knows where you're at. This allows another station to automatically find you without having to know what repeater you're on (this is called callsign routing). There are other things that D-STAR can do, as well but this should give you a few ideas of the basic capabilities.

Ouch. $56 for the cloning cable is the cheapest I could find. Now THAT'S a rip-off.

Simple max232 level converter can do the trick.
Even Nokia DLR3 cable
Mike

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My pile-up breaker