Hi Patrick and all,

Seems the TH-D72A is pretty much a replica of the TH-D7(A) with some minor modifications.

One word of caution on spliting the audio at the HT. DON'T DO IT.

Let me explain. I have the TH-D7(A) and used a plug adaptor to go from the 1/10", 2.5mm, recepticle to 1/4" for the headphones. Everything worked great, for about a year, then I noticed the audio was cutting in and out. Turns out the weight of the adaptor and sometimes I used a splitter to record, made the contact very poor. Now if I plug in the HMC-3 head set there isn't a problem since the two plug system, Speaker-Mic jack, holds and maintains the connection very well. If I go back to the single audio out plug, the problem resurfaces.

What you could possibly do is find and solder a 1/10, 2.5mm, plug to a wire then run a couple feet to the splitter so there will be little or no weight on the recepticle at the HT.

Figured I'd save others from a headache.

73,

Jeff WB3JFS Las Vegas, NV DM26

----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick STODDARD (WD9EWK/VA7EWK)" [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, December 06, 2010 9:57 AM Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: more about the TH-D72A for satellites

Hi Bob!

I, too, have been considering "retiring" my TH-D7A(G), and you just sold me on the new Kenwood after our contact on AO-51. Sounded great.

Several commented on my audio during the two passes I worked, as well as "selling" them on the new radio. If a bunch of D7s show up for sale, maybe a few of them will end up in the hands of those interested in working satellites.

Ordered mine from HRO a few minutes ago. Also got the drop in charger. Since they changed battery to a Li-ion, the D7A charger (NiCad) will not work. Hope these new batteries last longer than the old NiCad's.

Do you have a drop-in or fast charger for your D7? I think the wall-wart charged my battery in 4 or 5 hours on Saturday night. The battery had a partial charge in it, enough to power on the radio and perform a full reset before letting it charge fully. I haven't looked at the model numbers for all the accessories closely, since so few of them are in the stores now. I'll get some of them as they arrive in the stores on the slow boat from Japan.

I have an old Kenwood speaker/mic, and the external power cables are the same as for the TH-F6A and TH-D7 (among others), so I had all the accessories I could get for the radio right now. I didn't use the speaker/mic yesterday; I used the mic on the face of the radio, and plugged my audio splitter (including adapter to step down from the 3.5mm plug on the splitter to the 2.5mm speaker jack on the HT) with earpiece and audio recorder into the speaker jack.

I've read the other posts on this thread, and I will take a look at the DUP setting when I get home tonight. It is possible that the way I had it set up (transmit on VFO B, receive on VFO A) is the only way it works on the D72. If that is the case, then Kenwood did it right by their choice of VFO A having to be the receiver when in DUP mode. VFO A is more sensitive than VFO B. Being able to use the joystick-like 4-way control button on the face of the radio to tune up and down made it easy to make the adjustments on the receive VFO, without having to use the knob on the top of the radio (press A/B to switch VFOs, then press down on the joystick button to move down 5 kHz, then A/B again to get back to VFO B before transmitting - all done with the thumb that also pressed the PTT on the side of the radio). Packet in general, as well as looking at the APRS functionality beyond simply transmitting my location, will be something I take a closer look at some other time in the near future.

I apologize if I appear to be going into too much detail on what I've done in setting up the radio before I went on the air with it yesterday. I'm coming at it as someone who hasn't used Kenwood HTs in at least 15 years until the past few weeks when I bought a TH-F6A, and no experience with the TH-D7. If you know the TH-D7, you'll be able to get running quickly with a TH-D72. The manual would still be a useful read for those people, to learn about the new functionality in the TH-D72.

For those interested in reading the manuals without shelling out cash first, Kenwood has a good download site for instruction manuals of its ham gear:

http://manual.kenwood.com/en_contents/search/

Just enter "TH-D72", and you will see two sets of links. The first set are for the PDF version of the printed manual supplied with the radio, in several different languages. The other links that have "CDROM" in the description are for the detailed manual that is supplied on a CD with the radio. For software used with the radio (virtual COM port driver, along with the Memory Control Program) along with software for other Kenwood radios, go to:

http://www.kenwood.co.jp/i/products/info/amateur/software_download.html

I haven't looked on the CD that came with my radio, since I didn't want to pull out the CD/DVD drive and plug it into my netbook last night. That was why I went to these links to download what I might already have on that CD. :-)

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/

_______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb

Hi Jeff!

Seems the TH-D72A is pretty much a replica of the TH-D7(A) with some minor modifications.

I'm sure that's what Kenwood was looking for, to keep R&D costs for a new ham HT down, but I think you are getting more than just a minor upgrade to the TH-D7 with the TH-D72. Not much change for FM satellite work, but improvements on the packet side and especially for APRS.

One word of caution on spliting the audio at the HT.  DON'T DO IT.

<snip>

What you could possibly do is find and solder a 1/10, 2.5mm, plug to a wire then run a couple feet to the splitter so there will be little or no weight on the recepticle at the HT.

Figured I'd save others from a headache.

A good suggestion. This problem may or may not present itself, depending on how much stress is put on that speaker jack. I will probably rig up a short cable like Jeff describes in the near future, possibly by cannibalizing an old speaker/mic so I can have the two-plug connector going into the radio, to reduce the stress on the speaker jack.

Nigel's suggestion of a speaker/mic is one I have thought of, and I will try it the next time I'm out with the radio. I have an old Kenwood SMC-34 speaker/mic, which has a speaker jack on the bottom of the mic, along with 3 remote-control buttons that can be defined in the radio and even a volume knob on the face of the mic. I could put the radio on my belt, and use the 3 buttons to switch between VFOs (define one button as A/B) and do my tuning adjustments during a pass (the other two buttons would be the up and down tuning buttons), all without having to look at the radio. This may be a bit easier than working the buttons on the face of the radio during a pass. My splitter would go into the jack on the speaker/mic, and from there audio would go to my earpiece and my recorder.

I'm still poking around with it, including working an SO-50 pass last night. So far, so good. I've put a one-piece Diamond SMA/BNC adapter on the antenna connector, and have been using only antennas and coax with BNC connectors. This adapter almost makes the radio look like it came with a BNC connector, and now I don't have to fiddle with the SMA connector. I did the same thing with my other HTs with SMA connectors (VX-8GR, TH-F6A), so I would not have to stress the SMA connector every time I want to change the antenna or coax going to it.

73!

Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/