Hi. I'm quite new to APRS and could do with a bit of help setting my Kenwood TMD-710 as a digipeater. I need to do it so that when it digipeats, it enters my station call in the path. I also need it to digipeat a station that has already been digipeated if possible as a friend and I in a remote area are trying to work out coverage and paths and he can get digipeated from another station sometimes. So far I think I've got it figured out mostly apart from a couple of entries.

I have menu 616: Digipeat (My Call) set to ON.
I have UIDIGI set to ON and the Alias to WIDE1-1
UITRACE. This is where I need help. Do I need it on and what alias do I want to be using? The Kenwood manual says to use WIDE_4 but websites say to use WIDE.

I can't believe you are all having this argument. The answer is really simple.

Can you, as AB1CD, go and operate your equipment at an address other than the one on your licence? Yes.
Can you, as AB1CD, go to the station of AB2EF and operate their equipment using your callsign and licence priveliges? Yes.

So if you can go to another station and operate their equipment using your callsign, as long as you comply with your licence conditions, then you can use the clubs station with your own callsign as long as you adhere to the restrictions of your licence if you are a technician etc.

In regards to DXCC awards, as long as you are in the country of the main callsign you are using for the award, the contact counts whether you're /P, /M or at another station.

Middle of September this year.

VP8LP in the Falkland Islands. Was mobile running 100W into a Little Tarheel II with a 60" whip on 10m SSB parked up in the middle of town. I'd heard him at home and had to go out so decided to have a go whilst in the car. It was a distance of 8017 miles according to QRZ.com. What made it even better was that there was quite a pileup as well.

Where is it well documented? It is well documented it DOES on 13.8v but doesn't on 12V..

The FT857 has a rubbish tiny screen with tiny text and the controls and menu system will drive you mad. You certainly can't really use them whilst on the move. The ATAS 120 is the biggest stinking pile of rubbish of an antenna this side of a wet piece of string. The only thing good about it is that you can use a FT857 to control it. However any antenna outperforms it, even a hamstick.

The Icom 7000 is the best of the HF/2m/70cm mobile radios. The TS480 is the best for HF+6m. The TS480 has the biggest clearest display of them all and all most used things on buttons on the front panel. The Icom 7000 uses a menu system but it is a whole load easier than the FT857. Either of the aforementioned radios work well coupled with a Scorpion or Tarheel screwdriver antenna tuned using a Turbotuner or Better RF control unit.

And don't waste your money on a DX engineering choke. Just buy a large FT290-31 mix ferrite ring and wrap 8 turns of co-ax through it as near to the antenna as you can get and then again where it goes into the shack.

The DX engineering choke is literally a ferrite ring with cable wrapped round it put in a nice box so they can charge you more.

It will be reactive, not resistive. It'll be very narrow banded, not that fantastic - maybe 2k Ohms, and if they've got it wrong it could increase common mode, not reduce it.

+1 for the above post. What really makes me wonder what operators are thinking are the countless Youtube videos of Icom IC7000's when you see them transmitting. Virtually all have the ALC and compression meters pegged over to the right. I keep mine within the ALC zone. My mic gain is a bit higher than Alans but only a few percent. I enabled the compression once and even on setting 1, the ALC went past the "safe" level. I hate to think what one with the meter pegged over sounds like on the other end.

Sadly the one I bought has had the AB5N modification to it by the previous owner and I'm sure that when on the move, it is what makes it hard to make a contact. Static seems to be fine but on the move I think its picking up the background noise.

I have an Icom 7000 and I've used a FT857 which is basically a 897 in a different case. I've seen and had hands on with a 897 a few times.

The Icom 7000 has a far easier to use screen and the menus make more sense because they can put more info on screen. I got my Icom 7000 without a manual and had a quick look over a downloaded one and worked it out from there. It is quite intuitive. OTOH I couldn't make sense of the 857 one although I understand it can be customised.

For /P though, the 7000 uses more power than the 897 on RX so if you are running on batteries then this is a consideration. The 897 has a front end as wide open as a barn door so aftermarket filters are a must if you want to be able to cope with nearby strong signals.

If you don't want or are willing to sacrifice VHF and UHF, I would suggest a TS480 with filters. On HF its better than the other two but for /P it is a bit of a weighty and sizeable beast.

In the UK it is illegal for an amateur to talk to someone without an amateur licence on the amateur bands. I suspect that the whole of the CEPT region is the same.

Yes. One way to tune rather than pruning is to fold back the end of the leg on itself and cable tie it the full length of the folded back bit to the element.

I would say that whilst the main body install isn't the most asthetically pleasing, from a cooling point of view it has way more free space around it than many I've seen. I can't see it being the issue that people seem to be making out of it other than an increase in temperature when there is sunlight shining directly on it. I would make a suggestion in regards to the wiring going to the radio and thats to try and hide it. Leaving it in the passenger footwell is usually a recipe for disaster as people can and do get their feet tangled in it, don't realise and rip it out when they next get out the car.

As regards using a tuner with the hamstick, I'm with everyone else. Try it on more than a band either side and you're likely to start arcing the coil in the antenna if the mismatch is great enough.

Good to see someone using braid instead of wire for a ground strap.

What is a modge meter?

I doubt its a ground issue - more like a dry joint.

I think I need to get a life. I play a lot of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on the Xbox and the first thing that came into my mind was "EMP, ALL ELECTRONICS ARE OFFLINE" which is what it says in the game when someone on the other team uses an EMP.