[aprssig] Alinco or ???

[Drew Baxter]

At 09:12 PM 11/9/2005, scott at opentrac.org wrote:
>I'd been almost certain that was the case, but someone told me the D700 was
>all one board.  Hmmm... very interesting.  Flat ribbon is much easier to
>deal with for production - for most common pitch and conductor count
>configurations I can get off-the-shelf parts.

I thought so too, but I took photos a while back to point out the 
In-circuit flashing port on the D700 board back in the debacle about 
easy upgrades for the D700.  As we found out, Kenwood could offer 
upgrades and use a simple cable that they already have to reprogram 
the D700.  Whether this applies to ALL D700s I'm not sure, but 
applies to mine for sure.

The TNC is hidden under a metal shroud toward the front of the unit 
underneath the front nose piece, if I remember correctly.

>Too bad you can't replace the APRS brains of the D700.  Though I guess you
>could do a certain amount of translation to support new message types.

http://www.1-x.net/portal/kenwoodd700-mc2.jpg
http://www.1-x.net/portal/kenwoodd700-mc.jpg

If you know someone that has a took to read/write that chip, then the 
brown plug up above it has all the pins you need to in-circuit flash 
the chip.. This isn't a run-of-the-mill AVR though, it needs some 
pretty costly tools.  Kenwood also uses a similar NEC microcontroller 
in their SR901 Sirius Satellite Receiver.  I'm not sure if they do in 
their SR902 or above, but it seems like Kenwood really likes NEC 
microcontrollers based on these two instances.

The NEC they used in this case has multiple serial channels.  If I 
recall the head itself is serial based too, It actually has a ATMEL 
microcontroller in it.  I'd have to open it back up to confirm 
though.  There's probably some room to mess with and intercept the 
Kenwood head if someone wanted to take a stab at it.. :)

>It's still a very expensive rig, though.  The DR-135T has the advantage of
>being at the low end of the price range for 2 meter mobiles.  Sure, it
>doesn't have all the bells and whistles... I just see that as the place
>where I can add the most value.

The DR135TP set me back like 239$ from AES if I recall.  The big 
money was in the 330MV power supply I bought for it.  I bought it 
solely for APRS though to provide the IGate for this area because the 
one in the area was running WinAPRS on a very old machine that liked 
to crash a lot.  I regret it purely because that coupled with my 
ARX-2B Cushcraft out back (which has been weatherbeaten pretty bad) 
made for a very good voice and APRS/PCSAT rig.  But, the greater good 
is the Igate here and a weather station once I get a tower up.  I've 
had the tower for 3 years, just haven't had time to get the ground 
work finished and a concrete truck rolling.

>Maybe I'll finally pick up a D700 to play with when I get my ARM TNC
>running...

The D700 is a neat radio.  It has some kludges but it does do its job 
very well for what it is.  It was my first rig and a very generous 
gift from my grandfather when I passed my test.

--Droo, K1XVM