Speaker 1: I just picked up this brand new VGC in our
Speaker 1: seventy six hundred. This is the update to the R
Speaker 1: seventy five hundred. It offers a few more features. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of you have been using the N seventy
Speaker 1: six HT, which this in seventy six HT is sort
Speaker 1: of kind of pretty much the same radio as a
Speaker 1: b Tech UV Pro full Open Kiss tn C full APRS.
Speaker 1: Lots of extra features in this radio that we have
Speaker 1: not seen in a radio with this price point for
Speaker 1: a while. The predecessor to this mobile radio, the N
Speaker 1: seventy five hundred, was all controlled by an app, which
Speaker 1: this one is also. But reading through the manual just now,
Speaker 1: and reading through it comes with two manuals. This is
Speaker 1: the manual manual kind of washed out because it's white,
Speaker 1: and it comes with a whole separate manual for the
Speaker 1: ht app. This was never included. I did a video
Speaker 1: about the N seventy five hundred on this channel several
Speaker 1: years ago when it was new, and we did a
Speaker 1: couple of live streams with it, trying to turn it
Speaker 1: into a all Star node, which that never worked out.
Speaker 1: But the ht app at the time of that recording
Speaker 1: only worked on Android. Now it works on iOS, so
Speaker 1: though it does say it's a limited capability, and it
Speaker 1: was never a manual or anything with it. You just
Speaker 1: kind of had to bumble your way through it to
Speaker 1: learn the app. So that's already an improvement right there
Speaker 1: in my mind. Let's take a look at this brand
Speaker 1: new mobile radio. I'm gonna tell you about a few
Speaker 1: really cool features it has. All right, this is the
Speaker 1: radio itself right here, and it's got this eight pen
Speaker 1: connector on the front here, and we're gonna look at this.
Speaker 1: I'm show you this in a minute. But it's got
Speaker 1: a big screen on the microphone so you can control
Speaker 1: I think you can control the whole radio from the microphone.
Speaker 1: The radio itself doesn't have a screen because it's all
Speaker 1: app controlled. It's controlled with your Android app or iOS
Speaker 1: app or whatever. And doing a little bit of research
Speaker 1: on this radio before I went live here, before I
Speaker 1: hit record, I should say I put together this high
Speaker 1: level overview of everything. N seventy six hundred is a
Speaker 1: fifty wat VHF forty wat UHF dual band mobile radio
Speaker 1: designed for amateur radio use. It features headless design that's
Speaker 1: like its predecessor as well, meaning it lacks the traditional
Speaker 1: front panel et cetera, et cetera, et cetera smartphone app.
Speaker 1: Bluetooth Control Radio is built for discrete vehicle installation and
Speaker 1: offers advanced features like APRS, GPS network connectivity, making it
Speaker 1: verstaal choice for modern HAM radio enthusiasts. So we scroll
Speaker 1: down here and we look through this a little bit.
Speaker 1: Right here. The HT app available for Android full featured
Speaker 1: and iOS limited functionality. Okay, good. And then we scroll
Speaker 1: down right here and it says built in GPS. Unlike
Speaker 1: its predecessor, THENR the VRN seventy five hundred. This new model,
Speaker 1: the seventy six hundred, includes an integrated GPS module for
Speaker 1: standalone look atation track in APRS beaconing transmits GPS coordinates
Speaker 1: with transmissions for geolocation tracking and mapping, and then APRS features.
Speaker 1: It supports APRS for real time positioning, reporting and messaging. Okay, good,
Speaker 1: that's what the HT does. Functions like an iGATE for APRS.
Speaker 1: Functions like an iGATE for APRS. So you go on
Speaker 1: and you read a little bit farther and what it does.
Speaker 1: From what I'm reading, we're gonna hook this up here
Speaker 1: in a minute. You download the app on your Android device,
Speaker 1: which I just did that. I'm gonna look at that
Speaker 1: here in just a second. You go into the app,
Speaker 1: you connect to the radio, you can figure everything on
Speaker 1: the app, and then it uses your smartphone intercon net
Speaker 1: connection to beacon itself to APRS dot Fi to join
Speaker 1: the APRS network. So it has GPS location, It has
Speaker 1: GPS tracker in the radio, so it knows where it
Speaker 1: is as long as you turn that on, I guess
Speaker 1: it knows where it is. And it transmits that position
Speaker 1: through your Android app, through the Internet, through your five
Speaker 1: G connection on your Android phone to APRS dot Fi,
Speaker 1: so it acts as its own iGATE. That is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Reading down through these instructions here, I don't see anything
Speaker 1: specifically about a KISS T and C connection, although it
Speaker 1: doesn't use that word, and I didn't find anything in
Speaker 1: the manual about a Kiss TNC. If you're not aware
Speaker 1: what a Kiss TNC is. TNC is a terminal node
Speaker 1: controller KISS is keep it stupid simple, and it's basically
Speaker 1: a way to connect via USB or Bluetooth to an
Speaker 1: a You take a tn C and you interface it
Speaker 1: to a radio, maybe through a USB connection, maybe through
Speaker 1: the two prong Kinwood connector there's some old style TNCs
Speaker 1: that do that, and then that basically adds the APRS
Speaker 1: and wind link and functionality a lot of functionality to
Speaker 1: that radio. Moby Linked is a good example of a
Speaker 1: modern KISS tn C. Also, the digrig can act as
Speaker 1: a TNC. The digitrig is is hardline only, while the
Speaker 1: moby link has Bluetooth, so you can attach that to
Speaker 1: a radio and then use apps like win link over
Speaker 1: Android or APRS droid or something like that to do
Speaker 1: APRS over a non APRS radio or send win link
Speaker 1: over a non over a radio that doesn't have a
Speaker 1: built in T and C. Modern radios like the Kiin
Speaker 1: with D seventy four and D seventy five have have
Speaker 1: built in KISS T and cs that just allow you
Speaker 1: to connect to the radio via Bluetooth and it's all
Speaker 1: done for you, kind of like a built in sound
Speaker 1: card inside of an HF radio. You don't have to
Speaker 1: have an interface in between your smartphone or computer and
Speaker 1: the radio if the radio has a built in KISS
Speaker 1: T and C. That The vr N seventy six HT
Speaker 1: that I just showed you a picture of is an
Speaker 1: example of something with a KISST and C as well
Speaker 1: as the BTech UV Pro. These have built in t
Speaker 1: and cs where you don't need an extra piece of
Speaker 1: hardware between your computer and or smartphone and the radio
Speaker 1: in order to enable these extra functionalities with the radio.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna connect this up to the power
Speaker 1: supply here, got the microphone hooked up here, so you've
Speaker 1: got a menu you can go in and edit the channel. There.
Speaker 1: These two buttons here. Main menu is this button here,
Speaker 1: return channel up, channel down. These are all the pre
Speaker 1: program channels that came with the radio. Some glare on
Speaker 1: the screen of the microphone, but it's nice and backlit.
Speaker 1: As you can see. You can edit the channel that way.
Speaker 1: Main menu basically control the whole radio from that microphone,
Speaker 1: which that microphone was not an option on the On
Speaker 1: its predecessor, the N seventy five hundred, it was only
Speaker 1: controlled from the app on this one. Also, there's a
Speaker 1: there's this USB port in the front here. It's Usbare's
Speaker 1: it's not USBC, And I wasn't really sure what that was,
Speaker 1: so I consulted the manual. The only thing it really
Speaker 1: says right there down at the bottom of that page
Speaker 1: is that it's an output of five volts and two
Speaker 1: amps right there in that little diagram right there, So
Speaker 1: it doesn't appear that that USBC port actually does anything.
Speaker 1: You can plug your phone into it or plug I
Speaker 1: don't know, all Star node, I don't know power your
Speaker 1: All Star node, that kind of thing. So maybe maybe
Speaker 1: more to come on that later. Maybe it will have
Speaker 1: some increased functionality on that later for an extra expansion
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know. But right now, what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do is I've downloaded the ht app on my
Speaker 1: phone and I'm going to take this. I'm going to
Speaker 1: open it up and I'm going to connect to this
Speaker 1: radio and see see what it looks like, what kind
Speaker 1: of APRS functions and other functions we can set up
Speaker 1: while using the app on the radio. Now, with this
Speaker 1: radio setup, if I was going to put it here
Speaker 1: in the shack, or I was going to add it
Speaker 1: to my vehicle, which I actually might do that later,
Speaker 1: I will be feeding it with Mesi and Plony Coacts.
Speaker 1: Mezzi and Ploni is a sponsor of today's video. You
Speaker 1: can save a ten percent discount on everything Messi and
Speaker 1: Plony makes with the link in the description blow and
Speaker 1: the coupon code of HR two cables HR two cables
Speaker 1: get you ten percent off of older Coacs, connectors, adapters, tools,
Speaker 1: all kinds of good COACS stuff, some of the best
Speaker 1: Coacts made in Italy, and I thank them for sponsoring
Speaker 1: this video. This is the app on my phone and
Speaker 1: put these. You guys know, I turned fifty last year, right,
Speaker 1: which means how old was my this year? Okay, So
Speaker 1: we've got this right here. This HT app is just
Speaker 1: it's very it's just called HT. I just went to
Speaker 1: the play store and searched for HT and that's what
Speaker 1: it looks like right there. It says HT and it's
Speaker 1: got that green and white symbol there, so that's all
Speaker 1: it is. That's when you install it. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: go pair a new device here and the options are
Speaker 1: Walkie Talkie, PTT, Handfeld microphone or buy now. Walkie talkie
Speaker 1: is what it calls a radio. Okay, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: scan this. Hopefully this seventy six HUNDERD will come up.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing I've got powered up in the
Speaker 1: shack right now. Now again, we can consult this HT
Speaker 1: app operating guide and there might be a menu. We've
Speaker 1: got to go and download the app. Okay, So what
Speaker 1: you have to do. And this book doesn't tell you
Speaker 1: that this is the ht app operating instructions, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't tell you that you have to put the radio
Speaker 1: into pairing mode, which makes sense. It makes sense that
Speaker 1: the radio needs to go into pairing mode before it
Speaker 1: will show up on this app. I get it. But
Speaker 1: in order to use this book, you have to put
Speaker 1: the radio in pairing mode, which you can only find
Speaker 1: instructions for in the main manual, the user manual. Right there,
Speaker 1: I know it's washed out. There we go, that's better.
Speaker 1: This one will tell you how to put the radio
Speaker 1: in pairing mode. This one does not, but this one
Speaker 1: should say it, because this is how to use the
Speaker 1: ht app. In my opinion, what we do here is
Speaker 1: we go into the main menu of the radio by
Speaker 1: clicking on the menu button on the microphone that I
Speaker 1: showed you a minute ago. And we're just gonna scroll
Speaker 1: down here. And I know that's washed out and right
Speaker 1: here a is pairing. We click okay, and then now
Speaker 1: it's in pairing mode, and now we can see it
Speaker 1: on the screen here. So I'm going to click on
Speaker 1: this one and it says at the bottom of the screen,
Speaker 1: make sure the device is in pairing mode pairing request pair. Okay,
Speaker 1: the radio beeped at me. The device firmware needs to
Speaker 1: be updated. You want to start updating now, synchronized signaling settings?
Speaker 1: Yes and yes. Okay, So in firmware versions zero dot
Speaker 1: eight dot eight added smart beacon functionality. That's one of
Speaker 1: the things. When I looked up the instructions and the
Speaker 1: downloaded the specs on this radio, it said that smart
Speaker 1: beaconing was not available. Well, apparently that's been added now.
Speaker 1: APRS position sharing can be configured using the mike e
Speaker 1: form to shorten the channel occupancy time. Added device GPS
Speaker 1: location sharing when the phone does not support GPS or
Speaker 1: has it disabled, so the device itself will share the GPS,
Speaker 1: reduce volume bard display time to one second. Fix the
Speaker 1: issue of interrupting network channel reception for location sharing. Okay, good,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna update that firmware now, which is easy
Speaker 1: this I remember this being easy on the last radio too.
Speaker 1: You basically it prompted you, you click yes, and then
Speaker 1: you just kind of let it go. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: sit here for a second while this goes. Okay, that
Speaker 1: took about ten minutes, A little bit longer than I
Speaker 1: thought it was going to. But it's prompted me right
Speaker 1: now saying the data transfer is complete, you want to
Speaker 1: continue to upgrade. Device will reboot. Okay, it's talking about
Speaker 1: the device rebooting. Is talking about the radio, No, not
Speaker 1: the phone. So right now the radio is rebooting on
Speaker 1: the microphone, it's talking about a reboot. And you can
Speaker 1: see the LEDs on the radio itself or off. So
Speaker 1: it says on the microphone updating firmware. Please do not
Speaker 1: turn off the power. Let that go for a minute
Speaker 1: and see how long it takes. Okay, there we go.
Speaker 1: Update is complete. That only took about a minute or
Speaker 1: to maybe a minute and a half, less than two minutes,
Speaker 1: and there we go right there. Okay, So this is
Speaker 1: what the app looks like after it's connected to the radio,
Speaker 1: and we've got options there down the side for APRS
Speaker 1: audio connection, NBC monitor, join the network channel, join an
Speaker 1: existing channel, create a new channel. Here's some network channels.
Speaker 1: Those are all in Chinese. Not sure what those are.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's a way to talk to this radio. If
Speaker 1: I have this radio connected to my app on my
Speaker 1: phone and you have one connected to your app on
Speaker 1: your phone, perhaps we can connect to one another and
Speaker 1: talk over the internet through the radio to the internet,
Speaker 1: kind of set up its own private talk group. Maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know, join a network channel, create a new
Speaker 1: channel title, passcode, bitrate, radio configuration frequency, okay, FM or AM.
Speaker 1: I might have to experience. I'm not gonna do that now,
Speaker 1: but I may have to experiment with that in the future.
Speaker 1: Let me know in the comment section if any of
Speaker 1: you are planning to get this radio. Maybe we can
Speaker 1: get together on a zoom call and try out this
Speaker 1: network channel thing. That might be kind of fun. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna guess Too is probably gonna end up with one
Speaker 1: of these radios, so I might be with t O
Speaker 1: about that. But more than anything, I want to know. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we can rename the radio itself. I could turn
Speaker 1: that off and on. I don't have I don't currently
Speaker 1: have because of some roof work I'm having done. I
Speaker 1: don't currently have my VHF UHF antenna up right now,
Speaker 1: so I'm not gonna be able to try to hit
Speaker 1: a local repeater with this or anything. Okay, I had
Speaker 1: to look at the manual, But here's what you do.
Speaker 1: So we've got our channels at the top left corner.
Speaker 1: There's that Hamburger menu at the top left corner right there.
Speaker 1: You click on that and you get to your channel section.
Speaker 1: You can edit your channels just like we just did there.
Speaker 1: If you click on the three dots at the top
Speaker 1: right corner, you've got several options there, disconnect, Voice Connection team, whatnot,
Speaker 1: Device settings and settings. I was going to device settings,
Speaker 1: and that is this menu right here, and it's just
Speaker 1: basically squelch level speaker, wired mirkerotphone speaker. You can turn
Speaker 1: it off and on, firmware version, et cetera, et cetera. Okay,
Speaker 1: but if we go into settings, not device settings, but settings.
Speaker 1: From that menu, now we have APRS settings, and this
Speaker 1: is what I wanted to look like, what I wanted
Speaker 1: to look at. So if we click on APRS settings
Speaker 1: right there, the first thing to ask you is call
Speaker 1: sign and password. This is to get into the APRS.
Speaker 1: It's the same call sign and password you would set
Speaker 1: if you set up APRS droid. So I'm gonna set
Speaker 1: k C five HWB and I'm gonna pay. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say DASH generally a mobile station is DASH nine. I
Speaker 1: don't like to use the same signifier, the same SSID
Speaker 1: on multiple radios unless I'm using those radios at too
Speaker 1: totally independent times. So right now, my truck, which is
Speaker 1: the radio in my truck is my YAZUFTM five hundred.
Speaker 1: It's not currently powered on, but it is set to
Speaker 1: kcfive HWB Dash nine and it becons that every time
Speaker 1: I'm on a road trip. So I want that one
Speaker 1: to always be my truck radio. So I'm gonna set
Speaker 1: this one to ten KC five HWB DASH ten. I'm
Speaker 1: going to get a passcode, all right, get APRS password.
Speaker 1: You can use an APRSIS password that has been registered
Speaker 1: with other APRS applications. So when you register with the APRSIS,
Speaker 1: you were given a password. It should be an email somewhere.
Speaker 1: That's the password that you're going to want to put
Speaker 1: in here here is okay. I went back into my
Speaker 1: own email and found my own passcode, which is a
Speaker 1: five digit number, and if I click on verify passcode,
Speaker 1: it says the passcode is correct. So there we go.
Speaker 1: I get service was automatically toggled on. I did not
Speaker 1: toggle that on, so you can toggle that off and on.
Speaker 1: I'm going to change my server to North America, of course,
Speaker 1: and say radio to internet and Internet to radio, so
Speaker 1: you can you can go both ways. You can turn
Speaker 1: on one way direction or you can turn on duplex
Speaker 1: direction for a messaging and then you can do receive
Speaker 1: messages from the Internet. I'm going to turn everything on.
Speaker 1: Share location via iGATE send power well in operating frequency. No,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that. Share location via iGATE,
Speaker 1: Location source system select coordinates. Okay, so if I wanted
Speaker 1: to share so, I don't see a setting in here
Speaker 1: for ambiguity, which is usually like one or two digits off.
Speaker 1: You can set ambiguity in a lot of radios so
Speaker 1: that it reports your position a few miles away or
Speaker 1: on the next town over something, depend on how you
Speaker 1: set it. I don't see that. But what I can
Speaker 1: do is I can set location source here for select
Speaker 1: coordinates and just set it to if I wanted to
Speaker 1: set it to somewhere across town or set it to
Speaker 1: my mailbox address or something like that, I could do that. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do that right now, but that's how
Speaker 1: you do it. Okay, we can go interval five minutes
Speaker 1: and I don't see a setting in here for smart beaconing.
Speaker 1: Now it's not gonna really do anything. I guess I could.
Speaker 1: I guess I could turn this on because it's not
Speaker 1: gonna do anything because I'm connected. I got the radio
Speaker 1: connected to a dummy load right now. I set a
Speaker 1: minute ago, I didn't have an antenna hooked up, and
Speaker 1: I don't, but I do have a dummy load hooked up,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: click on that anyway, so I'm gonna save that really
Speaker 1: customizable in there. So that's what that's where we are
Speaker 1: on that. Let's see, this is the APRS map now
Speaker 1: that I've got my settings set up there. This is
Speaker 1: what it's seeing on the map currently, now that it's
Speaker 1: connected to the internet through my smartphone. It's not beaconing
Speaker 1: APRS over RF, not right now. Anyway. You can set
Speaker 1: it to do that, but you can also set it
Speaker 1: to use the five G connection on your phone to
Speaker 1: share your position, which makes it an eegate. So this
Speaker 1: is kind of a unique eyegate. Most igates will receive
Speaker 1: an RF signal. If you've got an APRS radio in
Speaker 1: your car and you're beacon in a signal a location
Speaker 1: report on one three ninety, an iGATE will be a
Speaker 1: radio on top of a tower or a building or something,
Speaker 1: and it will receive your beacon and it will transmit
Speaker 1: that information. Whatever you share via the beacon, you can
Speaker 1: set it up in the radio to the Internet and
Speaker 1: it will show up on the website at APRS dot
Speaker 1: f FI. This is doing the same thing, but kind
Speaker 1: of in a different manner. Is this is not transmitting
Speaker 1: our f at least it's not right now because it's
Speaker 1: in a dummi load. But you can see I am
Speaker 1: on this map right here. If you look on this
Speaker 1: map right there, you can see there's my call sign
Speaker 1: right right there is my call sign right there in Grapevine,
Speaker 1: right on the top of the Grapevine dot, which is
Speaker 1: where it should be up there on the north end
Speaker 1: of Grapevine. So it is sharing my location via the
Speaker 1: GPS radio, in the GPS radio inside of this mobile radio,
Speaker 1: and via the settings that I just set right here.
Speaker 1: So this is kind of this is going to be
Speaker 1: a neat thing to play with. I'm interested to see
Speaker 1: if anyone wants to set up and do a network
Speaker 1: connection and see if we can talk to one another
Speaker 1: over the network. And I'm interested to see if they
Speaker 1: eventually have a kiss T and C for this, although
Speaker 1: you might not need it because with the kiss T
Speaker 1: and C on the HT you can connect other apps
Speaker 1: besides just APRS to it, so you can connect wind
Speaker 1: Link to it. You can connect I can't think of
Speaker 1: anything else right now, but win Link an APRS, you know,
Speaker 1: are two different, two totally separate apps, and you can
Speaker 1: connect it and tell the radio to do whatever and
Speaker 1: connect to a win Link gateway or an APRS note
Speaker 1: or something like that. So this one, with all the
Speaker 1: steps we just went through just now, this is limited
Speaker 1: to APRS, but it's totally open, fully function APRS. So
Speaker 1: this is really cool. I want to send some messages
Speaker 1: over the internet see what kind of feedback we can
Speaker 1: get and that kind of thing. So how many of
Speaker 1: you are actually interested in this radio? I would like
Speaker 1: to see in the comments below how many are interested
Speaker 1: in this radio? What you think about this radio? What
Speaker 1: are some really cool things you want to try with
Speaker 1: this radio? Where would you put this? Would you put
Speaker 1: this in your shack or would you put this in
Speaker 1: your vehicle or would you put it in some kind
Speaker 1: of go kit that you would take to trips like
Speaker 1: to hamfests and whatnot. Or to camping campouts or something
Speaker 1: like that. Put a comment in the description below, thanks
Speaker 1: for watching today. Check out the links to the radio
Speaker 1: in the description below. Seventy three