On Thursday night my Icom IC-91AD arrived from Ham Radio Outlet in Delaware. After speaking with a few local hams, Dave, K3GMT and Ken, N3IYX I decided to go the D-Star route. Just in the last 3 weeks at least 3 club members started playing around on the local D-Star repeater, W3OI. I decided to go with the 91AD over the 92 for a few different reasons.

1) The price. $200 more for an HT is a bit much.

2) GPS speaker mic. I don’t really see myself needing a $300 microphone for an HT. I’m guessing there is a cheaper version without the GPS functionality.

3) Submersibility. Is that a word? I don’t think I’m worried about dropping it in a lake and if I am, the probability of using D-Star where such lake would exist will most likely be remote. 

The one thing I do like about the 92 is the power output flexibility. Although the 91 does make it simple. Low is .5 watts and high is 5 watts. This leaves another brain cycle to concentrate on D-Star signal routing.

After 2 days with the new mode, I’m finding it both fun and frustrating at the same time. Our local region currently has only 1 repeater, which is more than most places have. Philadelphia has 2 on the outside of town, which I was unable to get into either one today. Our repeater in Allentown is at the tail end of the “testing” phase, with the current antenna only being 30 feet off the ground running at minimal capabilities. Once the antenna and pre-amps get in place, coverage is going to be phenomenal and more worthwhile to the D-Star HT owners. The mobiles seem to be doing ok and those of us with HT’s at home tend to hook up to our rooftop antennas.

Today we made a road trip down to the Newcastle, DE to HRO to pick up a few odds and ends. BTW, don’t bother buying the Icom folding headset (can’t remember the model number). First off the headset band is too big all the way at it’s smallest adjustment, and the ear phone hangs off of the headset like an iPod ear bud. Highly uncomfortable and hardly worth the $60 asking price. After 5 minutes in the parking lot I promptly returned it for an Icom speaker mic, which doesn’t have quite the audio output I would’ve expected but was $20 cheaper. I also picked up a Diamond SRH77CA antenna for the 91AD, looking for a little edge over the stock antenna. It measures double the length of the stock rubberduck, but I haven’t really completed a comparison.

After arriving home this afternoon I happened to hear a JA station (Japan) call CQ through the gateway. His audio was flawless and full quieting, unlike me who was having a hard time making the repeater on a rubberduck antenna.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I think it’s a much needed boost that the local bands need. And if you’re a D-Star user, try giving me a shout, I’m usually on W3OI-C.

73

-jeff  N3QO (still getting used to that one).