BestPractice2

Setting up an Icom IC-736 with the microHAM USB Interface II

This article is a step by step approach describing how to set up an Icom IC-736 and a microHAM USB II Interface. In the end, we will be using PTT, CW keying and transceiver control.

Icom IC-736 settings

• Press and hold the FREQ-INP and ENT keys while you power on the radio. This will allow you to set up some important parameters of your radio.
• Select menu item 12 and make sure the setting is at 44h, the default address for this radio.
• Select menu item 13 and change the setting to 1200 if necessary. This selects 1200 Baud data rate.
• Select menu item 14 and change the setting to On if necessary. This selects the CI-V mode.
• Select menu item 15 and change the setting to Off. This sets the data length to five bytes.
• Now power off the radio to exit the menu. After that, power it back on.

microHAM USB Interface II

• Make sure you have read the user manual and configured the microHAM Interface for Icom using the internal jumpers.
• Connect the microHAM USB Interface II to your radio and computer.
  • On the radio side there will be three connections: CW, Remote and ACC1.
  • On the computer side there will be three connections: USB, Line-out and Line-in (or microphone).
• Install the microHAM software if you haven't done so already. There are two steps to it:
  • Installing the device driver - if you have several microHAM devices you will have to do this once for each of them.
  • Installing the USB Device Router - this software only needs to be installed once. It is identical on all microHAM products.

mircoHAM USB Device Router

• Set up the Device Router
• Create two virtual COM ports. Don't try to use same port for radio control PTT/CW/FSK switching - use two different ones, like COM5 and COM6
  • Configure the Radio on COM5
  • Configure CW on COM6 DTR
  • Configure PTT on COM6 RTS
  • SQL is not needed
• Testing
  • Press the Test button on the PTT line. The radio should switch to transmit.
  • Press the Test button on the CW line. The sidetone should be audible now.

Win-Test

• Start up Win-Test, create a new Win-Test file for testing.
• Go to the Configures Interfaces Menu.
  • Configure COM5 for Radio1 at 1200 Baud, 8-N-1.
  • Configure COM6 as Other Interface... and select CW on the DTR line and PTT on the RTS line.
  • In the lower left corner of the interfaces configuration menu, select IC-736 as Radio 1 and tick the Use CI-V Interface option. The Don´t Poll option will be greyed out automatically.
  • Exit the Configure Interfaces menu by pressing the OK button.
• Testing
  • Test radio control by entering a frequency in the callsign field. The radio should jump to that frequency.
  • Open up the Band Map (Radio 1 Window) in Win-Test and tune the VFO. Watch the center of the band map move along with the frequency.
  • Press [F1] (radio set to CW) and listen to the CQ message.

We are now ready to operate the contest.

See also

• The Icom IC-736 manual
• The microHAM Web Pages containing a link to the PDF version of the manual