[CQ-Contest] IC7800 -

[VR2BrettGraham]

K1EP suggested a possible way to do diversity reception with the IC7800:

>Icom radios using the CI-V bus in the past could always be linked.  I 
>wonder if that could be done through the CI-V?  Probably not, as the 
>individual receivers don't have separate addresses and there is only one 
>CI-V per 7800.

Slaving two radios has been possible with all the ICOMs with native CI-V 
support that
I've seen.  Such slaving is also possible with the CI-V module for ICOMs 
that came
out before CI-V was introduced.

In ICOM-speak, that's "transceive" - the same thing that can muck up 
logging programs
as it makes the rig generate data on the CI-V bus when the operator does 
something
to the rig like spin the VFO knob.

My memory is fading, as all my ICOMs are dead & are from the early days of 
CI-V,
but later rigs allow one to set the CI-V address as one wishes, so the 
problem I see
in slaving two 7800s is more financial than technical.

If the 7800 CI-V's implementation doesn't support the 4-byte frequency 
format used
only on the 735, then in theory one could use something like a 751A to 
address the
financial aspect (just watch out for the 751A or other rig being set for 
4-byte mode).

Since Ten-Tec uses CI-V commands, it might be possible to use an OMNI-6, too.

But the biggest problem with this workaround is that one would loose the 
ability to
have a logging program interfaced with the radio, as I believe nobody has added
support for CI-V used as a bus (requires implementation of CDMA/CD in the 
logging
program - yuck ;^).

73, VR2BrettGraham