Icom IC-705 Winlink Express Setup

Hello Operators
One of you asked for my Winlink Express settings for the IC-705. I’ll do a video on this soon, but for now, here are the Winlink side of the settings.


Assuming you have already installed the USB drivers from Icom, and have your 705 working in other apps eg WSJTX, JS8Call,… plug the 705 into your computer. You will see a “USB Con” icon at the top center-left of your Icom IC-705 display. If you don’t see it while your IC-705 and computer are powered up, the most likely problem is the quality of the USB cable. I use a USB 3.1 cable for Data & Charging. Just a note: The quality of your USB cable is very important!

Getting port info


Right click on your windows logo and select ‘device manager’. Open ports and check which port your 705 CI-V is assigned to. The CI-V port is for rig control and audio. The second Icom port is for GPS data. Note the CI-V comm port and settings, but don’t touch them.

Check your CI-V address.

Since Winlink Express doesn’t have the 705 in it’s list of supported rigs, the trick here is using the IC-7300, along with the correct address for your 705. By default the 705 uses 0xA4 as its address. Often that gets changed to 0x94 to mimic the IC-7300, from a rig control perspective. Choose the correct address for your 705.  It can be found in settings, connectors, CI-V, CI-V address.

Setting up Winlink Express

Next we open Winlink Express, choose our mode, and then ‘open session’. If you’re not prompted to setup a radio, select settings, then ‘radio setup’ from the session window.

Now simply enter the same settings you see above, mindyou yours could be a little different, eg CI-V address and comm port.

PTT Port Option
Select the same rig as you did above, then click update. You’ll get a warning about using the same comm port, but just accept it, ignoring the warning.

Audio device

Before starting,  remove all other USB audio devices from your machine. This will help reduce confusion, since very often external USB devices, identify themselves generically as “USB Audio CODEC”.



ARDOP Audio

In the ARDOP session settings, choose ARDOP TNC setup. Now select the ‘USB Audio CODEC’ sound card for capture and playback. You may need to come back to adjust the ‘drive level’ for clean ALC. For ARDOP, it’s  done here.
Now click update.


Vara HF Audio

Assuming you have followed the instructions to install the Vara HF modem add-on for Winlink Express, start a Vara HF session
For Vara HF you’ll need to go to settings in  Vara.exe. Choose USB Audio CODEC,  but remember you may need to come back and adjust the drive level, for clean ALC.

A note about ALC.

Some clever tools will tell us to drive that ALC hard so we can be heard. This is complete nonsense! I have found an ALC on the IC-705 between 1-10% of maximum to offer the cleanest signal we could want. Why is this important? Overdriving our signals makes it more difficult for the receiving station to decode. It also creates unnecessary heat in our rigs, and drives our finals harder than they need to be. Finally, it craps on other users of the band who now have to deal with a 500, 2300, or 2700hz signal, taking up 2000hz bandwidth on either side of their distorted signal. In contrast, a clean signal will give the receiving station a signal, which is much easier to decode. This means fewer connection issues, and a better Winlink experience over all.

73
Julian oh8stn

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