Remote Control Panel for ICOM IC-M710

The IC-M710 is a rugged transceiver built for its purpose. Though it covers the whole HF band, it is not intended for use by a radio amateur. The user interface being its weakest point (for a Ham). The features that are sorely missed by a Ham being:

• A Tuning dial - a true VFO tuning dial is missing.
• A real CAT interface.
• A headphone jack

For the last couple of weeks I was pondering over the idea of having a remote control unit that will address the above limitations. Also with the additional features:

• A remote panel that can be used as a face plate for mobile operations.
• Band selection, tuner commands
• Rotator control
• Frequency memories
• RIT
• CW keyer

Update 13/3/2017
1st prototype finished, can go remote on/off, VFO A/B, step size changes, delayed TX freq set, etc.

Clone cable for Icom M710 radio

The cloning is done by the software supplied by Icom called ex1726. This is a program written for MS-DOS. Works on Windows 7 without any problems. However, it needs a true serial port - i.e. no USB-RS232 converters. I tried with different makes but did not succeed.

I made the cable for the radio and the schematic is as above. I used a separate power supply for the MAX232 to reduce the component count. It may be cumbersome as there will be lot of cables running around, but I could live with it as, cloning is not something you do daily.