F-4400 DS Ham band?

[Danny37]

442...please elaborate. I believe you, but haven't found a way to dip into the ham band. I indeed see that the F7010 is built on the same chassis and probably share many hardware components.

The radio already has a wideband license (which I have tested) so I'm good as far as 25 khz bandwidth for analog.

Are you literally just entering the hammy stuff with no other intervention? Does the cloning software give a warning about model number etc? On my Kenwood upper split radios I get the warning prompt about frequencies being out of range, but I just hit ENTER again and they are accepted.

I can enter 44x.0 frequencies and dump them into the radio. However after re-boot and power up when I switch to those channels I get a rapid red/green flash on the led status light. Icom lists this status pattern as "programming error". No tx or rx. Then I switch to any of my 450 mhz and above channels and it acts as normal.

Keep in mind I have easily loaded out of band UHF ham stuff in older legacy Icom UHF gear with no issue.

Have you had any luck with this? I'm trying to do the same thing as you but in the F52D and I'm getting same flashing error. I gave up awhile back but happened to come across your thread.

 

[tunnelmot]

Hey Danny37.

No luck. I am beginning to think there is no solution. I know some of the other mfr's band splits are really locked down (whether due to actual hardware limitations or due to coding) and this may be the case here. I have tried the "usual" tricks to no avail. I have a feeling that if someone sharper than me hex-edited the codeplug, then double checked the checksum (and maybe some other unknown parameters) it should work. But that's above my paygrade and I really don't want to brick this radio. Icoms and Kenwoods are notorious for easily dipping into the hammy portion of UHF with little problems. This being a current gen radio, I just don't think there has been much (if any) bit banging or other shenanigans in this particular line.

I make great use out of 450mhz and up. It'd just be cool if I could also play NXDN/Analog in the ham band as a bonus.

 

[Danny37]

Hey Danny37.

No luck. I am beginning to think there is no solution. I know some of the other mfr's band splits are really locked down (whether due to actual hardware limitations or due to coding) and this may be the case here. I have tried the "usual" tricks to no avail. I have a feeling that if someone sharper than me hex-edited the codeplug, then double checked the checksum (and maybe some other unknown parameters) it should work. But that's above my paygrade and I really don't want to brick this radio. Icoms and Kenwoods are notorious for easily dipping into the hammy portion of UHF with little problems. This being a current gen radio, I just don't think there has been much (if any) bit banging or other shenanigans in this particular line.

I make great use out of 450mhz and up. It'd just be cool if I could also play NXDN/Analog in the ham band as a bonus.

That's a bummer. I figured it must be something on the main board that's hardwired to prevent OOB. I wish there was more icom users out there but I guess we are a niche group lol.

 

[merlin]

Only issue I know is that bandsplit is about the limit it will go down to amateur. It may take some tweaking to get the PLL to lock, and the PA should be tuned down. That reduces PA current and increases power in the 440 range.
Most of the legasy Icom I have fiddled with go down to at least 440 with little or no tuning involved.
Cheers

 

[merlin]

Yeah I had hoped it would take the hammy freqs similar to Kenwood ( the double enter trick). After loading 446 simplex in a test zone, the radio's led status light flashes a fast green/red pattern so it doesn't like it. Just don't know if this will be a keyboard trick, a hex edit type thing, or forcing a different model number type situation. I've always wanted to play with this series of radios since they first released and I FINALLY struck a slamming deal on a 450-512 model I couldn't pass up. The in band stuff including NXDN is working like a champ.

Look up the error code, it may be the PLL out of lock. A tweak on the VCOs will fix that. Just far enough to get lock on desired frequencies or you could kill the higher frequencies you use for monitoring or GMRS.

 

[tunnelmot]

Merlin, you are correct. But this thing won't even take 449.995. So I am trying to figure out the software limitation.