Kenwood TH-F6A monitoring the HamSat Repeaters?!?!?!

[spdfile1]

So I purchased the Kenwood TH-F6A last week and played with it a little bit. I think I might have a little problem?!?!?!? I believe I will not be able to use it to communicate via the hamsats cross-band repeaters such as AO-51,AO-27,etc?!?!? I noticed that when I tried to enter the cross-band pair for the ISS station (145.800/437.800) it would not accept it. I looked at the owners manual again and saw that the receive & transmit have to be on the same band?!?!?!? Well that sucks a bit. My Yaesu VX-5R can do it. I then figured that I could devote one channel for the uplink and 5 channels for the downlink (due to the dopplar effect), but realized that wouldn't work because I would need to be on the downlink frequency to have the squelch turned up but would also need to be on the uplink to transmit. I hope somebody can tell me that I'm missing something!!!! If not than I will just have to use the VX-5R for the hamsat repeaters and use the TH-F6A for getting the telemetry (CW/SSW) sats. Oh by the way I have the Arrow antenna that I'm using.

 

[bryan_herbert]

The only real way is to put the radio in dual VFO mode and set VFO A to VHF and VFO B to UHF.

 

[spdfile1]

The only real way is to put the radio in dual VFO mode and set VFO A to VHF and VFO B to UHF.

Yeah that is what I've been doing. I love the radio and don't regret I got it, but wasn't expecting that. Oh well at least I got the Yaesu.

 

[JeremyB]

It only takes one more memory slot per satellite. I have the FM sats programmed in as AO-51a- AO-51e for doppler correction on the downlink and AO-51TX for the uplink.

It must be a kenwood thing even the TH-D72 works that way, but with the SMC-33 mic you can program the 3 buttons on the mic to do A/B and memory up and down

 

[spdfile1]

It only takes one more memory slot per satellite. I have the FM sats programmed in as AO-51a- AO-51e for doppler correction on the downlink and AO-51TX for the uplink.

It must be a kenwood thing even the TH-D72 works that way, but with the SMC-33 mic you can program the 3 buttons on the mic to do A/B and memory up and down

Jeremy,
Really!!!! I was not going to get any of the three speaker mics because I did not like how they look, but I may have to rethink. Thanks for the info!!!!!

 

[JeremyB]

Jeremy,
Really!!!! I was not going to get any of the three speaker mics because I did not like how they look, but I may have to rethink. Thanks for the info!!!!!

Works nicely. It's on page 38 of the manual. By default, button 1 is A/B. To program the other two buttons, you have to have the radio off and press/hold the speaker/mic button you want to program and then power on the radio and then use the button/function you want to progam the mic button to use. The thing I didn't like about the mic is that is has a 2.5mm headphone jack instead of a 3.5mm