Two new Icom D-Star radios

I think that I first read about them a couple of weeks ago on someone else's blog. For the most part, information was only available on Icom's Japanese website and had to be translated to English. Now Universal Radio has pages dedicated to each one. The two new radios are the ID-80AD handie-talkie and the ID-880H mobile. I wonder if these will replace the ID-91AD, and ID-800H respectively. We will find out. I also wonder if Kenwood and Yaesu will continue to stay out of the D-Star game. Naturally, I'll be looking at their exhibits at the upcoming Dayton Hamvention.

I'm happy with my Icom IC-92AD HT and my IC-2820H mobile. I have made a few contacts through the Columbus, Ohio W8DIG 2-meter repeater. The W8DIG repeater system, however, is fairly low profile and I have difficulty hitting it from home. It's usually when I am out and about that I make contacts. I am somewhat disappointed in the D-Star network as a whole. One of the prime benefits of D-Star is the ability to interlink D-Star systems. So far, it appears that many systems are not interlinked. I believe that in order to be interlinked, it has to be registered with the Trust Server. W8DIG is not currently registered. It is possible to make a contact on the D-Star repeater and have your information show up on Dstarusers.org. The other problem that I am having is seeing my position information show up. I have the HM-175GPS speaker-mic, and I am fairly confident that I have the radio properly configured for sending the position information so that the APRS network can pick it up, but the IC-92AD is not showing up; only my TM-D710A station. Perhaps it is time to send an email to the W8DIG trustee to see what is going on and offer my assistance.

73,
Ned