IC-R8600

Some things about the IC-R8600 Receiver that might be helpful as you learn this new radio.

• Plugging and unplugging cables during the data transfer process can cause the transfer to fail. If you must adjust cables, wait until the transfer finishes. If Communications | Get data from or Send data to fails, the USB cable must be unplugged from the radio before trying the process again. It's as if a buffer gets "clogged" in the failure and emptied only when the cable is removed.
   
• When you build the spread sheet of memory channels for the radio you might be tempted to put "blanks" for readability. This radio, however, cannot tolerate those blanks. When the file is sent to the radio, the blanks will be removed. When you turn the knob on the radio to change between memory channels or if you do Communications | Get data from radio into a new file, you will see that the blanks are gone.... it's just how the radio works.
   
• After you program the radio with the file from the WCS-R8600 programmer, the radio will return to VFO mode. The VFO indication to the right of the frequency display confirms this. Press the V/M key to access memory mode "MEMO" will appear on the face of the radio to let you know that you are now in memory mode. Then turn Dial C to step through the memory channels in that group (the small numbers to the left of the memory channel number).
    
• To access another memory group, press the GPR button on the face of the radio repeatedly to step through the groups. Now, you can skip lines in the program if you are arranging your memories into different groups. The groups will not be compressed into each other (just the memories within a group).
    
• Using Program Scan can be a little tricky. You can see the memories if you select P: P-Scan Edge from the groups list, however, you cannot use them from there. To access Program Scan limits, press Scan, then select PROG. Press Stop to stop scanning. Press Select on the touch screen then turn the tuning knob clockwise to move through the scan limits.
    
• The default file for this unit seems a little strange with repeating 2-meter frequencies in the first 5 memory channels of Group 0 with 144.000 - 146.000 in all the P-Scan Edge channels. This is normal for the unit. Any of these values can be changed.