IC-705 WLan Settings

When most people hear the words "Access Point" they think about the little box in their closet which broadcasts a Wi-Fi signal to their mobile devices.

This is accurate and correct. That device is indeed called an Access Point. If you read the Basic Manual for the IC-705 they frequently refer to various parameters of your Access Point that you need to enter in order to connect the radio up to your Wi-Fi.

Take this excerpt from page 8-20 of the Basic Manual for example:

Lots of mentions of "Access Point." 

There's a big point of confusion that we have noticed however, and we wanted to take some time to explain things as we understand them to be. 

You see the 705 has a feature that Icom calls "Access Point mode." You'll barely find it mentioned in the radio's basic manual but, if you break open the Advanced Manual, you'll find it discussed in great detail. Here's a sneak peak from page 15-2 of the Advanced Manual:

The confusion arises when customers look at the "Radio Menu Settings" portion of their RT Systems IC-705 programmer. In the WLan tab you can find "Access Point Settings" which we've highlighted in green below as well as "WLAN Set" which we've highlighted in blue.

We are finding that many customers are mistaking these settings for Wi-Fi connection settings. They ARE NOT! The "Access Point Settings" are related to the radio's "Access Point Mode" and the "WLan Set" options are generic settings for turning Wi-Fi on/off (WLAN), changing the name that the 705 will appear as on your network (Network Name), and for changing between "Station" and "Access Point" modes (WLAN Connection Type.) 

To the best of our understanding, the 705 CANNOT be set up for a specific Wi-Fi network via software at all. That setup must be done through the radio's front panel. This is just how the radio works. Icom's factory software shares the same limitation. 

While we can only guess as to why this is, we imagine that this has something to do with protecting your privacy. If you can send the data (your Wi-Fi password) in with software, then someone could get ahold of your radio and pull the data back out as well. Again though, just a guess. Only Icom could answer definitively. 

Remember, RT Systems software cannot make a radio do something that the manufacturer didn't design it to do. We just work with what they give us.