Icom’s CommandMicIII, and some (juvenile) electronics humor
So I spent a good part of my weekend wiring four different DSC radios to two plotters and a PC, and experimenting with some of the selective voice calling, position requesting, and caller plotting functions then possible. It turned out that the NMEA 0183 interfacing was relatively easy, and the DSC stuff worked pretty well, but there were some hassles. I’ll probably write several entries on this subject this week, but let me start with some comments on Icom’s new CommandMicIII.
It’s nice! Fully pictured here
, you can see how hunky it is (my hand is average size). That means a big, fine sounding speaker. And, while those small screen fonts are quite small, they are sharp. This remote mic will do everything the radio can do, including all the DSC (there’s a distress button on the back). I particularly like the “jog dial”, which alternately controls channel, volume, squelch, menu settings and more. In fact you might say I’m a knob guy; for instance, I think the ‘rotary’ controls on NavNet and Raymarine E/C machines are very desirable features. But, wait, I’ve way outgrown the dirty mind of a 12 year old boy. That’s why I didn’t really notice this finger photo until the finger owner made noise about it, and I didn’t even notice the giggly conjunction of VHF channel 69 and the word “pleasure” (Icom’s fortuitous label for this ‘recreational’ or ‘non-commercial’ channel), until I saw the photo above. Honest.
I wonder if this is going to work with the M602 as well. The ICOM site is not clear about this at all and the manual is nowhere to be found. The CommandMic II did not allow access to hailer, fog horn, or DSC. Maybe I’m hoping for too much for them to make it work with other radios as well. When I bought the CommandMic II, the box and the ICOM web site said it controled all radio features. I see the web site now has a disclaimer for these featuers that it actaully cannot control.
Dave, Thanks for bringing this up. I think the III only works with new M504, and to some degree I’m taking Icom’s word that it controls ‘everything’. It definitely does all the DSC functions, and the single big sheet ‘manual’ shows it running hailer and fog horn.
Yes the COMMAND MIC III only controls the M504.
— James
at the Miami show i asked one of the Icom engineers (not just a salesdroid) and he said emphatically that CMD3 supports only the 504. i expressed considerable displeasure that it didn’t support their flagship VHF radio. he replied that my comments were being repeated with great frequency by other booth visitors and that the engineers were taking the reports back to Them What Decide Such Things.
i also asked about the IC-M801 which runs on 24VDC and is available only outside the US for some insane reason.
Dave, the M602 has been replaced by the M604. The new M604 works with the same CommandMicIII as the M504.
Every generation of Icom VHF radio’s have their own generation of CommandMic’s (CommandMicII was used with the M602 and M502)