Posted: 9/11/2016 11:19:03 AM EDT
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I was a little hesitant to get into icom gear. I have a whole station of Kenwood gear and have never had any issues with any of it. When I went to put an HF mobile in my truck I settled on the IC7100 because it had all the features that I wanted in one package. Kenwood doesn't make and all band all mode mobile radio so I had to break my brand loyalty. I have said before the IC7100 is done right, the touch interface is a huge change and really makes a difference. However this post isn't about that radio.
This post covers the new (to me) ID-51a plus. With the plus 2 coming out soon (adds DVAP mode to HT) retailers are trying to move their stock of 51a plus radios. Deals are getting really good. I got mine at a ham fest new from a retailer for $229. HRO has them on sale too. However be careful the $50 mail in rebate does not apply to the anniversary model. When I got the radio I was able to put in freqs and save them to memory pretty easy. Basic usage is good to go. Where I was taken back was the micro SD card. I stuck one in the radio and saved the settings to the radio. Then I downloaded the Icom cloning software here. Put the sd card in the computer and select it with the cs51 software. Once you have settings setup the way you want go to http://www.dstarinfo.com/RepeaterDownloads.aspx and download the repeater database. It is saved as a csv file. After it is downloaded save it to the repeater folder on the SD card. When you are done you can search repeaters in the area based on GPS location for both FM and DV. Finally we can do this 
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