Icom America Inc.

In this issue:
SEAFAIR 2004: Annual hydroplane event relies on Icom equipment Long Range F50 Portable Radio Test Is a Huge Success! NEW RADIO: F33G Series Sets New Industry Standard TECH CORNER: How To Make 2-Tone Signaling Work for You

November 2004, Volume 1, Issue 1

SEAFAIR 2004
Annual hydroplane event relies on Icom equipment
SEAFAIR is a summer long series of community events that takes place each summer throughout the Puget Sound region in Washington state. The grand finale is the hydroplane race and the air show, which occurs the first week of August every year on Lake Washington. This single event draws over 300,000 visitors every year, and relies on more than 2000 volunteers. In order for this event to take place safely, three miles of the beach area and several square miles of Lake Washington are restricted or closed for up to a week. This is a huge undertaking and Icom provides the 2-way radio communications that allow both staff and volunteers to coordinate all of the activities on land, on water, and in the air.
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Long Range F50 Portable Radio Test Is a Huge Success!

By Jim Longnecker, Sales Representative for Icom America

As a former volunteer fireman, I try to show the new F50 portable radio to every fire department in my territory. I showcase both the waterproof capability and the fact that this tiny, full-featured radio also makes an excellent fire pager. Working from my home in Grass Valley, California, I was programming a demonstration radio for the Glenn County Fire Department. After completing the programming, I keyed the radio on the Glenn County repeater channels. To my surprise, this 5-watt portable easily opened both
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Call Icom America today: 800.USA.ICOM

All departments open 7:00 AM 5:00 PM Pacific time, unless stated otherwise
2004 Icom America Inc. The Icom logo is a registered trademark of Icom Inc. All other trademarks remain the property of their respective owners. All information and specifications subject to change without notice or obligation.

Customer Service and Orders: Parts Department: Technical Support: Literature Request: - 24 hour online lit request form:

sales@icomamerica.com parts@icomamerica.com (open 8:00 AM) landmobile@icomamerica.com literature@icomamerica.com www.icomamerica.com/dealersonly

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Meet your Icom Team

F50 Portable Radio Test

repeaters, each nearly 100 air miles from my home. Grass Valley is some 2500 feet higher than the central valley floor where Glenn County is located, giving a good height advantage for the signal. I called Willows Fire Chief Randall Toews on the telephone and asked permission to do a radio check. We spoke on each channel for a few moments, and it was as clear as if we were within a mile or two from each other. After completing the test, I set the radio to pager mode, with the audio muted.

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A few minutes later, the alert tone sounded, with Glenn County Fire dispatched to a wildland fire. Chief Toews called me on the telephone shortly after and confirmed the alert had been received. After I delivered the radio for the demonstration, the Chief kept it for a few days and then let key members of his department compare it to using the pagers they had previously used. The F50 performed excellently as a pager substitute. It is nearly as small, no more expensive, far more versatile, and it also excelled as a fire ground radio. The Glenn County Fire Department is so pleased with it, they are preparing to order a number of them.

Sharon Damron, member of the Icom America Customer Service team

Sharon started her adventure at Icom America as our Corporate Receptionist in June of 1986. She has always loved helping people, and in 1989 she accepted a position with Customer Service. She takes pride in helping our dealers, end users, and salespeople. Over the years, Sharon has memorized many accessory names and numbers. With hundreds (or more) of different accessories, that's quite a feat! Such knowledge helps her enter orders quickly and better assist you!

SEAFAIR 2004 Continued from page 1

Over 300 portable, base, and mobile radios are issued to ensure that all SEAFAIR functions run smoothly. For the landside functions, Icom radios are used for security, grounds keeping, roving medical teams, pit operations, hospitality, parking, and at the admissions gates. For lakeside functions, Icom radios are used by shore patrol, course management, log boom patrol (where party boats gather to observe), dive teams, and the rescue/medical teams. For the air show, Icom also provides A110 and A4 airband radios for the FAA-authorized Air Traffic control center that is set up just for this event. For the 2004 SEAFAIR hydroplane/air show event, Icom set up a 5-channel LTR system that was constructed by combining FR4000 repeaters with Trident Microsystems LTR controllers. Approximately 300 F4TR portable radios, along with a half dozen F621TR base/mobiles were loaded onto this system using approximately 30 talk groups. This allowed the many different user talk groups to share 5 UHF channel pairs. This system enabled SEAFAIR staff and volunteers to do their job better by providing an integrated communications system that meets the wide variety of needs for all who work in support of this event on land, on water, and in the air.

The unlimited-class hydroplanes run at speeds in excess of 210 mph on Seattle's Lake Washington course.

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New Radio: F33G Series Sets New Industry Standard for

Features, Construction, and Performance
After extensive market research and development, Icom America is proud to introduce the F33G (VHF) / F43G (UHF) Series, a portable radio that is smaller and more powerful than many in its niche. The radios come with a full keypad (GT) or a limited keypad (GS). With the ease of function that has made the F3G radios a favorite, the F33G offers even more features. The F33G has the ability to tune splinter frequencies (2.5/3.125kHz channel steps), 256 channels, wide bandwidth (up to 70 MHz, depending on version), 10 channels on 2-tone, BIIS compatibility, and 14-segment 8-character display on the LCD screen. The series comes standard with a long lasting, powerful Li-ion battery. The battery snugly and surely secures to the radio via a dual-rail support system thats cast as part of the radios one-piece, aluminum chassis. All of these features come in a rugged body that is 17% smaller and 27% lighter than the Icom F3G radios. The F33G also has a complete compliment of accessories, including a wide variety of antennas, microphones, batteries, headsets and clips. Call your Icom representative today for more information.

From the Field

SSG J. A. Koehler, US Army Mosul, Iraq "I was able to manually pull the frequencies off the handhelds and enter them into the base station through the programming software. Thank you, your customer support is awesome.

TECH CORNER
How To Make 2-Tone Signaling Work for You
When you use a Land Mobile radio, its easy to program a frequency. The problem is, anyone on that same frequency can listen to the transmission. You can make transmissions more selective by adding a toneeither a CTCSS tone, or a digital tone. For example, if you have a radio that is transmitting at 451.025 MHz, you can add a tone on top of it. Then, anyone receiving the signal must satisfy both the frequency and the specific tone. To make a transmission even more selective, you can program a specific frequency, a tone, and a 2 tone. Most Icom radios have a 2-tone selective calling system in their programming. 2tone signaling depends on a radio being programmed to accept 2 specific tone frequencies between 250 and 3300 Hz before it will open up audio. Each tone must be a specific frequency, and there must be greater than 3 percent spacing between them. In addition, each tone must be a certain length of time. For example, the first tone could be at .5 seconds, and the second tone could be at .75 seconds. To program your radio to properly respond to a two-tone page, you must know what tones are being generated by the originator of the page or selective call, such as a central dispatch center. When you know what the dispatch is sending, you can program your radio accordingly. You must know both the frequencies, and the amount of time between frequencies, in order to program for 2-tone signaling. For more information, see your radios programming manual, or the Help screens in the programming software.

Accessory of the Month

New Stubby Antenna Available for the Icom F50 series and most other portables.

Icom now carries stubby antennas for most of its portable radios! These small antennas do the job, and dont get in the way as you perform daily tasks.

For People Who Make Smart Choices