HELP: My TH-D74A Radio Won’t Go into DV Mode

Well, not MY TH-D74A, but that was a problem a friend was having with his new Kenwood TH-D74A radio.  He could NOT select a memory channel programmed to DSTAR (Kenwood calls that DV for Digital Voice, or DR for Digital Repeater).  Also he could not use the “MODE” button (one of the buttons on the keypad) to select DV.  It would cycle through FM, AM, USB, LSB, CW, and back to FM).

Calls to Kenwood were not productive:  “If you press the MODE button it will allow you to select DV”, followed by “No I know of no reason why DV isn’t showing up as a choice on your radio.  It has to be there.”  And the Yahoo group was full of good suggestions, but none of them fixed the issue.

My friend knew it COULD work, because it did work briefly — he was able to select MODE DV, or pick a DSTAR memory channel, but that happened after hours (and I mean like 12 solid hours) of “lets try this” button pushing.

It isn’t my radio, so that made life quite difficult, and it’s a long drive to his house and back.  I finally downloaded the manual and read the DSTAR and Memory Channel sections of the book from end-to-end and there was absolutely NOTHING in there to describe the problem.  So I read the entire manual (did I mention it was for a radio I do NOT own?  How many people read the manual for radios they DO own?).  Finally I found three little notes at the end of a unrelated chapter.  One of them said “The radio may be in DV Mode in Band A or Band B but not both”.

Like many radios, the TH-D74A can be configured to monitor two frequencies at the same time.  These two monitored frequencies, for reasons beyond my understanding, are called “BANDS” — Band A, and Band B.  Band A might be tuned to a 70 cm repeater, and Band B might be tuned to a 2 meter repeater.  You will hear both repeaters through the speaker, and will transmit to whichever band you are currently set to (A or B).

Unlike Icom, which also has this dual monitor function, Kenwood does not support the ability to have Band A set to a DSTAR repeater and Band B set to a different DSTAR repeater.  It can only handle one DV connection.  that’s what that fine print note meant.  You can set Band A to DV or Band B to DV, but BOTH A and B can’t be set to DV.

Well it’s easy to understand the limitation (maybe the Icom rigs have two CODEC chips installed), but to understand the implication of what that means to a user is a difficult thing.  In Kenwood TH-D74A world, that means that if Band B is set to DV, and you select Band A as the active one, then the MODE button can’t select DV, and the selector knob on top of the radio can’t select a DSTAR channel.  As a comic once said, “that’s BDONG (Bad/wrong)”.  The user is clearly trying to activate Band A, so why does a setting in Band B continue to take precedence — shut down Band B for heaven’s sake or do something else clever, but don’t be stupid and lock out DV from Band A).

Unfortunately Kenwood support folks don’t understand that, so when my friend called them and said, “HELP, my Kenwood TH-D74A won’t go into DV mode” the support folks were unable to help him — they just insisted that the Mode and Channel selector SHOULD work.  That lead to two very frustrated hams (my friend and myself) being left to figure out how the radio actually worked.

I will give Kenwood props up for a pretty good speech synthesizer — my friend is blind and it’s important for the radio to speak to help him walk through menus.  But even that is only partially implemented in the TH-D74A.  We discovered the synthesizer stops speaking and doesn’t guide the user through anything to do with microSD card.

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10 Responses to HELP: My TH-D74A Radio Won’t Go into DV Mode

  1. Steve says:

    You never stated if (and how) you were able to turn off the mode of the band that was set to DStar!?

    Anyway, I’m having a not-dissimilar problem.

    I have DStar set for Band A and am trying to set up a normal repeater operation for Band B and when it comes time to enter the PL tone, I can’t get the radio to respond to my pressing the [TONE] button.

    After reading your posting, I am thinking that I, somehow, have to turn off DStar all together and then try setting up my repeater mode for Band B!?

    I guess I’ll just have to keep trying different ideas…

    • robert says:

      Hey Steve,

      To get rid of the blocked DSTAR, switch to the Band that is in DSTAR mode and press the mode button and select something other than DV or DR. So if you find yourself like I did, Band B was set to DV — simply change it to something like FM and you are all set.

      73, Bob

  2. As for setting the CTCSS freq…are you having trouble turning that on (with the 8 key), or are you having trouble setting You an’t set unless it’s set to either “Tone” or “CTCSS’. Never used DCS or cross tone. Also, of course if you’re in DV or DR mode, you can’t set a tone.

    Anyway…I’m also blind and, apparently, too stupid to use DSTAR. The manual is written in slightly better Engrish than other radio manuals I’ve read recently, but just slightly better, and sadly, not the important bits. Setting up to work with a new MMDVM hotspot, and getting nowhere fast.

    BTW, yes, the spoken output is pretty good, certainly on par with other Kenwood radios, and the best available for an HT. The only other ones that talk are:
    * Cheap Chinese of virtually any brand: limited voice feedback, and my favorite so far is hard to get anymore, though there are a few that are easy enough to work with; and
    * Icom ID31/51 and variants: haven’t had my hands on one, but understanding is that voice feedback is even more limited, and ***NO KEYPAD***!!! So relatively few workarounds if you ask me, which you didn’t. So…this is our best bet for the moment. Although, if you want to play with DMR, the MD380 has experimental firmware that outputs quite a lot in morse. …

  3. ANDREW M DAVIES says:

    Ok, so I think I had the same problem with mine. I have band A set to aprs and band b for voice.

    In order to use Dstar on band B, I have to select vfo, then digital and voila! I can access everything in the digital menu and set up.

    I am a very new ham, having been licensed for less than a year so please excuse me if this is elementary but this worked for me. There definitely needs to be a rewrite of the manual to include simple things like this.

  4. Michael Brodeur says:

    Hi, I am unable to toggle between DV and DR mode. On the Digital Function menu it will not let me toggle to “DV/DR” with arrows. I am in VFO mode. Any thoughts? Thank yo, Mike N2NSL

  5. Charlie S says:

    This radio is a cluster. It’s great when you can figure it out but it is examples like this which almost has me throwing it out the window at times.

    • Bob Beatty says:

      It certainly is complicated, but it is far from unique in being difficult to use. There was a time, back in the 1980/1990s, when radios were pretty simple and easy to use. There were few options, and no spurious bells/whistles, so the user interface was clean and understandable. With the advent of microcontrollers, all the ham vendors have tossed in everything including the kitchen sink in order to catch the attention of some ham with money to spend. So, yep, the D74 is a complex beast.

      I marvel at my original FT-101F, the first “professional” radio I purchased back in the 1970s. It too was easy to use. A FTDX-101MP sits on my bench these days, and it runs rings around any radio I’ve ever owned (including my beloved Elecraft K3). But it is murderously difficult to learn how to use. Such is the cost of progress.

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