I’ve commented a few times about a young ham that I spent about 18 months getting ready for his Technician License. This was a bit more difficult journey due to Ryan being blind. After a year of being on the air, the ham radio bug has bitten him full force, and he is now an excellent Phone Contest Operator. The best news is that we are about half way through his General License.
As difficult as passing the exam was for Ryan, it is painful to see how absolutely horrible modern radio gear is to operate, when you put yourself in the shoes of a blind person. While Kenwood does a reasonable job on some of their radios, I have to say that Icom should be the poster boy of how NOT to do things (as a sighted ham, I am a big fan of Icom gear and use several of their radios daily).
To expand Ryan’s horizons beyond local repeaters, he really wanted a DSTAR radio for Christmas. In order to have a RF solution that can reach the local DSTAR repeater, that meant something more powerful than the Kenwood THD74 (which I’ve helped another blind ham use). Ryan was given an Icom ID-5100A for Christmas.
One would think that the presence of a “Speech” button on the front panel meant that Icom had thought things through. Sadly that isn’t the case at all. The radio will announce the frequency of the active VFO or memory channel, and the mode (FM or DV – sometimes), but nothing more (although it will announce a call sign if you are in the DR mode, which can’t be used by a sightless ham). Really?
How is a blind ham supposed to move through dozens of repeater channels by frequency alone? The speech module can clearly read any text phonetically. Why not announce a channel NUMBER and call sign/location? It should have been possible.
My biggest concern is the large front panel touch screen. Accidentally brushing up against that screen can drive you into a menu system that a sightless ham cannot navigate at all (as the backup button appears in different locations on the screen). Fortunately, for the most part, you can get back to someplace reasonable by cycling power (not an optimal approach)
More horrifying is the “DR” Digital Repeater Mode. If you accidentally bump that button, you are stuck in that mode, where Icom has a list of DSTAR repeaters (that hasn’t been updated in five+ years I might add). Cycling power won’t get you out of it! Essentially one bump and the rig is rendered useless to a sightless ham.
All vendors can do better. This stuff isn’t rocket science. Simply close you eyes and try to use your rig. Effective solutions can be achieved with a bit of effort. Ironic that the maligned $25 BaoFeng UV5R can be operated by a sightless ham since every keystroke is announced by their speech function.
Hams seem to LOVE bells and whistles. This has driven vendors to use touch screens and deep menu systems. These are hard enough for a sighted ham, and impossible to use without decent speech synthesis for blind hams.
