Hello everyone! Does anyone know if you can use an ICOM AC-25A radio, or any ICOM radio for that matter for VATSIM frequencies? I have heard of people doing that before, and I had recently bought one at a yard sale up by my local airport. If anyone knows, let me know. Thanks!
I suppose if you can reverse engineer arduinos for the dials, code an interface for the screen and make a USB interface for the handset/microphone, that should be doable. But you would want to rip out most of the internals.
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yeah…
tl;dr no unless you know what you are doing.
@1767933 I’m curious why you would want to do this. Can you elaborate?
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Not to mention, I know airband transceivers are illegal to tamper with in some countries. I am not sure what extent that applies to though.
I own the same (awesome) radio and its predecessor the IC-A24. The answer to your question is no, it’s not possible.
First thing we need to understand is that these are not REAL frequencies, they’re simulated through vPilot (what I use). In other words what I hear on VATSIM I obviously won’t hear on my real deal Icom radio.
It won’t work simply because vPilot will somehow need to “pull” audio in through the radio, and no idea how you’d get a frequency you typed into the Icom to populate in your sim radio.
The radio wasn’t meant for this purpose, so there’s a firmware limitation too I’d imagine. It’s meant to TX and RX, and store memory. It can’t make the frequency on your handheld match the sim. I know it would be cool but it doesn’t work, no ways around it, no hacks, etc.
Maybe look for an actual simulator radio? I’ve never tried one personally.
Hi Brayden,
Not sure if you mean that you want to dial the frequencies on the radio, but they should then set the dialled frequency in the Sim / VATSIM.
Some ICOM radios have a serial interface port. This allows you to read the frequency from the radio. Then, via an interface program, you will have to write it yourself, you could sync that data with the SIM via SimConnect for MSFS or the UDP protocol for X-Plane.
See if your radio have a serial data port.
To use an air band transceiver, you need an aviation license (such as an aviation operator’s license, a pilot’s license). If you do not have such a license, use this device that you bought from a flea market only for listening. Using air band radios without a license is very dangerous and wrong. I don’t think you want to cause an aviation accident. If you are an amateur radio operator and/or licensed, please stop polluting the frequency spectrum and use the methods that everyone else uses (such as a PTT and microphone). As a radio amateur and enthusiast, this is my humble advice to you.
Caveat… You can purchase a air band transceiver and listen… But to transmit can be considered illegal. I’d offer liveatc.net instead.
[quote=“Jeff “JU” Turner, post:9, topic:7912, username:810425”]
You can purchase a air band transceiver and listen…
[/quote]
Even “just listening in” is illegal in some countries.