I love Kenwood Ham Radios because their radios are easy to use without a manual but the TH-D72 was driving me crazy.  As is typical with a lot of technology items, the user manual was nice but totally lacking in a couple of places. If you want to use the APRS function, you must type in your call sign.  I tried this so many times and failed that I figured that the radio was defective.  I figured that there had to be a secret in the menu and kept on trying and finally did find the secret.  I will now share the secret with you.

APRS process for entering your callsign.

• Press the “MENU” button on your radio (top right corner of buttons)
• Move the large black button joy stick button just above the buttons to the right and advance to the next menu item which should be “APRS”
• Move the large black joy stick button to the right to advance.
• Go to menu 300 which should show as being “Basic Set”.
• Just under that word “Basic Set” you should see the words “My Calllsign”.
• Press the black joystick button again to the right to advance to the manu item “My Callsign”.
• The radio screen should show “NoCall”.
• Use the large black joy stick to position the cursor all the way to the left so you can enter the first call sign letter.
• Press the keyboard button that corresponds to the first letter of your call sign.  Just keep pressing the same button as it represents about 3 letters and 1 number.  By keep pressing the same button the letters will cycle and then the number, over and over again. Once you type in the first correct letter of your cal sign, then use the large black joy stick to move your cursor to the next field.
• After you successfully type in your call sign then use the key (top middle) labeled “A/B -CLR”.  This is really important as it will insert a BLANK field (being the secret trick).  DO NOT press any key that shows up as a dash (such as “ENT”).
• Once you have your call sign showing correctly move the black joy stick all the way to the left as this initiates a “enter’ process and check to see if your call sign still shows correctly at the bottom of the HT screen.  If you move the cursor out of the call sign field and your call sign does not revert back to “No Call”, you did it correctly.

Sky Command  process for entering “Callsign”

• Use Black joystick and advance from RADIO to GPS to APRS to SKY.
• The arrow should rest just to the left of SKY.
• Press the Black joy stick button to the right thus revealing SKY COMMAND and the menu number should show 50-.
• Press the black joy stick button to the right so that the arrow moves down to “CMD Callsign”.  Note that the field below will show “NOCALL”.
• Again, press the black joy stick button to the right so that “NOCALL____” shows a flashing cursor just after the last letter.
• Move the black joy stick button so the cursor is all the way to the left at the letter “N”.
• Now enter your call sign as described above.
• Remove any wrong letters or numbers by pressing the “A/B -CLR” button.
• Use “A/B-CLR” button to clear any fields after your call sign.
• Now move your cursor to the right and this will cause your call sign to be entered.