Using an IC-705 remotely from macOS using SDR-Control

It is hot in my shack here at the moment and I can't stand it in the shed for more than a few minutes so I decided to buy a new macOS app called SDR-Control and try the IC-705 remote feature.

Set up was easy but you do need to note the IP address given to the radio over Wifi (it would be lovely if the software could find radios on the network).

My shack is a fair way from the house and the two are linked with a Google Wifi mesh network. Despite the multiple hops control, audio and the waterfall all work well.

Sound on the Mac laptop sounds excellent and the waterfall is quick to update. Note that you can't show the whole band, only the centre mode works. Like on the radio, you can click on a signal to tune to it.

I'm still learning how to use the software, parts of it are not quite what I expect, the user manual is here.

My only complaint so far is the difficulty of tuning. It looks like it supports the mouse wheel but I'm on a laptop. I wish there were a set of keyboard tuning up down step commands. I asked the author Marcus about this and he said it was not possible directly but you can make keyboard commands to step up and down and another to set the step size.

Some of the user interface is not very "Mac like":

Some of these squares are on/off buttons, others, (like band and mode) are drop down menus. Right clicking on many of these squares does other functions.

I hope Icom releases an update to the IC-7300 with network access (both Ethernet and Wifi please).

My congratulations to the author Marcus for an good piece of Mac software. It looks like a version of the software for Flex radios.