Steve, You can completely control the freqs on your radio with the
Airmail program using an OPC-478 cable from Icom (or a clone of it), a
$3 stereo to mono adapter from Radio Shack, and a USB to serial
adapter to get another serial port. Icom now makes a OPC-478U that is
a direct USB pug-in, bypassing the serial port. The Airmail program
covers all this for the Icom 706 in their help section.

Mark
S/V Shooting Star