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| Author |
Message |
| 13 new of 25 responses total. |
ball
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response 13 of 25:
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Mar 7 08:32 UTC 2006 |
Is Ranger the only company that makes a multimode 6m
transceiver? I don't need 100W, I'm not fussed about FM and
I can't afford their radio. I'd be happy with 10W (or less!)
and just SSB and CW.
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gull
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response 14 of 25:
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Mar 7 22:01 UTC 2006 |
Re resp:12: I actually found the extra power more useful than I thought
it would be, especially working simplex. With 40 watts and a 5/8-wave
whip, you can pretty much work anything you can hear on 2 meters.
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krokus
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response 15 of 25:
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Mar 8 03:53 UTC 2006 |
re 13
Looking for mobile or home station?
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ball
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response 16 of 25:
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Mar 8 09:10 UTC 2006 |
Re #14: Well, I would like more power than my 2m HT has
(less than 200mW on batteries, theoretically 2W on
external DC I think). I can't open the 'local' 2m repeater
without the aid of aluminium baking foil. 2W is probably
more useful in CW and perhaps SSB than FM.
Re #15: A mobile, but I would probably set it up at home.
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ball
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response 17 of 25:
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Mar 13 04:02 UTC 2006 |
The only monoband 6m transceiver I've found that's capable of
SSB & CW is the Ranger RCI-5054DX-100, which seems nice
enough but it includes AM, FM and a 100W power amplifier,
none of which I really need. It also costs more than I can
comfortably spend at present (although less than the multi-
band monsters).
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krokus
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response 18 of 25:
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Mar 25 17:55 UTC 2006 |
Have you check on Ebay, Yahoo Auctions, and rec.radio.swap? How about
local hamfests? You can try Dayton, in about six weeks.
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ball
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response 19 of 25:
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Mar 25 19:43 UTC 2006 |
I've not had much luck with eBay, people tend to send me
gear with parts missing. I did look for a radio at the local
hamfest and saw an Alinco DR-M06 and a few kits that people
had built. I was impressed at how compact the DR-M06 was,
but those are FM-only I think and then there's the worry of
what someone else might have done to it.
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krokus
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response 20 of 25:
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Apr 11 17:24 UTC 2006 |
Ok, I can understand those concerns. But those are a bit of the chance
you take with anything you get that isn't new. Of course being able to
see it function prior to purchase is a good thing.
Ebay does have some availablity to handle a discrepancy with a purchase.
I don't know the details, since I don't use their service.
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ball
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response 21 of 25:
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Apr 13 01:08 UTC 2006 |
Right. Some things are easier for me to buy second-hand, but
I lack the test equipment (and to some extent the skill) to
diagnose, repair and align a transceiver that someone else
has abused.
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ball
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response 22 of 25:
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Oct 11 05:51 UTC 2006 |
For a while I've been agonising over Icom IC-V8000 (2m
mobile) and IC-T7H (2m/70cm HT). This morning though I found
myself reading about the IC-U82 (70cm HT) and it even seems
quite affordable. I think that might do the job.
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ball
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response 23 of 25:
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Oct 31 05:48 UTC 2006 |
I would be happy to buy an IC-U82 to take out and about with
me. At home I'm ready to start looking at HF. Hams seem to
consistently recommend multiband multimode behemoths that
cost as much as my first car. For a while I was distracted
by 6m because I'm already licensed for it, but there are
very few SSB/CW radios for 6m and they are expensive.
It's an odd thing, but I probably have illicit out-of-band
CBers to thank for the wide range of 10m mobiles available
today. Some time ago I almost bought a "Mini Magnum" new
for US$ 80, which is still tempting but I know that I would
become frustrated at not being able to use SSB or CW and not
being able to tune the receiver around the chanellised
frequency.
Instead I'm thinking of something like the SuperStar SS-
158EDX (built by Ranger Communications), which offers CW and
SSB along with AM and FM, isn't horribly powerful and would
be simple to operate. Okay, it has a 'roger bleep' and echo
but thankfully those can be turned off and left off. I can
put up with the chrome.
Of course, 10m means I'll have to upgrade to General.
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gull
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response 24 of 25:
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Nov 1 04:41 UTC 2006 |
If this is for home use instead of mobile, consider buying a used HF
rig. If you don't need portability or lots of bells and whistles,
there are some good deals out there. I had (on loan) an old Kenwood
rig for a while that was a hybrid -- solid state but with tube finals.
I also owned an all-tube Drake TR-4 for a while and made some great
contacts with it. Frequency agility on these rigs isn't great, due to
the need to tune up after changing frequencies, but they sound great on
the air and there's something about that warm tube glow.
One of these days I need to get out my 10m mobile rig. It's an older
Ranger all-mode radio that I bought from a friend. The front panel
definitely says "CB" (it has a "roger beep" and a PA function, for
crying out loud) but it's a perfectly decent radio. My original plan
was to work HF from my apartment, but I abandoned that after finding
that 25 watts of SSB into a full-wave loop on my balcony was enough to
trip nearby GFCI circuit breakers. I figure using it mobile, instead,
will minimize RFI problems. :)
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krokus
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response 25 of 25:
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Nov 2 03:07 UTC 2006 |
I agree that it's too bad that there isn't a multi-mode 6m rig available,
without getting HF where the 6m is an add-on to it. (That is a current
model, there are older ones around.)
I guess I'll have to upgrade, and/or buy used gear to get onto 6m.
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