[Alexandria Radio Club Reflector] New QRP HF radio (great for EmComm)

[Joe K]

Yea I’m a huge fan of terminated vee’s and dipoles, I think they tend to be noisier than some other options but for band agility they’re unmatched. I’ve got an 818 that I use as my manpack radio, and it’s awesome but a little pricy for a new ham. I recently grabbed a used FX-4C and that’s a pretty great upgrade from an 818, albeit you lose built in vhf/uhf, and it’s still more expensive than I’d want to recommend to a new ham. The biggest advantage of the zBitx in my mind, is the price point is very close to that of the truSDX ($40-80 difference) but has a track record of doing digital modes out of the box (I haven’t done VARA-HF with the sBitx yet) but even getting js8 and Fldigi right off the bat is a huge win for new hams.

Kd2hzg

On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 17:27, Michael F. Skelly <[mfskelly at verizon.net](mailto:On Sun, Dec 29, 2024 at 17:27, Michael F. Skelly <<a href=)> wrote:

> Joe: I’ll be interested to hear of your successes with this interesting radio. It appears to weigh a little less than my Yaesu VX6R! My portable-SOTA-POTA-travel set (Yaesu FT-817ND plus maybe SLAB) saved the weight of a tuner and SWR analyzer by using a coaxial cable version of a T2FD (tilted terminated folded dipole, if you’re old enough): See Fig.5 in the patent under reference 2,
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_antenna
>
> [Coaxial antenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_antenna)
> [en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_antenna)	[wikipedia.png](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coaxial_antenna) https://patents.google.com/patent/US7151497B2/en With 50ohm coax and terminating resistor, it shows as 50ohms without other tuning/matching. With RG-174 and a 5W test load the set can be very light. With Tokyo Hy-Power HL-45B amp, RG8X, and a 30W dummy, the combination works well from a car or back yard.
> It occurs to me that I could spare the weight of the FT817 and SLAB, and still get some exercise, if I got a lighter radio. If not this kind, I’ll get more exercise in my new retirement!
> Mike ka8opj/McLean
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