[AMRadio] AM from a ricebox

[Donald Chester]

>I am sure its around, but I rarely hear much even remotely
>interesting on ssb...
>... there are a bunch of groups from one end of the phone band
>to the other, not saying much of interest to me, and very little
>in the way of technical discussions.

I found the same thing when I bought one of those little Radio Shack 10 m 
transceivers a few years ago.  It runs 7w AM and about 25 watts on FM and 
SSB (pep).  I bought it mainly to be able to hear and the work the Europeans 
that were in abundance on FM, since my 75A4 doesn't have a FM detector.

I could get on the air with it and work the world even with its limited 
power.  But I found mysely at a  loss to find something to talk about with 
most of the ops I contacted on both SSB and FM.  Once the exchange of 
ricebox model numbers and wx was completed, it was very hard to make any 
interesting conversation with most of these ops, and the DX guys were rarely 
interested in ragchewing, nearly always wanting to QRT immediately so they 
could work some more stations.

After about half a dozen contacts using each mode on that rig, I put it on 
the shelf and it's still collecting dust.  I find my modified Eico 720/730 
combo much more fun to operate.  The Radio Shack 10m CB is there to serve as 
a backup in case the Eico craps out just when the band happens to be open.

Don K4KYV

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