[FoxHunt] Converter Thoughts

[J. Craswell]

Our Civil Air Patrol group had a bang up time DFing a training beacon on
243.2MHz  Our L-Pers didn't have crystals (I know.  How crude!) so I
improvised with an AOR3000A scanner and big sack of batteries hooked up to a
homebrew Flex Yagi.  6 Elements!  With a peanut whistle transmitter (20 or
40 mw) I was getting good bearings 4 miles away on top of Buck Hill.  We
found the target in short order and I discovered much to my added surprise
that the Kenwood TMD700 tunes 243.2MHz and it even works! <grin>  Not so one
of the other fellows Icoms that lets you tune that freq in but it can't hear
anything until your standing next to the transmitter.

So, my big question.  I'm missing the action on the shortwaves and was
thinking of buying up an IC-706.  The problem is that the recv stops at
200MHz.  Has anyone built a recv converter for Military Aero range already?
If so what scheme do you use to no fry it when transmitting?  I imagine it
might be possible to pervert the 706 into hearing that range but I'm not
sure I'm ready to do that.  I've done the offset attenuator trick (Which to
me is a crude converter) with 100MHz xtals and that works but images etc
kind of have me worried.  I hear a few of you are working with better mixers
than just a single diode.  That can't hurt!  What mixers do you use and if I
was going to slap a front end filter what type would you suggest.  I'm
REALLY haveing fun with this stuff and am sorry to ask so many dumb
questions.  Hopefully there are more dumbos like me that are getting info
out of this.

73 de Jay Craswell W0VNE