[MilCom] Whose radio does what?

Mon Jun 6 04:41:18 EDT 2005

 RE: the Icom R10 - I think I had commented before on the
antenna issue.  However at shows the "duck" has always been
good for everything owing to the fact that you are in such
close proximity.  IFFFF you have something coming to a show
that is only making a few passes and then leaving without
landing, you may not hear the aircraft at more than a few
miles out if he is low.  In that case, anyone with an R10
I strongly recommend going to either a longer, telescoping
type OR if you have a chair with an umbrella for shade get a
little ground plane and stick it on top the umbrella and 
use a short coax for connection.  I've seen a number of 
nifty little rigs at shows done by scanner users.  :-)  Done
a couple myself.  Anyway, other quick items on the R10 - 
scan rate is sloooooow, so scanning with it at an airshow
I can personally attest is a pain in the ass.  If I had
the money I'd be using someone's compatible reaction tuner
plugged into the CI-V port of the R10.  If you don't have
that OR have the right freqs. pre-programmed, the R10
will irritate the hell out of you.  :-)  The flip side is 
that the receiver in it is, in my opinion, VERY good and
you get some super crisp audio from it.  When I take mine
to an airshow, I jack the earphone output into a portable
mixing board.....use a good microphone to pick up the
ambient sound and take the mixed audio up to Mr. Camcorder.
This really adds a nice touch to your video.  

DX394 - I own one and I will call it a credible radio and
worth the money, which wasn't a huge wad of cash.  It is NOT
the most sensitive receiver in the world, or the most 
selective, or really the most *anything* but if you are using
it for stuff like HF 11175, 6739 and lots of those freqs
it will do a respectable job *when connected to a decent
antenna*.  My R10 cost more.  :-) And in many ways, the 
handheld R10 is the better radio.  That thing has done
some amazing reception for me hooked up to my "upstairs"
antennas......and for those of you who are, like me,
"flatlanders"  :-)  taking portable radios "mountaintopping"
will just blow you away.  The wife and I get down to the 
Smokies every few years (last summer it was Yosemite and
up as high as 9600 feet) and always do some operating from
down there.  Aside from the Amateur angle, scanning is
totally whacko!  You can hear *everything* all at once
and you really are hard pressed to actually "scan".  In
Nov. of 2003, the last time we were down there I even 
took a little portable TV and did some "TV DXing".....and
yes, when you have a 6600 foot mountain under you seeing
TV stations from 3 states away is possible.

But I digress.  :-)

Since a number of people are comparing notes on radios, I 
often use my main ham transceiver for HF; this is a
Yaesu FT840 which will tune from way down around 150 KHz
up to just shy of 30 MHz.  You can switch it out of HAM mode
and into General (coverage) mode so that if you use the 
UP/DOWN buttons to bandswitch it won't just jump ham bands
but instead goes to a default which I think is 1 MHz jumps.
So you can give a couple quick button pops up or tune and then
use the main VFO to fine tune.  You also have a FAST mode on
the VFO to speed up the main dial tuning.  The 840 has a
fairly respectable receiver in it and can pull some stuff
out of the dirt quite well considering no DSP in it, and that
is even with a mediocre antenna.  I have made some pretty
hairy Amateur contacts where every syllable was a challenge
using the FT840.

Also own a Rat Shack 2006 scanner which I dearly love and
while in many respects it is outdated by trunking and
digital, it is a solid performer where Milair scanning
is concerned.  I DO run mine on an outboard 12 volt DC 
supply instead of the built-in 120 volt supply.  That thing
runs hot, and hot is NOT good.  With that radio having been
out of production for a while, burning it up isn't what
I want to do.  SO, if the outboard power supply craps out,
it's a LOT less expensive to replace than a multi-hundred buck
scanner.

Also have a Rat Shack DX440 for portable use, AKA Sangean
ATS803A.  Nice radio.

Still have a Bearcat 160 or something like that.  16 channels,
built only a few years after "rocks" (AKA, Crystals) became
dinosaurs.  :-)  It really isn't much of a contender in this
day and age but for local stuff in VHF bands and 400 UHF it
is still a fair receiver in spite of its age.  I like to use
it a lot during the winter where the snowplows still use 
discrete VHF.  Also does nicely to listen to the local air
traffic.  

For CB the best rig I own is a Uniden Grant XL.  More or less
I think a Cobra 148GTL which I think was also marketed under
a couple different names.  Mobile rig, technically, but this
one was a more top line model that also runs both USB and LSB.
On a 12 volt supply make a good base radio, which you really can't
find anymore.  Most of the current "new" CB rigs are garbage.

Various FRS and GMRS and also a variety of single-band ham gear
for 10 meters, 6 meters, 2 meters, 220 and 440.

An FT817 for portable QRP use....also has a dandy receiver in
it and the small size makes it a VERY interesting little rig.

GPS - Garmin GPS12 and Garmin RINO120.

Other stuff that I can't even remember at 3:15 AM.....   :-)

Duane
Indiana

-----Original Message-----
From: milcom-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:milcom-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Glenn
Sent: Saturday, June 04, 2005 11:16 PM
To: MilCom at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [MilCom] (no subject)

X-SpamKiller-AcctId: 1
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I currently own a IC 746, ICR10 which I will not have very long, Pro 2066
and a Icom 2350 2m 440 rig. I wouild like to purchase in the very near
future a Icom 706 and DX 394. The R10 is a nice handheld but really needs a
good antenna to perform.
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