[NLRS] 10 Meter IF radio - $89.99, brand new!

[John P. Toscano]

For those of you who might be interested, and who are not also
subscribed to the AMSAT mail reflector, I thought I would pass
along some info that might be of interest.

Radio Shack is selling out their HTX-10 10 meter transceivers for
$89.99.  The price is NOT advertised on their web site, nor in
any flyers or catalogs I have seen.  So I called a local store
and they said (Tuesday night, yesterday) that they had 3 in stock
and that the price was indeed $89.88, not the usual $149.99.

I've already got two much nicer radios that include *ALL* of the
HF bands (and 2 or 3 VHF bands also!), so I certainly don't need
one of these for 10 Meter mobile use.  But I thought it might make
a nice IF rig for driving a transverter, and maybe at this price,
someone might want a couple of them to have a couple of bands going
at once via separate transverters.

There are a few things to consider, however.

1) The radio tunes directly in steps as low as only 1 KHz, and
   the readout is to 1 KHz resolution, but there is also an
   analog "fine tuning" knob with a 1 KHz range.  You just won't
   be able to "see" the fine tuning like you could on a more
   expensive all-mode rig.  I don't forsee this to be a very
   big problem, just something to know about.

2) The radio directly supports only AM, FM, USB, and LSB.  Not CW!
   But if you are interested in the radio in spite of this significant
   deficiency, there are plans on the Internet to fix this omission
   at:  http://www.qsl.net/n5ib/page2.html -- shouldn't be too
   hard to build this circuit and connect it to the radio, but
   the plans show it as external to the radio (built in an Altoids
   tin, of all things!), which means a little more clutter unless
   you get a bit more clever with how you attach it to the HTX-10.

3) If you want to look at the Owner's manual for the radio, here
   is a link to the PDF file from the Radio Shack web site:
   http://support.radioshack.com/support_electronics/doc69/69643.pdf

4) I have no interest in any of this other than to inform my fellow
   operators of something that might be of use to them.  (i.e., I
   am not an employee of RS, don't make any profit from any radios
   that are sold, etc., etc.  I don't even own one, so I have no
   first-hand experience with the quality or dependability, etc.)

73 de W0JT