[NLRS] Advice on 2M transverter, bricks

[w0zq at aol.com]

Hi Cathy, here are my $0.02 worth. To truly have fun on 2m weak mode, 
you need to get to the 100 watt class with a horizontal gain antenna. 
When I first got into it some years ago (??), I ran 80 watts to a 
Cushcraft Jr Boomer (15' boom) and worked a ton of stuff. My rig was an 
FT221R running a 80w brick powered by a car battery. Usually the 
easiest way to get to that 100 watt class is with a 10/20 watt rig and 
an external brick. The rig can be either a "rice box" approach like the 
FT897, 857, FT100, etc, etc, or a 10m HF rig with a 2m transverter .... 
usually the latter will have a little better performance at the cost of 
more system complexity - either approach will work. For transverters, 
DEM is great ....many of us use them, as is the Elecraft - again my 
suggestion is to stay in the 10 to 20 watt range and to use that to 
drive an external brick to 100 watts. It also gives you the flexibility 
to turn the brick off when not needed.

Regarding CW, I would estimate that 95% of all my contacts are made on 
SSB. However, the other 5 to 10% made on CW are often the most range 
extended contacts .... new grids, new multipliers. CW is indeed used, 
and it is important, but its not required to have fun. Working aurora 
on 2m almost always requires the use of CW as the Doppler shift & 
distortion is high enough to make SSB very difficult to understand 
..... yes, some people do make 2m Au SSB contacts, but 95% of them are 
on CW - if and when we ever get the Sun back and we have some aurora 2m 
can sound like the low end of 20m and many 2m op's are very CW 
proficient. Working 2m Au on CW is one of my favorite activitites (when 
it gets strong on 2m, time to move to 222 and look for some new grids 
there ! ).

Regarding the antenna, its all about boom length (given a good antenna 
design). The longer the boom, the more the gain. If you can get to at 
least a 8 to 12' boom, that would be good. 15' is better.  These can 
all be turned with a TV rotator.  Homebrew is great .... bring it to 
Aurora 2007 in the end of April and we can test it out on the antenna 
range.

Hope this was helpful, keep those questions coming !

73, Jon
W0ZQ
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