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Home :: Ham Radio :: My Equipment
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I am by no means a rich person and I certainly dont have a shack that can boast several towers rigs antennas and amplifiers. However any person can save up enough for a half decent radio and work from there, and what they have to work with. Below is my equipment; small as it is it allows me to get on the air on 160, 80, 40, 30, 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, 2 meters as well as 440 (70cm)
The heart of the system is my pride and joy, the FT-857D. This is my second HF radio, my first was a FT-101E. It was cheap and got me on the air, unfortunatly if your not used to tube rigs then trying to operate one can be difficult. I sold that and saved up enough to buy this one. Beautiful radio!!. I do a lot of portable operations as well. I have modified a briefcase to house the radio, automatic tuner, power supply, straight key, and a 20m dipole. A bit heavy but very portable. You can download the manual and technical manual if you like, as I find the pdf files much better to look at than paper.
Powering the FT-857D is a SEC-1223 20amp power supply. This is a switching power supply and so far has given me no troubles. Very compact and easy to travel with. I also use a 10 amp version of this power supply when operating portable from a generator. I would hate for anything to happen to this one so I keep it home nice comfortable and dry.
An old run of the mill Audiodek 3amp power supply. I use this to power the LDG automatic tuner, the VX-150, and the lights on the vhf/uhf swr/power meter. I dont run the tuner and the VX-150 at the same time so its never over loaded.
I use the LDG AT-100Pro to tune my G5RV antenna, it tunes it good from 80-10. I know its not as good as a dipole for each band but when you are only renting a basement apartment you have to make due with what you can. One of the beautys of this tuner is that you can manually tune as well as automatically tune. Another bonus is it used latching relays so once its tuned you can take the power away from it and it will stay in that tuned position. While operating portable I have a 8AA cell pack from radio shack hooked up to it, that provides 12v power for well over 2 days of operations. Perfect little tuner for at home and away. I have also made up a cable to have a one button tune for the ft-857d, hold down the tune button and the radio tx's the tuner tunes then the radio is put in rx mode and the tuner goes to sleep. The how to for doing the cable is available in the ham radio section of the site. You can download the manual
I bought the VX-150 while I was working with Newfoundland goverment. I splurged one cheque and bought it and I am glad I did. This has to be one of the most solid built radios I have ever seen. Hard case and very durable make this I think the ultimate 2m handheld ever made. I bought a speaker mic to go with it in 2006 and I take it everywhere with me, out for a walk, portable operations, and bicycle mobile. If you have the chance to do so pick one up, you'll be glad you did. Check out the manual of this great rig.
I got the cobra VHF MR-HH90 marine hand held for search and rescue mainly, as I am involved extensively with them and I live right by the water and very open as well, making a handheld quite perfect for VHF communications. Neat lil rig.
The straight key is quite old, my father had it when he was training to be a morse operator back in the days when telephone systems were not in place as much as today. I made a base for it and its one of my life's pride possessions. The other key (chrome paddles) were given to be as a birthday present. Although I am the first to admit I am sloppy at CW I am still trying to learn it. Hard to find anyone who will dumb down their speed to help me learn.
This daiwa CN-465M 144-440 power/swr meter is used just to keep an eye on the FT-857D while I use it on 144 and 440 bands. It took me ages to save up for the HF rig and I dont want to blow it up with high swr....always a must.
I use the MFJ-941D manual tuner as a back up mostly, the ldg automatic is much quicker but if you got the time this will tune anything you can throw at it. You can download the manual if you want to.
While operating portable I try to use a good generator where available. When I cant, I use my eliminator. It allowed me to draw full 100w if need be but like any battery operation you go with the least amount needed to make a contact. Save the juice to make more qso's.S
Finally the laptop. I use the Acer Aspire 5100 for digital operations as well as for logging. Combined with my rigblaster plug n play I can do any mode any frequency with the FT-857D
Starting in 2006 I got a chance to work digital modes and do rtty psk sstv and more and got hooked. I use the west mountain rigblaster plug n play to connect the ft-857d to the laptop. It works seemlessly I can run the cables in less than the time it takes to boot the laptop
My newest edition for the radio family is a vx-7r quad bander hand held. I sold off an older handheld and regret having given up my 70cm/440 band. I snatched this one up and it has been great ever since. I find it especially usefull for satellite operation. It works on 50Mhz, 222Mhz, 144Mhz and 440Mhz; 5 watts on all minus 222 where power is restrctive but awsome for reception.
How to get louder audio
Mars Caps Freeband mod
Open TX and RX
download the manual
download the service manual
For my mobile operations and sometimes portable and emergency work I love the v8000 from icom. lots of options to get along the 2m band. With 75w of power and alpha numeric display I love it; a rock solid small radio. You can download the manual or You can download the service manual
Most hams I met would rather die than admit that cb radio exists. Tisk tisk for shame....if it wasnt for cb radio's most people wouldnt know about ham radio and never get their license. I have the radio shack trc-234 for local chat and while mobile on the highway, typical 40ch 5watts. Sometimes a group of truckers can be a great bunch of friends to have on the highway. You can download the manual
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