It is amazing how much equipment can be accumulated in just a few years in an amateur radio environment. I really didn't have much gear until retirement in 1999 which then gave me the time and funds to do some research and purchase what was needed. The Yaesu FT-847 was a retirement gift but when visiting the Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) store in New Castle, Delaware to buy some coaxial cable and fittings, I saw what to me was the most amazing looking rig I had ever seen, the ICOM 756PRO. HRO has several radios set up for demonstrating and after tuning around on 20 meters, I knew this radio would be my favorite CW rig. Needless to say, it was soon sitting in my vehicle along with SWR/Power meters, plenty of coax cable, VHF/UHF antennas, a Yaesu G-5500 rotator and more. Had looked into placing a crank up tower in the back yard but it would have required considerable concrete to pour a 4X5 foot square slab and besides, my XYL wanted most of the back yard as a vegetable garden so Instead of a nice huge tower, I settled for a 4 foot roof tower to sit on top of the utility shed near our garden for 2 meter work along with satellites. It is a Glen Martin aluminum tower with the Yaesu AZ EL G-5500 rotator mounted on top with my Cushcraft 13B2 144 beam on a ten foot mast. The satellite antennas , 145 MHz, 435 MHz, 2.5 GHz and 10.368 GHz dish are mounted on the elevation 1.5 inch mast made from schedule 40 PVC reinforced with a wooden dowel. Was all set to work through the AO-40 satellite but it soon went kaput leaving me then to stay with the FUJI FO-29 bird which lasted until 2006.
The FT-847 is a nice transceiver and soon installed filters from INRAD to enhance it's capabilities on SSB and CW using it mostly for satellite and meteor scatter operation. As mentioned on my SATELLITE page, the radio is software controlled by "SUPER CONTROL" just for satellite work. When using the FT-847 for other modes such as PSK31 and slow scan, an interface named "NAVIGATOR" is used along with MixW software.
My ICOM 756PRO is used exclusively on CW with the radios software making it easy to tailor pass band and IF shift using DSP. I sometimes use the 756PRO with the 144, 220 and 432 Elecraft transverters when the AERO Amateur Radio Club participates in ARRL VHF contests. Because of the spectrum display on the 756PRO, stations can be seen plus or minus 50 KHz from the receive frequency making it easy to tune to their frequency and grab contacts. The disadvantage of using the 20 watt transverters is the requirement of outboard amplifiers such as made by Mirage.
In 2006 another trip was made to HRO in Delaware since I wanted to use decent power on the 146 and 440 FM bands. The ICOM 910H was acquired which outputs a good 100 watts on 2 meters and 75 watts on the 440 band using my Diamond X700HNA vertical. Although there isn't any activity as yet on the 1296 FM band in this area, I installed the optional unit which is only 10 watts. We did use 1296 in West Virginia during a VHF contest in 2006 using a loop yagi antenna. The 910H works well in satellite mode but it doesn't have the apha numeric tagging such as the FT-847.
Expecting to use it temporarily until different antennas could be installed, I went ahead and purchased the Cushcraft R8 vertical antenna. Next to our garden we had a Purple Martin birdhouse mounted on a swing down 4X4 treated lumber pole. The bottom pole placed in concrete stuck out of the ground 4 feet with 2 galvanized 1/2 inch bolts so that when one was removed, the upper pole could be laid on supports to clean the birdhouse etc. Well, we had so many problems with house sparrows taking it over, I decided to use the bottom support for my new R8 antenna. It was a perfect arrangement being able to swing it down and support it on a saw horse when lowering it when one bolt was removed. The antenna is off the ground 7 feet to leave room for walking under the short counterpoise radials. it uses. No ground radials are needed other than grounding the base to a good earthen ground rod. The total height is 35.5 feet and even though it can withstand 80 MPH winds, 3 nylon ropes were used for guying midway up. The antenna is excellent on the 40 through 6 meters bands and although a beam on 20/15/10 would be nice, this antenna does a great job. Having a summer retreat in Elk Garden, WV also enables amateur radio on the lower bands, 160, 75 and 40 meters while there using full size dipole antennas and a Ameritron 811H amplifier. It feels great not to worry about TVI and other interference while in the country working ham radio.
Wanting to operate the 160 and 80 meter bands, I looked into some sort of remote tuning to use a random wire antenna. The SGC-237 automatic antenna tuner was the perfect solution since it tuned 160 though 6 meters. Finding the correct length for a wire antenna took some experimenting and found 78 feet to be ideal. The tuner is mounted in the garden shed on a wall near the floor. The ground connector was connected to the already in place ground rods nearby under the shed using #8 copper wire. The end of the wire antenna was brought through the shed wall through a grommet and connects to the antenna post on the tuner. The wire is supported by short support wires and routed about 25 feet in the air. A small 13 volt 1 amp wall wart power supply is plenty to operate the tuner. By using a switch in the radio shack, the wire antenna is used on 160 through 6 meters most of the time and switching to the R8 when it favors certain areas on 40 through 10 and 6 meter FM. I talk to a station 80 miles distant regularly using the R8 on 52.525 MHz FM and distant ground wave stations on 10 meters, 29.6 MHz FM.
Having built many Heathkits in past years, I missed sitting down with a soldering iron at the workbench with the odor of resin flux permeating the room. After researching some transverters to use with my ICOM 756PRO, the Elecraft transverters were ideal, being in an attractive housing and with excellent specifications. Both the Downeast and Kuhne transverters use generic looking boxes that don't fit in well with modern transceivers. Already having 100 watts on 6 meters with the 756PRO, I wanted the 144, 220 and 432 bands so the features in the 756PRO could be used, especially the spectrum scope. After ordering and building the XV144, it wasn't long until I had the XV220 and XV432 kits on the bench. Elecraft also sells a rather crude noise generator but it did the job very well when aligning the front ends but a distant beacon or random antenna noise could also do the job. The 756PRO only has -20dbm output for transverter use which the Elecrafts take very well. They can all be daisy chained using BNC T adaptors for the drive from the 756PRO, a control connector going to the ACC connector on the 756PRO, power connectors using Anderson Power Pole cables and of course the antenna output using SO239 connectors. They stack neatly on top of the 756PRO when operating contests. The 756PRO uses 28 MHz as the IF with 28.200 being 144.2000, 432.200 and 222.200 for example. Separate Mirage and RF Concepts amplifiers are used for each transverter using a 35 ampere power supply for both the 756PRO and the transverters with the amplifiers using one separate 50 ampere power supply located remotely in the shed. Good quality coaxial cable jumpers must be used between the amplifiers and the transverter especially when working in the field in close quarters.
It wasn't that many years ago when I used the Heathkit HW-8 for portable operations along with a 12 volt battery which didn't last too many hours. Well, what a difference technology makes, now the Elecraft KX1 is the most compact and useful self contained QRP transceiver around. It can operate on 6 internal AA cells or a separate supply up to 13 volts if desired for more power. The optional internal antenna tuner, 30 meter board and external squeeze key (IAMBIC) were added (am now using the Logikey K-5). About 2 years after building mine, Elecraft announced they had a kit including a free firmware update chip and to replace the optional 30 meter board to give the unit 80, 40, 30 and 20 meter capability. The internal automatic tuner will tune a 28 foot wire to all bands easily and many times have thrown a wire into a tree and worked many stations, especially on 20 and 30 meters. The XYL and I along with our pooch Sadie travel to Sudbury Aviation in Ontario each July for a fly-in fishing trip where there is no electricity and the KX1 comes in handy when taking along a small tractor lead acid sealed battery which lasts the entire week instead of using AA batteries. With only the 28 foot wire and one radial wire running down to the lake 75 feet away, I have logged hundreds of stations both in Canada and around the world. During Field Day with the AERO Club the KX1 is used with a 1 ampere fold out solar panel which is more than enough power. For the extra Field Day Solar QRP points, 5 stations must be logged which is done in a matter of a few minutes using the club's full sized 20 meter beam.
For a few years my mobile radio was a Radio Shack HTX252 which had decent power on 2 meters but also wanted 440 capability since our radio club has VHF and UHF repeaters. One of the things so aggravating with the HTX252 was the complicated memory programming and many times by inadvertently touching the wrong button, I was lost and would have to stop along the road, take out the manual and redo the channel memory. After reading a rig review in Novembers QST, I decided on getting the Kenwood V71A VHF/UHF FM transceiver. It was my first experience using a detachable front control face but soon had the main unit under the seat with the faceplate mounted on the dash over an original opening apparently made for an audio option (Chevrolet Silverado Pickup) where my HTX252 fit inside perfectly. The V71A has 1000 memory channels which can be downloaded from the PC. The ARRL TravelPlus CD is handy to find repeaters along any route you want to take, not to mention local repeaters. It is also Echolink SYSOP capable but have no plans to use that feature. There is a weather alert feature that will override the receiver when bad weather is on it's way. I purchased the optional voice board which is easy to install which comes in handy when changing channels with the microphone buttons. Two frequencies can be received in the same band or 2 bands can be monitored at the same time. The radio has only one antenna connector since the dual band duplexer is built in. Crossband repeat works well, giving me the capability of higher power when using the HT around the vicinity with Morse code or voice ID if I wish. There are so many amenities that they can't be listed here.
It may seem a bit disconcerting but all of this equipment other than the Ameritron amplifer is no longer used since the Flex Radio 5000A has taken over. The Ameritron 811 amplifier is one of the most dependale amplifiers available and to use it with the Flex 5000A, a separate small 12 volt relay is activated by the 5000A in transmit which then actvates the 12 volt changeover realy in the Ameritron. Running 500 watts is the ideal power level for CW and SSB. To operate full QSK, the amplifer is not used until we find a pin diode type switch which I understand is available. The Flex 5000A contains everything I need in Amateur radio except being able to use it on VHF but Flex Radio promised to come out with 144 and 432 transverters which will fit inside the 5000A. Then I will have the ultimate station in one box so to speak.
One day a ham friend of mine asked if I ran an amplifier when using my Flex Radio. He had a pristine Ameritron 811A amplifier stilll in the box. I could not turn this deal down and now use it running about 400 to 500 watts on all of the HF bands. The easy conversion to use it on 10 meters was done and run it from a regular 110 volt outlet. Of course using digital modes such as PSK31 needs no amplifier. Using 500 watts on CW has increased my total contacts since using the amplifier. Am looking into getting a QSK unit to mate with the Flex 5000A which will only improve CW operations. I also use the amp on SSB, especially on 10 meters but CW is my main course. Too bad the FCC dropped the Morse Code but I suppose they are dumbing down America just as Obama is now (2009).
