Clint,
Thank you for your positive contribution to this discussion thread with your question. As you know, the list of radios currently in production that support full-duplex operation on FM satellites (going from KE9V's original message) would be short. If we limit the list to those able to work SO-50 full-duplex, transmitting on 2m while simultaneously receiving on 70cm, there is one HT:
Kenwood TH-D72A
a few dual-band FM mobile radios:
Yaesu: FT-8800, FT-8900 (I haven't tried the newer FTM-350/400 yet)
Kenwood: TM-D710, TM-V71
Icom: IC-2730A, IC-2820H (I haven't tried the ID-5100 yet, and Icom America still lists the IC-2820H - a radio I use on FM satellites)
Alinco: DR-635 (I haven't tried the DR-638 yet)
and the two satellite-ready base transceivers:
Icom IC-9100 Kenwood TS-2000
This doesn't include using two radios to make a station capable of full-duplex operation on SO-50. I have not tried any of the 2m/70cm FM mobile transceivers that are coming from China, and - as far as I know - I have not seen any reports of those radios being able to work SO-50 full-duplex.
Not all of the rigs listed in other posts are "20-year-old ancient rigs", as you characterized them. Some came on the amateur market after 1995, but yes - they are no longer in production. Since many of these radios are still considered good performers on SO-50, why not include them in the discussion?
Andrew KE5GDB took a stab at compiling a list back in 2009. His web site no longer has that page, but the Wayback Machine cached a copy of it from back then:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090724094403/http://www.thathamkid.com/website/...
Other radios, in particular HTs like the Wouxun KG-UV8D in current production, and many others like newer versions of the Icom IC-W32A that have gone out of production, should work fine with the upcoming Fox-1 satellites that use a 70cm uplink and 2m downlink - reversing the uplink and downlink bands as used with SO-50.
73!
Patrick WD9EWK/VA7EWK http://www.wd9ewk.net/ Twitter: @WD9EWK
On Sat, Mar 21, 2015 at 5:47 AM, Clint Bradford [email protected] wrote:
The original poster named the message, " Modern Equipment Matrix." Why are we dredging up 20-year-old ancient rigs? (Grin)