I have been asked- "what is the best current handheld for FM sats"? What are we using? I have an old IC-w32a, no longer in production.
73 Bob W7LRD
Hi Bob,
The new Alinco is the only current-production HT that will operate full duplex; but like others, I hear rumblings about a TH-D7 replacement from Kenwood later this year. The D7 was full duplex.
Posters here an elsewhere haven't given the Alinco high marks for its abilities to work the FM satellites. I haven't tried it, so I hope those who have some experience with it will respond to you.
All of that being said, I would recommend the Kenwood TH-F6A from the group of currently available non-full-duplex radios for one major reason - its general coverage receiver is all mode. I borrowed one from a ham friend several months ago and, over the course of a weekend, use it as my receive radio with a FT-817ND as my transmit radio to make multiple contacts on all of the then-active linear satellites (AO-7 Mode B, FO-29 and VO-52). It performed very well as I worked all passes without a receive preamp for either VHF or UHF.
It will work the FM satellites, while providing the bonus of giving newcomers a chance to copy AO-7, FO-29, HO-68 in linear mode and VO-52. I suspect that when they've heard a few passes of the linear satellites, they will be interested in trying to get on them.
I hope this is helpful.
73 to all,
Tim - N3TL Athens, Ga. - EM84ha
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bob- W7LRD Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 2:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] current handheld
I have been asked- "what is the best current handheld for FM sats"? What are we using? I have an old IC-w32a, no longer in production.
73 Bob W7LRD _______________________________________________ Sent via [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb
On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 15:14 -0500, Tim - N3TL wrote:
All of that being said, I would recommend the Kenwood TH-F6A from the group of currently available non-full-duplex radios for one major reason - its general coverage receiver is all mode.
All of my satellite contacts have been with the TH-F7E which is the European version - no 220MHz, but no "cellphone hole" either. What's especially handy is you can open it up to work on PMR frequencies too, so I can bung in the channels for a site where I'm working and use it to test commercial gear.
Gordon MM0YEQ
Years ago I did a test of the various handheld radio's available for sat use. I rated the TH-F6A a distant last. Reason is that its front-end is very sensitive to inter-mod. The test was performed in front of HRO in DE. See my HT test report on my webpage. It can be found by navigating to QRZ.com then lookup kb2m. I also remember when I was on a business trip to Houston. While there I meet with Jerry k5oe, Bruce kk5do, and Al n5afv for dinner(I have a picture of the group if anyone is interested). After dinner we went to the parking lot to work an FM bird. As my F6A was deaf from the urban inter-mod I had to borrow someone's HT to finish making a contact. When I got home I sold the Kenwood. It might be good out in the country, but it sucks in the city!...
73 Jeff kb2m
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Tim - N3TL Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 15:15 PM To: 'Bob- W7LRD'; [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] Re: current handheld
Hi Bob,
The new Alinco is the only current-production HT that will operate full duplex; but like others, I hear rumblings about a TH-D7 replacement from Kenwood later this year. The D7 was full duplex.
Posters here an elsewhere haven't given the Alinco high marks for its abilities to work the FM satellites. I haven't tried it, so I hope those who have some experience with it will respond to you.
All of that being said, I would recommend the Kenwood TH-F6A from the group of currently available non-full-duplex radios for one major reason - its general coverage receiver is all mode. I borrowed one from a ham friend several months ago and, over the course of a weekend, use it as my receive radio with a FT-817ND as my transmit radio to make multiple contacts on all of the then-active linear satellites (AO-7 Mode B, FO-29 and VO-52). It performed very well as I worked all passes without a receive preamp for either VHF or UHF.
It will work the FM satellites, while providing the bonus of giving newcomers a chance to copy AO-7, FO-29, HO-68 in linear mode and VO-52. I suspect that when they've heard a few passes of the linear satellites, they will be interested in trying to get on them.
I hope this is helpful.
73 to all,
Tim - N3TL Athens, Ga. - EM84ha
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Bob- W7LRD Sent: Sunday, March 07, 2010 2:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [amsat-bb] current handheld
I have been asked- "what is the best current handheld for FM sats"? What are we using? I have an old IC-w32a, no longer in production.
73 Bob W7LRD
On Sun, 2010-03-07 at 19:51 -0500, Jeff KB2M wrote:
Years ago I did a test of the various handheld radio's available for sat use. I rated the TH-F6A a distant last. Reason is that its front-end is very sensitive to inter-mod. The test was performed in front of HRO in DE. See my HT test report on my webpage. It can be found by navigating to QRZ.com then lookup kb2m. I also remember when I was on a business trip to Houston. While there I meet with Jerry k5oe, Bruce kk5do, and Al n5afv for dinner(I have a picture of the group if anyone is interested). After dinner we went to the parking lot to work an FM bird. As my F6A was deaf from the urban inter-mod I had to borrow someone's HT to finish making a contact. When I got home I sold the Kenwood. It might be good out in the country, but it sucks in the city!...
I found that my TH-F7E is badly affected by "pager rip" in certain spots around Glasgow, especially with an external antenna. Oddly enough, some of the high sites on tower blocks I maintain are really bad, and some are practically silent.
Using it for satellite it seems that the diplexer in my homebrew crossed yagi knocks enough of the out-of-band crap out to prevent this. It's not nearly so bad for intermod on UHF as it is on VHF, too. This could be because there are fewer UHF high-power paging transmitters here (just a wee bit of mobitex, mostly).
Gordon MM0YEQ
participants (4)
-
Bob- W7LRD -
Gordon JC Pearce -
Jeff KB2M -
Tim - N3TL