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Vintage Amateur and Military Radio Amateur/military receivers and transmitters, morse, and any other related vintage comms equipment.

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Old 14th Jan 2018, 12:34 pm   #41
Radio Wrangler
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

It's amazing what some people have used in their gardens to tune up antennae... including full monty network analysers before the portable ones got going.

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Old 14th Jan 2018, 12:43 pm   #42
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

I recently bought a portable handheld network analyser and it's worth it's weight in gold. It's not something that is used a lot, but it really does save a lot of time (and climbing) when you are fiddling about with antennas. At a glance you can see which way your adjustments are going. Regarding getting hold of a cheap rig, I would agree that your local club isn't a bad place to start. In my experience there will be plenty of enthusiastic people keen to get you on the air and someone will either have a rig they don't need any more which they are willing to lend or sell to you.
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 6:00 pm   #43
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Interesting turn up: got given a cheap Chinese Baofeng UV-5R by someone at work. He is not a ham and was using it naively as a walkie talkie illegally with his wife but she managed to lose the other one. I have persuaded him to get a license and do it properly

Can quite happily listen to 2m calling frequency on it so far. I'm not transmitting as I don't have my call yet. It's crap by any standard and programming it is difficult, but looking at the prices of the things, it delivers. Have stuffed a new antenna (£7 whip) on it as the provided one was miserably small for the band.

It's a start. Have had to hold back on a decent purchase for a month or two due to having to car maintenance costs (always happens when you want to buy new toys).

Going to drop in at my local club (Whitton) when I get some time.
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 6:10 pm   #44
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

With any of the Chinese sets, I have found it's well worth getting hold of the programming software and lead. Makes setting them up a lot easier. They usually have loads of functions, and it can be a chore entering frequencies, sub audible codes etc etc via a tiny keypad. In my experience, the Chinese manufacture sets are pretty good performers for the price; not to be overlooked.
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 6:19 pm   #45
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Indeed. I still haven't worked out how to set repeater tones. Will order a programming cable and stuff all the local repeaters in it. Apparently "Chirp" is the software I need.

As always a learning curve, but that's part of the fun
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 7:12 pm   #46
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

HP8754A -G1BF says that OK in garden for tuning - on a trolley.
Binoculars to see the screen.
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 7:28 pm   #47
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

There’s a picture in a SPRAT issue of someone in the garden with an old Tek valve scope and a big old signal generator using the clothes airer as an antenna. I can see that being the slightly more modern equivalent
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 7:48 pm   #48
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

In the past for antenna-tweaking I used a telescope to look-at the field-strength-meter which I'd tied to a tree about 1/4 mile away.

Today I use a couple of old mobile phones in video-chat mode. It's easier than trying to keep one eye on PA current, another eye on SWR, and the third-eye glued on the telescope while tuning-up.
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 7:52 pm   #49
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Not a bad plan actually.

I’m hoping to use the few WebSDR servers floating around to do something similar but without the legwork
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 7:55 pm   #50
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

You could do worse than look at the "reverse beacon network" as a way to see how far you're getting-out on HF.

http://www.reversebeacon.net/
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 7:56 pm   #51
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Oh that’s rather good. Had no idea that existed. Thanks for the pointer.
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Old 17th Jan 2018, 11:06 pm   #52
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Check out Sotabeams WSPRlite, I'm continually amazed just how far the signal reaches from different aerials.

Gordon
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Old 7th Feb 2018, 3:57 pm   #53
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Posting back on this after a couple of weeks. Went the other way to the original thread title. Got a second hand FT-450D in the end. It has ringing bells and blowing whistles and kicks out 100W if I'm lucky (not using that yet for ref!). Have selected a 20/40m loaded inverted V antenna from M0CVO. Seems to be the best compromise for the space and location I have. I've simulated it with EZNEC and should be able to get a SWR of 2.2-1.5 across the bands which is low enough for the 450D's internal AMU to match. Loss is manageable. Awaiting all the ancillaries to arrive now such as power supply (this thing can eat 22 amps and I only have a 4A PSU), feed coax and a dummy load to fire it into while I'm working out which way up it goes.

I ran it up (receive only) this morning on a bench supply with no antenna and fired up my Rigol signal generator on 7030 with ASK enabled and dangled a bit of wire out of the front and it quite happily picked that up with no antenna.

Will be running under license condition power of course for now. Intermediate here I come...

Really annoying thing is it's too cold to go putting antennas up!!!
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Old 7th Feb 2018, 4:05 pm   #54
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Great stuff and a good choice.
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Old 7th Feb 2018, 5:34 pm   #55
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Great to hear you're getting there. Now comes the obsession with antennas and signal. There's no turning back. It's a bit of a pet thing with me about rigs with too many menus and functions. I prefer the simple "what you see is what you get" with simple rotary controls for RF and AF gain etc, but alas that is a rare thing nowadays. Saying that my main HF set is an Icom IC718, mainly because it was a cheap rig to get on the air with, but I still have trouble remembering how to drive it. The power thing really isn't an issue if you have a decent aerial.
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Old 7th Feb 2018, 6:07 pm   #56
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Yes already there with the obsession. My notebook is brimming with ideas to try out. I have had to abandon my house move as well so more "RF friendly" options are starting to be looked at, not that SWMBO is aware of that motivation

Menus I don't like either. It was one motivation to choose the 450 in the end; only setup stuff and one time configuration is in menus. All the important gubbins are on the front panel. There is a single level menu system as well for setting transmit power, keyer options etc but that seems to make sense. No multi-level deep things and you don't have to dive into those to do everything like some of the VHF sets and the 817/857s I was looking at. Also the display has a block diagram which is pretty helpful for understanding what is going on in the receive path.

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I've got it set up above receiving a CW signal from my signal generator about 10 feet away running 100mV into a 2 foot long unshielded test lead. Narrow bandpass on. Clear as day. Will find out what it's like on air. Can't wait! I'll probably get mic fright the moment that happens.

I think this is similar price bracket and feature set to the IC718 as well. It's all that is needed to do the job. I think some of the more expensive radios, particularly the £5000 plus one seem to be vanity devices. So much satisfaction is nearly always available from modest equipment.
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Old 7th Feb 2018, 6:11 pm   #57
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBungle View Post
There’s a picture in a SPRAT issue of someone in the garden with an old Tek valve scope and a big old signal generator using the clothes airer as an antenna. I can see that being the slightly more modern equivalent
That was Colin Turner, G3VTT.

David
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Old 7th Feb 2018, 6:21 pm   #58
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Thanks for that - have been wondering for days who it was. I can go and look in the SPRAT index off the DVD now and find the picture
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Old 8th Feb 2018, 4:19 am   #59
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Default Re: What’s a relatively decent (old) transceiver for my needs?

Quote:
Originally Posted by MrBungle View Post
Really annoying thing is it's too cold to go putting antennas up!!!
They say you get the best out of your antenna system when it's installed in the cold and wet.
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Old 8th Feb 2018, 9:01 am   #60
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I don’t believe them
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