I use a pair of Dunestar 600's and they have been totally
reliable in cw, ssb and rtty for many years. My friend
across town has a pair of ICE units, so I am familiar with
those also. As far as I can see, there are three advantages
to the Dunestar units, compared to ICE:
1. The signal path in the ICE multiband units goes through
12 sets of relay contacts, 10 of which are in the relaxed
position. I have seen instances where received signals drop
out and one has to "whack the box" to get them back again.
The Dunestar unit signal path has only two relay contacts,
both of which are in the energized position.
2. Ten meter capacitors in the ICE units get very hot at 100
watts, and I have seen them fail repeatedly. Failures have
also been reported on this reflector. We replaced my
friend's 10 meter capacitors with "snubber" caps obtained
from Mouser, and they have survived for a couple of years
now. They do get hot enough to boil spit.
3. Dunestar's support is excellent. I have seen reports on
the reflector where people sometimes have difficulty
contacting ICE. It took a long time to get replacement caps
from ICE, but eventually they did provide them at no charge.
Capacitor values are not in the ICE literature, and it took
us quite a while to get that data from ICE.
The ICE units do have one advantage - they come with a
built-in manual bandswitch. If you want to switch the
Dunestar units manually, you will have to build a bandswitch
for each unit. What you really want to do though is automate
the bandswitching to follow the radio, so a manual
bandswitch is not really required.
Also, as I remember, the ICE units have LED's showing which
band is activated. With the Dunestar units there is no such
display. I always check the Dunestars with a mechanic's
stethoscope ($6 at Harbor Freight) before a contest to be
sure the relays are clicking when I change bands on the
radios.
Regarding out of band attenuation, I haven't seen any
significant differences between the two units. They will
both allow high power so2r operation with closely spaced
antennas.
Dave Hachadorian, K6LL
Yuma, AZ
----- Original Message -----
From: "Philip Leonard WVØT" <leolists@seidkr.com>
To: "reflector cq-contest" <CQ-Contest@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 4:32 PM
Subject: [CQ-Contest] Bandpass Filters
> Dunestar or ICE or ????
>
> Which do you use and/or recommend for SO2R?
>
> Thanks, Philip WV0T
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