Tom,
I am set up so either radio can do any band. I find maximum flexibility is
preferable, so I can do pretty much any combination of bands. You are
restricting yourself, otherwise. Your example of 160-40 on one radio
and 20-10 on the other is a particularly poor choice, as one radio will sit
idle most of the time, with no activity on the bands available to radio 2.
For me, all switching (antennas, filters, stubs) is done automatically,
with lockouts to prevent the same antenna from being grabbed by both
radios, using the Top Ten Devices A/B boxes, connected to their band
decoders and 6-way relay boxes. Array Solutions has similar boxes
available. I have a choice of tribander for each radio, and one antenna
on each of 40, 80, and 160. The only limitation I placed on myself is 80
and 160 share a switchbox and coax line, so I can't operate those 2
bands at the same time. I don't find that to be a problem.
As I only have one tower, I use both stubs AND filters. I started with
bandpass filters and added stubs later. For barefoot operation, you
should only need bandpass filters. Stubs, which only attenuate on
harmonically related freqs, are helpful when I run high power. For
example, if you are on 10 and 15 at the same time, the bandpass filters
will attenuate, but stubs won't. If you're on 10 and 20, the stubs will
attenuate, also. K1TTT has some nice info on stubs at his site.
If you want to see some pics of my setup, taken by DL1IAO when he
came for a visit a few years ago, look at
http://www.dl1iao.com/album/w2up99/w2up99.htm
A picture of the switch boxes are on that site at
http://www.dl1iao.com/album/w2up99/6.jpg under the desk. The stubs
are rolled up in the buckets.
Also, SO2R has been covered extensively on the cq-contest reflector
over the years. You may want to do a search of the archives on the
contesting.com web site.
73,
Barry W2UP
On 15 Sep 2002 Tom Osborne wrote:
>
> Hi Gang
>
> In setting up the 2nd radio, I was wondering how you SO2R guys
> split up the bands between the 2 radios. I'm building a box that
> will let me switch everything between the 2 radios, but that only
> lets me use one radio at a time with no antenna, etc on the other
> one. Do you set one up for one set of bands and the other for
> the rest or what? I stuck up a milti-band antenna I could use on
> one radio or I could just put the 160, 80, 40 on one and the 20,
> 15 10 on the other. Or is there a better way to split up the
> bands/radio's?
> Also, what works better, stubs or filters? Thanks and 73
> Tom W7WHY
> _______________________________________________
> RTTY mailing list
> RTTY@contesting.com
> http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/rtty
--
Barry Kutner, W2UP Internet: w2up@mindspring.com
Newtown, PA Frankford Radio Club
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