I do weak signal work on 144 MHz and 432 MHz. Therefore, I avoid contests
like the plague. Big difference in our operating requirements and thus the
electronics required.
73
Bob, K4TAX
----- Original Message -----
From: "Duane Grotophorst" <n9dg@yahoo.com>
To: <tentec@contesting.com>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 10:48 PM
Subject: Re: Orion was ( [TenTec] Hercules III / Mark Erbaugh)
> --- Robert & Linda McGraw K4TAX <RMcGraw@Blomand.Net>
> wrote:
> > FYI - My radio with a fancy color display won't hear
> > the same signals out of
> > the 144 MHz or 432 MHz transverters that the Omni
> > VI+ will hear and it has
> > only a numeric display.
>
> This is one side of the trade off that I now face when
> using a bunch of Pegasus radios and N4PY software for
> my VHF/UHF transverters. The software displays let me
> "see" activity that I'd wouldn't otherwise find by
> just VFO knob twirling or scanning alone. In VHF
> contests I can be calling CQ on a "run" frequency and
> be making Q's like any other plain radio can, but with
> the spectrum sweep I can see when someone new pops up
> on some other frequency up or down the band (or other
> 3 bands) and get to that frequency and work them
> without hardly missing a beat on my run frequency. And
> I don't have to use a knob to tune to them either,
> just click on the spike and go. Absolutely killer for
> keeping tabs on the rover stations whereabouts without
> having to wait/look for them repeatedly.
>
> Unfortunately the Pegasus is not a top of the line RF
> performing radio. I bump into its RF performance
> limitations regularly (specifically synthesizer phase
> noise, 3rd order IP, and DBR). It does however do an
> excellent job for about 85-90% of the VHF/UHF contest
> Q's that I do make. It's for those last 10-15% of the
> Q's that I'd like the RF/RX performance of the Orion
> for. But its economics are hard to justify for what
> I'm doing here, the cost of all 6 Pegs combined (most
> bought used) was only about $1000 more than a new
> Orion would be. But the 6 Pegs give me both full time
> RX AND sweep on 50 & 144MHz and sweep or RX on 222 &
> 432Mhz (so I can be receiving/watching on all 4 bands
> simultaneously). An Orion would only give me a
> fraction of the multiple/simultaneous band
> listening/watching capability that I now have.
>
> And radios like the FT1000's et al. are even more
> limiting, no spectrum capability at all, or good PC
> control (therefore are pretty much worthless for what
> I'm doing) and the IC-756Pro's come up totally short
> for PC control as well. And the FT8x7's and TS-2000s
> are actually quite pricey when dedicated to single
> band use, and have little or no PC control (or
> software availability) plus are mediocre to poor RF
> performers as well, and no spectrum sweep capability
> of any kind. And with 4 each of any of these various
> JA built radios I still couldn't do what I want to be
> doing, and am now already doing with a half dozen Pegs
> with transverters and a decent Win2K PC with 3
> monitors and 10 Comm ports driving the whole lot.
>
> Now if the Flex-Radio SDR1000 proves to be a genuinely
> good RF performer and has some good software developed
> for it I could build PC based SDR radios for
> transverter IF duties for about $1000 each. There
> would be $500 in SDR1000 boards and another $500 or so
> in ~2.5GHZ PC's to dedicate to each of them. So I'd
> end up at about the same total $ as I now have
> invested and have even more functionality (and
> hopefully as good or better RF performance) than
> anything else out there on the market today. Now only
> if the software "glue" was available today to make
> them play the way I'd like them to...
>
> Duane
> N9DG
>
>
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