[TenTec] What Radio?

[Jim Brown]

On 8/30/2011 6:32 AM, CSM(r) Gary Huber wrote:
> There's not a lot of difference between the top 10 radios listed in Rob
> Sherwood's chart

I admit to missing the initial post in this thread, but the obvious 
question is, what do you want to DO with your radio, and what special 
challenges do you face at your QTH, or with your style of  operating.  
I've owned and liked a bunch of radios in my 56 years of hamming, 
starting with a pair of Command sets for 80 and 40M that I used with an 
S38D, a BC-348, a Heathkit Apache that I built, an SX-101 loaned by a 
friend who couldn't pass the code test, a Drake 4-line, an HQ-129X, an 
HT37, an Omni A, Omni V, FT100D, IC746, K2/100, TS850, and FT1000MP. My 
operating bench now holds a pair of K3s with Sub-RX and P3s.  At one 
time or another, I've run the Omni A, FT100D, IC746, and TS850 mobile on 
the HF bands, mostly on CW. As a college EE student, I tuned up the 
first several hundred TR3s that came off Drake's production line.

The P3 that I added to my K3s is the first spectrum display I've had on 
a ham rig, and I find it VERY useful in contesting, DX chasing, and in 
chasing down RFI issues. I also own an HP spectrum analyzer (bought 
used), but it fills a VERY different purpose, and is not at all useful 
as a ham operating accessory.  .

When you buy a rig, you're buying a receiver, a transmitter, and a user 
interface. The receiver separates one signal from another, including 
your ham neighbors. If they're a few blocks away and running high power, 
you'd better have a REALLY GOOD receiver. You also need a really good 
receiver if you're going to do serious contesting.  Many lower cost rigs 
have relatively high phase noise, both on RX and TX, and on RX are 
unable to separate strong QRM from the signal you're trying to work.  
That phase noise is going to make you a bad neighbor when you transmit, 
and make you hear your neighbors strong signals when you listen.

Close-in dynamic range matters when you're trying to work very close to 
a strong signal. You say you don't do contesting -- well, many other 
guys do, and if they are working close to your frequency, they're going 
to blow you away if you don't have a good RX. You're going to call them 
bad names, but your RX is really the problem.  I mostly do CW, but I'll 
do SSB to contribute to a club effort, and I often get complaints from 
guys with lousy receivers 5 kHz away who claim ownership of THEIR 
frequency for a net -- but their frequency is 10 kHz wide, in their 
minds.  I make a point of keeping my signal clean, and guys with good RX 
can work right next to me.  K6XX is 3 miles away, both of us running 
legal power to a really good antenna farm, and we can work 500 Hz apart 
on CW and not know the other is there. On the other hand, another 
85-year old OT 3 miles away wipes out all of the SSB portion of whatever 
band that he's on with S9 phase noise and intermod.

So -- if you're going to use a radio "down the chart," realize that may 
mean that you must avoid some parts of some bands when there's a 
contest, or that your close-in neighbor may be mad at you because your 
phase noise is spilling into his channel.  But if all you want to do is 
rag chew when the bands are quiet, a lower down the chart rig may be all 
you need.

73, Jim K9YC